Bicycle Thieves

Formalists in filmmaking emphasized the formal properties of cinema that shaped the way films were made, as well as our responses to them. For the formalists, the challenge was to establish film as an independent art form. In contrast to the Formalists, Realist theorists stressed the importance of cinema’s ability to record or capture reality. This realist approach was exemplified in the period of filmmaking which has come to be known as Italian Neorealism.

Italian Neorealism is a film movement that lasted from 1942 to 1952 (Hayward. S, 2013). Cesare Zavattini created neo-realism, suggesting a new form of Italian Cinema that abolishes contrived and planned plots, use real people and locations so that direct contact is established with contemporary social reality. The major feature of Neorealist filmmaking is a concentration on the lives of ordinary people struggling against adversity in the devastation of the aftermath of World War II.  They tend to focus on poor, working class people and their everyday lives, the socio-economic conditions of the time, and the desperation and moral ambiguity which results. Neorealist mise-en-scene relied on actual location shooting, and its photographic work tended towards the rawness of documentaries.  Shooting on the streets and in private buildings made Italian camera operators incredibly adept at cinematography. In addition, the dialogue was dubbed through post-synchronization due to the lack of sound equipment. This more complex mise-en-scene and more adept camerawork such as long shots, deep focus, long takes, allows for a multiplicity in the details. Another major feature of Neorealism is the use of nonprofessional actors, even in leading roles. Some of the elements can be found through watching Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948).

This film is about an unemployed father, Antonio Ricci, is overjoyed when he finally gets a work of hanging posters around the street of Rome. His wife, Maria, sells the family's bed linens to retrieve his bicycle from pawnshop so that he can take the job. In the first day, his bicycle is stolen when he is on work, which causes he losses his job unless he can find the bicycle. He then brings his son, Bruno along with him to search for the bicycle.

The film shows the effect of the war brought to the citizens in Italy. Antonio and his family is living in poverty in the post war period. In the beginning of the film, all the citizens gathered around to fight for a job. When Antonio gets a job that requires a bicycle, Maria have to bring all the bed linens from their home to the pawnshop to retrieve the Antonio's bicycle for him to take the job. The pawnshop is full of people who are queuing behind her to wait for their turn. This clearly shows how harsh is the Italian's life during the post war period.

Moreover, the film uses actual location to shoot. For example, the scene where Antonio goes to the water collect station to find Maria after he got his job. Along the way when they are walking home, the uneven dusty street and falling off paint of the building shows the aftermath of the war, which created the feeling of realistic.

Furthermore, non professional actor is used in the film. The director chose Lamberto Maggiorani, who was a factory worker to take the leading role instead of professional. The long takes in the scene where Antonio is pasting poster on the street, shows 3 suspicious men looks at his bicycle when walk by. This allows the audience to observe the environment and notice the 3 suspicious men to understand their intentions, instead of just focusing on the main actor.

In conclusion, Italian neorealist films mainly focus on the hardship of the lower and working class in difficult socio-political condition. Bicycle Thieves perfectly portrayed the struggles of the lower and working class in difficult condition after World War II in Italy.

The Maltese Falcon

Film Noir is a term coined by French film critic in 1946 to designate a particular type of American thriller film. After World War II, France lifted the ban on the importation of American films, French cinema was flooded with Hollywood films, including a new type of thriller (Hayward. S, 2013). These films often featured an investigator who encounters and malice during his investigation of a case.

Film noir emerged in the period of political instability between 1941 and 1958, the time of World War II and Cold War in United States. This was a time of repressed insecurity, paranoia as American questions their national identity. During the war, the man went to fight and the women started to join into workforce. Women became independent and expended their worldview beyond their domestic spheres, men became suspicious and paranoid of women's role in workforce when they returned from war. This caused men questioned themselves on masculine identity and national identity. Hence, film noir was an expression of male concern at women's sexual independence that threaten masculinity. It features a world of criminals with characters' central motives are usually greed, lust and ambition, drench in fear. Film noir has a style of cinematography that emphasizes the impression of night-time photography with high-contrast lighting, occasional low-key lighting, deep shadows and oblique angles to create a sense of dread and anxiety. It is inspired by German Expressionism, using oblique vertical and horizontal lines in shots, creates distortion to enhance the criminalistic world. Thematically, characters in film noir are corrupted, which is no pure good. It also consists of fatalistic theme, hopeless tone, blurred morals and intellect. It is always about male protagonist vs femme fatale. The femme fatale is a strong, active, sexually expressive female who use sexuality to accomplish her goals. Film noir will usually punish this type of women and the punishment is intricate to the reassertion to male identity. All the characters in film noir are with flaws, which the audience are not able to blame anyone in the end of the film because everyone is bad. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941) is one of the best film noir in the history and i will be discussed further.

This film is about a private detective, Sam Spade who gets an offer more than he bargained for he takes a case from a beautiful and secretive woman, Ms Wonderly. As soon as she shows up, troubles follow as Sam's partner is murdered and Sam is accosted by a man, Mr Cairo, demanding he locate a valuable statuette. He then entangles in a dangerous web of crime and intrigue and realizes he must find one thing they all seem to want, the bejeweled Maltese Falcon.

In this film, chiaroscuro can be discovered with high contrast and low key lighting that bring a sense of pessimism and suspicion. The high contrast lighting in the scene of Sam tries to get away from the mystery guy who follows him at the main entrance of the apartment, it creates a hard shadow of Sam, which reflects duality of the character, the evil side of him.

The film also uses a lot of lines to create distortion and enhance the criminalistic world of the film, which can be found in the setting in Ms Wonderly's apartment. The curtains, windows, walls and the pattern of the couch created multiple horizontal and vertical lines.

Ms Wonderly is the classic femme fatale representation in this film. She is an expert at taking full advantage of her beauty and sex appeal to get men to do whatever she wants. She is also an experienced liar, skilled at manipulating the truth and everyone around her. She tells lies and pretends to be weak and innocent to accomplish her goals and intentions. For example, the scene where she claims that she feels dizzy and Sam holds her back to the apartment. Another scene is where she calls Sam and screams in the phone to tell him she is in trouble, then Sam rushes to the location given to help her.

In the end of the film, Sam gives her a punishment by turning her to the police after discovered her hiding secret and lies. This clearly shows one of the characteristics of film noir, which is the protagonist will punish the femme fatale in the end. The scene where Ms Wonderly are brought into the elevator and the shadow of the elevator's gate projected on her face reflects that she is going to be sent into jail.

In The Mood For Love

World War I had given a big impact to the French film industry, which many film studios were forced to shift to wartime uses and the export was halted (Bordwell. D & Thompson. K, 2009). The American films started to replace the French's and dominated the market by the end of 1917. This encouraged the young film directors to take a new step, they claimed that the cinema should be an art that purely itself, an occasion for the artist to express feelings, like poetry, painting and music. They started to experiment with cinema in a ways that posed an alternative to the dominant Hollywood formal principles. They perceive the cinema as an art of emotion which dominated intimate psychological narrative.

Impressionist films explore psychological causes, gives narration considerable psychological depth, reveals the play of a character's consciousness, concerns mental states, dreams and fantasies. It manipulate plot time and subjectivity by showing flashback to depict memories. Impressionist films also use cinematography and editing to show the visual depiction of mental states. Irises, superimpositions, masks are used to indicate characters' thought and feelings. Distorted or filtered visuals and vertiginous cam movement are used to show dizzy and drunkenness. To intensify the subjectivity, the Impressionists' cinematography and editing present characters' perceptual experience, their optical impressions, by using point-of-view shots. The Impressionist also experimented with pronounced rhythmic editing to suggest the pace of an experience as a character feels it in particular situations. New means of frame mobility is developed by Impressionist by tying cameras to cars, carousels, and locomotives, to create smooth camera movements. In The Mood For Love (2000) is a French Impressionist inspired film directed by Wong Kar Wai, and it will be discussed further.

This film is about a journalist, Mr Chow who move into a Hong Kong apartment with his wife and Mrs Chan is moving into the next unit on the same day. Their friendship has slowly developed and both realized their respective spouses are having affair with each other. Their curiosity drives them to rehearse on their spouses to find out how they have an affair. Soon both of them are in love, however, they are both stopped by the moral stand of not being unfaithful spouse.

Director Wong put a lot of effort in the mise-en-scene of this film to present the characters' inner psychological states. There are a scene where Mr Chow is sitting in the office. He lights up a cigarette and his body language shows that he is figuring out in something. The shot at the back of Mr Chow with the smoke floating above his head is showing his inner thought that is unclear, confused, clouded like the smoke.

The repeating shots and background music in the scene of the noodle stall shows both Mr Chow and Mrs Chan are stuck in a repeating routine. Besides, the slow motion effect is reflecting that they are having a hard time without their spouses respectively, which causes them to feel the time is going slowly. The montage of Mrs Chan walking up and down the stairs in the hotel is reflecting on her struggle between meeting Mr Chow or not to. There are some freezing shots that can be found in this film, which is meaning that the moment has become a memory.

When Mr Chow and Mrs Chan are together, there will be some shots that show the mirror reflection of them. The director is using the mirror to tell that they are reflecting on their cheating spouses as they are pretending to be them. With the peeping camera movements, it is reflecting on their feeling of afraid on how people see them. The hotel room montage of Mrs Chan helps Mr Chow on writing his novel, the camera shots show the feeling of they love each other but afraid to admit it. The camera movements and the mirror reflections of both of them are like taking glimpses on someone who you love.

Last but not least, the scene where showing the history of Cambodia is to show the time frame of the event. Mr Chow goes to a temple and find a hole on the wall, he whispers all his secrets into the hole and fill it with mud. After he leaves the temple, there is a established shot of the temple with creepy background music, which convey a message of there are many secrets from different people and generations in the temple.

In conclusion, In The Mood Of Love is a piece of art that create by the director with emotions that are beautifully presented on the screen. The props and setting perfectly shows the beauty of 1960s in Hong Kong and the characters' inner thoughts are also well presented in an artistic ways.

Dark City

In the early 20th century, several film movements appeared, which bring different unique styles in filmmaking. German Expressionism a film movement which emerged in Germany during the years 1919 to 1924 (Hayward. S, 2013).

At the beginning of World War I, the German film industry had very small output although some impressive pictures had been made there. Movie theaters in Germany were mostly playing American, French, Italian, and Danish films (Bordwell. D & Thompson. K, 2009). German films were banned in America and France cinema. German government then began to support film industry to combat the imported competition, as well as to create its own propaganda films. In 1919, Carl Mayer and Hans Janowitz wrote a unconventional script, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and they want it to be made in an unusually stylized way. Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann, and Walter Rohrig suggested that it be done in an Expressionist style. Because of the success of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), other films in the Expressionist style soon followed. German Expressionist is different with French Impressionism, which bases it style primarily on cinematography and editing, it depends heavily on mise-en-scene, it is like a moving Expressionist painting or woodcut print. Shapes are distorted and exaggerated unrealistically for expressive purpose. Actors often wear heavy make up and move in jerky or slow, sinuous patterns. All of the elements of the mise-en-scene interact graphically to create an overall composition. Expressionism became an acceptable style and it often functioned to create stylized situation for fantasy and horror stories. Dark City (1998) is an Expressionist film to be analysed.

Dark City is an American science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. The story is about a man, John Murdoch who awaken alone in a strange hotel to find that he is wanted for a series of brutal murders, but he lost his memory. Murdoch starts to find out his identity and solve the mystery. He then stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of ominous being collectively known as the Strangers.

The first German Expressionist style that presented in the film is the low key lighting and high contrast visuals in the film. It is functioned as to generates the sense of mystery to audience and enhance the investigative nature of the whole film.

Primitive sexual savagery is seen from the depiction of primal and beastly instincts of Mr. Hand. He is one of the strangers who is sent to hunt Murdoch down. All the female victims that said to be killed by Murdoch are killed by him and he likes to craft on the victim's body after killing them.

Distorted setting can also be found in the film during the tuning. The tuning is when the strangers starts to make every citizens to fall asleep, wipe their memories, change the structure of the city. The building are spinning and changing which create distorted setting.

Distorted building.

Last but not least, the gothic and dark appearance of the strangers. They are pale, bald, wear only black colour clothing and have stiff, rigid, and constricted movement. Their walking movement that are reminiscent of the Somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

Dark City is characterized as a German Expressionist film with all the stylized mise-en-scene presentation in the film.

ParaNorman

Film genres are evolving and improving from time to time as the third condition of genre is 'be innovative', film makers can use their creativity to present a genre on the screen without changing the universal language or the traditional elements of the genre.

There are some traditional genre that started in the early stage of film making and horror is the most recognizable by the emotional effect it tries to arouse. The horror film aims to shock, disgust, repel, also known as to horrify (Bordwell. D & Thompson. K, 2009). What horrify the audiences in a horror film is the monster in the screen, it is a dangerous breach of nature, a violation of our normal sense of what is possible. The monster can be unnaturally large like King Kong; might violate the boundary between the dead and the living, as vampires and zombies do; might be an ordinary human who is transformed like Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde after drinking his portion; or something unknown to science like the creature in Alien film. The iconography of the horror film includes setting where monsters might be expected to lurk such as the old house where the family moves in in The Conjuring (2013). On the other hand, slasher subgenre has made superhuman killers invade everyday settings such as summer camps and suburban neighbourhoods.

Postmodernism is a term that came up in the late 1960s. It comprehended as an historical condition that contained social, political, cultural agendas and resonance and also can be described as an attitude of a mentality of ‘anything goes’, therefore nothing works, or the questioning of the modernist ideals of progress, reason and science. Postmodernism is a concept of ‘think out of the box’, which challenge the tradition or system of the way of how things are. This motivates the filmmakers to try something new in filmmaking such as mixing genre. ParaNorman (2012) is one of the representation of postmodernist film and will be discussed.

ParaNorman (2012) is a 3D stop-motion animated film that is about a kid named Norman who has the ability to talk to the death. One day, he receives word from his strange Uncle Prenderghast that a centuries-old witch's curse on their town is real and about to come true and Norman is the only one who can stop it. After the dead of Uncle Prenderghast, Norman starts his adventure with Courtney, Mitch, Neil and Alvin to save the town from the curse. 

This is a stop-motion animated horror film with the subgenre of unnatural because it consists of ghosts and zombies. The first example of ghost that appears in the film is Norman's grandmother who tell him that she feels cold in the living room. Norman then ask his father to turn up the heater but his family do not believe him and tell him that his grandmother is dead.

Action genre can also be found in this film as there is a scene where Norman and Alvin is running away from the zombies from the grave yard, where the monster is expected to lurk, to Uncle Prenderghast's house, then get in Mitch's car and run to the town.

There is also comedy genre in this film, which is brought by Neil, the cute little fat kid. There is one scene in the town hall where everyone of them decide to leave Norman but Neil choose to stay and tell Mitch that no one can move him, but Mitch just take him up like a baby and walk out.

With all the different kind of genre in this film, this clearly shows that ParaNorman (2012) is a postmodernist film.

Bruce Almighty - Review

I re-watched Bruce Almighty this week because I never really seriously watch this film before as I watched this on TV and it is already halfway when I watched it. I suddenly think of this film so I found it online and watched it again. Jim Carrey is probably the reason I re-watch this film because he his my favourite comedian since my childhood and for me, he is Stephen Chow of Hollywood. One of his film that I remember the most is Ace Ventura: Pet Detective because of his overacted facial expressions and body movements. He probably is one of the best comedian in Hollywood.

Bruce Almighty is the comedy film as Jim Carrey is the main cast in it and the first thing comes to our mind will sure be comedy. This film is directed by Tom Shadyac and it is about Bruce (Jim Carrey) who did not get promotion but his colleague did and faced different negative encounters after that. He blames it all to God and keep complaining about God is not helping him. Then God (Morgan Freeman) gives all his power to Bruce and see if Bruce can do his job better than him. This is an interesting story isn't it?

As this is a comedy film, it uses various types of comedy in it. The first type that I can see in this film is slapstick comedy. Bruce's pet dog always pee on the sofa instead of the tree in front of the house that Bruce ask it to. So Bruce lifts up his dog and run to the tree with his dog continue peeing. This is really funny when I see it.

Furthermore, this film also consist of surreal comedy. The most obvious example is Grace (Jennifer Aniston) gets in the toilet and got shocked when she sees her pet dog is using the toilet and reading newspaper.

Another example is when Bruce messes with Evan (Steve Carell) when he is on live camera. Bruce first uses his power to make Evan throat stuck so that his voice becomes funny. Then he changes the text on the teleprompter to make Evan mess up on the camera. After that, Bruce controls Evan's mouth to make him talk non-sense in front of the camera. This is the most hilarious part of the film.
There is one more example when Bruce is giving pressure to Grace with his power. When he mention the word 'pressure' then Grace will react with the 'feel good' reaction. It consist of little bit of potty humour in this.

Next, parody is also being used in this film when Bruce tries to part the tomatoes soup into half in the bowl after he get the power from God to prove that what the God told him is real. This is a parody to Moses who is a prophet in Abrahamic religions and he parted the sea into half to make a way, it can be seen in a scene in the film, Exodus: Gods and Kings.

There is one scene in this film that the God make fun of Gandhi, who was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India, also known as Father of The Nation in India. The God make fun of his longest fasting during India's freedom movement which lasted 21 days. This is how black comedy being used in this film. People who can relate will find it funny but some people may be offended by this.

At last but not least, there are moral behind this film. Bruce is a guy who only care about himself, he is a narrow thinking guy who only sees his own problems. Whenever he got a problem, he will just complaint and blame others. An example that shows his selfishness is he use his power to drag the moon closer to earth to impress Grace but causes tsunami in Japan that kills many people and bring asteroid down to earth just to get exclusive news on the TV. At least, he finds out all the prayers that Grace did for him and realises that how bad he treated her and how important she is. The moral of this is to appreciate what we already have and never let it go. Do not regret only when we loss it. There is a quote from this film that I love the most is "Want to see a miracle? Be a miracle". Everyone of us have the power to create miracle and make the world a better place.

Zombieland - Review

Last week was the week 3 of me for taking the Film Studies subject in my university life. On the lecture class, Mr Joe discussed about film editing with us. Why do we edit film? It is because editing is economical, which allow us to control the production. We do not have to shoot in order according to the storyboard. We do not need to shoot per scene, but can shoot per venue. For example, we are shooting of two couple walking in a garden and we have to shoot another flashback scene of them in the same venue on 10 years ago. We can shoot both present and flashback in a same day with different outfits. Editing allows us to manipulate space and time such as creating 3D visuals on 2D plane. We can't place our character on a white wall because it is too flat and nothing behind the character to create the 3D visual to show the character is in front of something or where the character's position is in the set.

In term of manipulated space in editing, it allows us the character to 'appear' in a place with shooting at the certain place. For example, we need to show people are working in the office at KLCC but we do not have the budget to shoot at KLCC. So we can shoot an establishing shot of KLCC then cut to another interior. This is the simplest way to do it.

Furthermore, we also learned film genre. Genre is a way to categorize film. There are two main components in genre, Semantic and Syntactic. Semantic approach is the visual aspect of the film such as characters, locations and etc. Syntactic approach is the thematic aspect of the film such as conversation between character, situation, narrative and etc. Genre analysis must only be made by combining both components. Syntactic must be supported by Semantic. More over, there are 3 conditions of genre. The first condition is a film of certain genre must have the universal samantic and syntactic of the genre. For example, every action films must have chasing scene. The second condition is match with the audience expectation, because every audiences have their expectation towards the film they are going to watch. The last condition is innovative, create something new but keep the old conventions.

In the tutorial class, Mr Joe showed us Zombieland last week. This is a film that was produced in 2009 and directed by Ruben Fleischer. From the title of the film, we already expected it is a zombie survival film.

This film contains various type of genre. First I will discuss about the expected type of genre, horror. As we know, every zombie films can't run away from horror because zombie film is belong to the 'unnatural' type horror film, same as ghost and vampire film. The unnatural horror film will show the irrational forces of chaos or horror invariably terrorrizes and end with normalcy and victory over the monstrous. It will show the audience what is normalcy at first, then the terror comes and back to normalcy in the end. For example, Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) was a otaku who was playing his video game in the beginning of the film then a girl went to his house for hideout. They slept on the couch and he saw the girl turned into zombie after he woke up. This is when the terror comes.

Besides, this film shows treat to normalcy, which means the external force that threaten the civilians. The most obvious are the zombies who were caused by mad cow decease. The mad cow decease is the treat to normalcy. The film also shows bodily mutations, which can be seen on the zombies who were turned from human because of mad cow decease.

Moreover, this is also a comedy film because it brings a lot of laughs to the audience. Some parts of the film contain slapstick such as when Columbus falls from the bike and he shoots Bill Murray when he think he is a real zombie.

This film also contains parody, The Ghostbusters. Tallahassee keep looking for Springies is an idea that came from the original Ghostbusters movie. One part of the film that obviously shows the parody of the Ghostbusters is the chandelier scene, where Tallahassee wears the real ghostbuster uniform and Bill Murray takes a vacuum cleaner to pretend it as ghost vacuum.

Romance is also one of the genre that appears in the film. Columbus and Wichita have the romance in the film as they meet each other in a supermarket and Wichita tricks him and Tallahassee. This is when the conflict starts between them. Then they fall for each other through all the conflict and be together in the end.

Sci-Fi is another genre that appears in the film as it shows the projection of our worst fears in the future. Sci-Fi is a film genre that shows science is being misplaced. The example in this film is the mad cow decease that makes people turn into zombies. It also shows the extinction of human race and apocalypse which are the prediction of the possibility of our future.

This movie contains a lot of components of action film too such as Tallahassee who looks like a typical action hero, the one man army. Columbus who is a nerd but strategising, the accidental hero. Wichita who is quick, smart, pretty but not using her sexuality, the femme fatale. Little Rock is a young girl who is brave, smart and not afraid to learn. All of them play an important role in the action of the film. The thing that must be shown in an action film is the chase scene. For example, the parking lot where two zombies chase Columbus on the parking lot and he keep running away from them. Another chase scene happens in Pacific Playland where Wichita switches on the light of the playland then attracted all the zombies around it which cause them surrounded by the zombies. The keep running away from the zombies then get on the drop tower ride.

Last but not least, Zombieland is also a road film because it shows the characters travel from point A to point B. For example, Wichita and Little Rock head to Pacific Playland from the supermarket. Road film also contains part of bonding when struck in a way of transportation, either vehicles or just walk. In the film, there is one part when they are taking turns to drive, talking and playing with each other.