Kellie Lynn Bruce: “Killer of Sheep”

The film “Killer of Sheep” is a grim, yet beautiful look into the lives of a black low-income family and the daily decisions they make. The most striking element that stood out in the film to me was the director’s, Charles Burnett, uses of space between both the characters and the viewing audience. We the audience find ourselves playing multiply roles. We play an active participant in the kitchen as Stan goes into his monologue of how his life has changed, to playing a skeptic observer waiting for the mayhem of the long awaited car engine. This close relationship between the characters and audience is deliberate in bringing the audience into Stan’s reality. We are brought into his world by camera editing choices, framing choices, angles choices, and the decision when to uses a close up or wide shot. However, much of this close or personal relationship between us the audience and the actors would not have been so effective if Charles had not decided to film the personal, awkward, or intimate moments. We the audience find ourselves jumping around in different characters perspective. We are in Stan’s wife’s POV, when he and his friend are at the table playing dominoes, before being introduced to her as a character, and only through Stan’s reaction of seeing his wife there are we able to see whose POV we are in. Moreover after understanding and viewing Charles set up of the relationship between the audience and characters we can see his point that we are either active participants in this grim reality or just observers? After knowing or seeing the role we play what will our decision be? Will we continue like most characters just living and tolerating, will we just watch from afar, or will we make a change? Even if the change we make is small, it is still yet a change. “Killer of Sheep,” does an incredible job capturing and creating a meaningful story about ordinary people in a common yet, not so ordinary situation.

UNBREAKABLE

Everyone knows Unbreakable is a bad movie. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some dynamite mise-en-scene. Specifically, the films use of color. Basically, the movie assigns three different colors to three different teams/kinds of characters.
The protagonist and his family are usually seen in green. While on patrol as a security guard, he wears a green poncho. His family, whenever shown, is in green always. The characters seem completely unaware that they only wear green and it is never actually addressed in the film. The protagonist’s truck is green etc. In the movie green usually is associated with life and living, and good in a general sense.
The film’s antagonist dons purple. Every time we see him he’s wearing it. His mother also wears purple. The color seems to represent knowledge and power. It’s often attributed to comic book super-villains like the Joker and Lex Luthor. Quite appropriate since essentially this is a superhero movie.
Lastly, there’s Orange/Yellow. The protagonist sees a man wearing yellow who he assumes to be a criminal packing heat. Later the man is shown to have had a gun on him. Yellow basically represents everything evil. The best example of this is when the protagonist fights a criminal in an orange jump suit. Several times, the hero in green is either tempted or swayed by yellow. It might also tie to corruption.
And those are the many colors of unbreakable. I guess I could go into why the protagonist is white and the antagonist and other foes in the film (including one played by the director) are black or some other minority, but hopefully there’s really no symbolism behind it. Maybe M Night Shyamalan just loves white people!

BY SAM FRIEDMAN

The Third Man

Carol Reed's The Third Man is a film with an excellent example of how cinematography can affect its audience. I don't think I have ever as uncomfortable and uneasy watching a movie, yet still very intrigued and involved. The first thing one notices when watching the film is how hash the black and white contrast really is. At points, characters faces are so vivid by bright white light that a small mouth movement replaces a line of dialague. At the same time, the background and all of the character's surrounding are extremely dark and distorted. In other instances, the darkness of night hides the identity of characters, but the bight street lights reveal important shadows that can't remain hidden in the night. This makes the film extremely dramatic for the viewer because the bright white light focuses the audiences attention while the darkness confuses and pushes them away. Camera angles also give the audience a sense of disconnection and almost foreign from the city of Vienna. Sideways allies, angled shots of complexed, geometric buildings, and huge, ominous urban portraits makes one feel almost cautious to watch. The location of Vienna is that of a grim, desolate city that has lost any flair or culture. Definetly not a welcoming city, the viewer definetly feels like a fish out of water. Each shot and scene from the film is very picture-like in the sense that when the frame is freezed the image looks something like a still-life painting of some kind. Finaly, closeups definetly play a large role in the film revealing character emotions and thoughts as well as objects and different identities.

Manos: The Hands of Fate

The cinematography in Manos: Hands of Fate is one of the most prime examples of how poor cinematography, among other things, can ruin a movie with an otherwise interesting plot. Manos, owing most of its infamy to Mystery Science Theater 3000, is often hailed as one of the worst movies of all time and indeed it is almost completely unwatchable without the MST3k commentary, owed, in large part, to the films poor cinematography.

The movie presents its first challenge almost immediately. The film opens with a heavily extended sequence involving a car driving through unremarkable rural countryside. The film continues this way for almost a full five minutes, while the camera work here could have helped to establish something important plot-wise, even so simple as to establish the film’s actual location, the time is instead utterly wasted on superfluous of landscapes, even at one point dissolving from the end of one shot to the beginning of the very same shot.

If the audience can manage to sit through this they are treated to a movie comprised mostly of blurry or underexposed shots. The director, Hal Warren, chose to shoot most outdoor scenes as night scenes, during the actual night time rather than using Day-For-Night, making shots either much to dark or very clearly lit by film lights. In once scene, two police officers are investigating the strange events occurring in the movies main plot, but because there is not enough light to light more than a few feet of space in the shot, the characters can only “investigate” about 10 feet from their car before seeming to give up.

Unfortunately, the film’s raw concept and story actually had the potential to be rather interesting if the movie had been shot more professionally but, as it stands, the poor cinematography and the onscreen results are so distracting that the film becomes a chore to sit through and/or ripe for mockery.

Eyes wide shut- Kyle Rollins

Stanley Kubricks last film "Eyes Wide Shut," is a film that deals with jealousy and sexual temptation. Cinematographer Larry Smith overlights the initial party scene and uses natural lighting for many of the scenes on the street and specifically the orgy scene in the mansion. The pacing of this film is very slow and this film has many long shots in it. These decisions are made so the audience can better understand and feel what Tom Cruises character Bill is feeling. Throughout this whole film, Bill feels as if he is in a dream like state. Each scene in this film is very dark and in some scenes we see the camera positioned in front of doors and mirrors when characters are talking or making love. The camera placement off mirror reflections reperesent the darkside of these characters and it also goes back to Kubrick and the cinematographer making this film appear as a dream. The camera is positioned from the point of view of Bills character and we are taken throughout the house and the audience is able to see what Bill sees. Even though Kubrick uses cross dissolves to show the passing of the time, the orgy scene is the longest scene in the film and has the longest shot. This film was criticized for being very unrealistic and that was the angle Kubrick was aiming for. Kubrick wanted this film to seem dreamlike and each decision cinematographer Larry Smitch made with the camera made the audience feel like they were in a never ending dream.

Seven - Cinematography

Thrillers and horror films constantly use cinematography to make the audience feel more in the film and more scared. The film Seven uses it for just that purpose. The camera is constantly strengthening your feelings throughout the story. In chase scenes the camera movement and cutting is swift, the image is often blocked by walls and doors and people just as the view of Brad Pitt is.

When the detectives enter the home of Kevin Spacey, the camera shots are close in to give the audience a stronger sense of the tight quarters all the detectives are in. The lighting is very dim with a lot of red lighting. It gives the audience an idea of just how erie the apartment is, and how unpleasant it is to be in there. The shots don't show the audience what is around the corner, just as the detectives don't know what's around it. It creates an element of suspense, and makes their discoveries even more important.

In the scene when Brad Pitt is chasing Kevin Spacey throughout the apartment building, the shots are quick, and are all from Brad Pitt's point of view. You still cannot see around corners and you only get quick glimpses of where Kevin Spacey is headed. Citizens get in the way of your view and it frustrates you just as it must Brad Pitt's character.

In the scene of the first murder, the lighting is extremely dim, and the shots are close, just like the shots in Kevin Spacey's home. However, you get a different feeling because the color of the lighting is more green instead of the intense red of Spacey's home. You get more of a sick and depressed feeling when watching this scene instead of a suspenseful one like in Spacey's home. Which is parallel with what the actual content of the scenes is.

Cinematography is used in every scene to intensify what the audience is seeing and hearing. In this movie in particular, it often sets a mood of depression and uneasiness. It is used to give the audience a better understanding of what these characters are feeling. It is meant to bring the audience as much into the scene as possible.

American Beauty Cinematography

The Cinematography in the film, American Beauty, plays a pivotal role in establishing character, both in their relationships to one another as well as the role each one plays in the movie. Much of the movie's perspective is derived from the main character, Lester Burnham. Consequently the cinematography reflects Lester's nature, which is at times apathetic, cynical, fatalistic, fantastical, and, ultimately, nostalgic.

The film begins with an aerial shot, displaying a typical tree-lined suburban neighborhood. Lester's voice over can be heard, but his house's location within the neighborhood is left unspecified and the viewer instead is left to absorb the endless slew of seemingly identical rooftops. As the film centers heavily on Lester's family life, perhaps one of the most indicative illustrations of this is the long shot of the Burnham's dining room that is used multiple times throughout the film. The decoration of the room is elegant but stark, exemplifying the Burnham's sterile home life. The composition of the shot itself is taken from the side of the excessively long dining room table, with Lester at one end, his wife at the other, and their daughter caught in the middle, indicating where she finds herself during Lester and Carolyn's bickering. When Lester goes to work at a job where he feels confined and unappreciated, the shot is constructed so that the ceiling, cubicles, and the harsh overhead lights are all exaggerated for the viewer.

Lester's fantasies center on Jane's best friend, Angela. The shots of these daydreams are executed with soft lighting, to reflect the serene nature of these dreams, and the color is minimal aside from the deep red of the roses that become synonymous with Lester's ideal of Angela throughout the film.

At the film's conclusion, Lester gives a posthumous account of his fondest memories. As he recounts these nostalgic moments, they are recounted visually with a left to write tracking shot in soft black and white, allowing for seamless transitions to give the feel that these memories flow together for Lester.

Irreversible - Cinematography Katie McMeans

Gaspar Noe's 2002 film "Irreversible" has a strong theme of the irreversible nature of time and actions. Shown in reverse, the film unfolds over the course of one night to reveal horrible events. The cinematography lends itself to the idea that "time destroys everything" in its hand held nature, the pace and length of shots, and in it's reverse chronological order.

The hand held aesthetic serves to give the entire film a shaky or uneasy feel, as if it was the shaky or unclear memories of someone recalling them. The length of the shots supports this idea of memory. The film opens (though this is the end effect) with a brutal fight scene. The scene is fast paced and unclear as if the whole thing happened so fast and in such a fit of rage that it can't even be remembered properly. This is also supported by the fact that this whole scene is shot as a POV. In contrast the brutal rape scene is one 7 min long shot and very clear as if this whole scenario or memory has been etched into the mind of the person recalling it.

The unease and pacing of the handheld shots supports the reverse cause and effect revealed by the cinematography. The purpose of the reverse is to take the viewer eventually back to the start, leaving them no room to wonder what will happen next, driving home the inevitability of the terrible events that have already took place.

Double Indemnity - Cinematography

Perhaps one of the most quintessential examples of classic film noir is Billy Wilder's 1944 movie Double Indemnity. The story itself epitomizes the genre alone, following the dangerous affair between the desperately and lonely femme fatale, Phyllis Dietrichson, and a naive insurance agent, Walter Neff, who falls into her deadly plot to kill her husband. But story aside, every moment on the screen captures the audience with its brilliant use of black and white cinematography. Not only do these cinematic choices set the standard for the tone of the film, but they also reveal deeper meaning for the characters and situations.

The mere placement of characters in the frame is a consistent and non-accidental choice Wilder makes throughout the film. Every shot has meaning and purpose. For one, when Walter first laid eyes on Phyllis and immediately fell head over heels for her, he was standing at the foot of the steps looking up at her, while she was standing behind the railing on the balcony overlooking the foyer. Not only does the railing separate them physically, but the shot sets her up as being the dominant one in the relationship (almost as if set on a figurative pedestal) that continues to play out in the film. The shot also separates them by status: he works hard to get his money and lives in a one bedroom apartment, whereas she lives off her husband's wealth, lounging around her mansion all day. Another shot that's consistent throughout the film is the way in which they must meet. Since their affair must be kept secret to save their reputations, they meet in the grocery store and are at most times, separated by shelves of food. This could represent the fact that while they are in this plan together, they are not on the same page. We later find out the Phyllis was just using him to get to the money, and Wilder's choice to conceal the bottom half of her face in shots behind the shelves makes this more evident. And perhaps one of the most powerful shots of the film occurs near the end when Walter's boss, Barton Keyes, finally realizes what Walter has been up to and he goes to his apartment to confront him. The shot happens when Walter and Phyllis are leaving, but Barton appears. Phyllis hides behind the open door and Barton stands on the other side, with Walter in the middle. Not only does the shot create tension for the audience (i.e. will Barton find her hiding?), but it parallels what's going on inside Walter's character. Here, he's literally and figuratively torn between two opposites: living a life of crime with the woman he's fallen for, or returning back to the normal life and job he has with his boss.

Finally, Wilder makes a great deal of aesthetic choices that help correlate the characters with the actual lighting in the film. For instance, the use of shadows is extremely prominent in the film noir genre. This could be because it sets the tone for mystery and suspenseful drama. While that tone is apparent in this film, the use of shadows is also a way to convey character motivation, especially on the part of Phyllis. In the scene in which she is driving her husband around, the audience knows that Walter is hiding in the backseat, waiting to strangle him from behind. When he finally does the deed, the camera cuts away from the initial murderous action to show Phyllis' face, half hidden in the shadows and half illuminated from the streetlights. This shot is so powerful because it is so dark and jarring and we can sense that she's an evil person on the inside, but she smirks while it happens, which makes it even more impacting. And lastly, many of the shots in the film that make it so unique is the way Venetian blinds and moonlight/sunlight play off a character, particularly in the final scene in which Walter and Phyllis confront one another. The moonlight seeping through the Venetian blinds in the dark room not only shows us that something bad is about to happen, but that people never are who they say they are, especially Phyllis. The crisscrossing pattern formed on her character from the blinds exhibits her deeply rooted and disturbed psyche that one needs to unravel to discover and even understand.

The Graduate

            Mike Nichols’ 1967 film, The Graduate, is one of the most influential films of the last fifty years. Its influence on pop culture as well as its significance in film history makes The Graduate a very special film. However, the cinematography and symbolism in this film and how it relates to the underlying themes in the story is what makes Mike Nichols’ The Graduate such a meaningful and significant piece in film history.

            The Graduate could be about several things and there are many underlying themes that make up the story, like the journey from child to adult, or most notably the theme of sex and relationships and the “art” of seduction. The cinematography in The Graduate helps accentuate these themes for the audience. In the beginning of the film, there is a scene where Benjamin drives Mrs. Robinson home after his graduation party. She invites him onto her porch for a drink and asks him to sit down. The porch is made of all glass, so the outside environment is completely visible. Large trees, plants, bushes and other foliage surround the porch, making it appear as if this porch is in the jungle. I believe this is a metaphor for Mrs. Robinson’s pursuit of Benjamin. Also, the blocking and positioning of actors in the frame emphasize the themes of the film. When Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson begin their affair, Mrs. Robinson places her leg in the foreground of the shot to remove her stocking. Ben is in the background and positioned perfectly “under” Mrs. Robinson’s bare leg. Nichols’ suggests with this shot that Mrs. Robinson is more powerful than Benjamin and that she is the predator and he is her prey.

            The Graduate is certainly one of the most influential and significant films ever made, and for several reasons. But one of the reasons this films’ themes are so well expressed is because of the cinematography and Nichols’ ability to communicate theme and story through shot and composition. 

Kwaidan; Masaki Kobayashi 1964

Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan is a series of four tightly strung short films based on ancient Japanese Ghost Stories as collected by Lafaciado Hearn. Though many period pieces try there hardest to withtain a sense of accuracy to the time period, evoking as realistic and believable a setting as cinematically possible, Kobayashi delivers the exact opposite. Reality is rarely glimpsed throughout the film, almost all of it is unabashedly filmed on large, sprawling soundstages with large, obviously theatrical sets filled with wild, painted back drops. While many would try to evoke a realistic setting in a horror film, it is highly effective, taking us to a world that we understand is far away and maybe even almost forgotten, giving the atmopshere a surreal, dream like effect, reflecting the other worldy encounters mortals have with various ghosts and demons, showing us a world where the supernatural is very much alive and well. One short film, “The Snow Maiden” is prehaps the strangest looking in the film. Time passes quickly throughout, going from dawn into night in much of its length. While many would struggle to obtain subtle, nature like colors to evoke the passage of time, we are shown wild primary colors transitioning from vibrant oranges to dramatic blues to signify night time, constrasting madly with the white snows that surround the man-made landscape. Back drops also change in a fully theatrical manner, the moon is an obviously painted eye resembling that of an owls, symbolising the reign of the supernatural and the discovery that the dutiful wife is truly the Snow Maiden, a ghoul that devours the souls of those who have frozen to death. Throughout watching the movie, one understands that the theatricality of the film is not only an artisitic statement, but a very practical solution to several scenes that would be nearly impossible and tedious to film on location. In the next film “Hoichi the Earless”, we begin with an epic naval battle set in Ancient Japan between two rival clans. We are shown a dramatic soundstage with brilliantly colored water, where the battle is presented with the poise and pantomime of a kabuki play, a wild yellow sky blurred with impressionistic magenta.
Kwaidan’s theatricality not only shows within its lighting and sets, put throughout the camera work as well. Filmed in a 2:35.1 aspect radio, the large sprawling cinema-scope framing allows the camera work a strange distance from the audience, where we are shown long and beautiful wide shots, and only a few zoom in’s of characters reactions here and there to show us the scope of the characters conflicts. In “The Black Hair” we are presented with a man who has betrayed his true love to marry another and take a position as Samurai, choosing riches over the poverty he once faced. In one scene, as he observes his noble estate he now requires, we are shown an elegant and slow zoom in of his face, where we instantly understand his inner conflicts. This if followed by another scene, in which he hallucinates, imagining he sees his lost love across a lake, washing her laundry. We are shown a graceful close up shot of the woman, revealing her face filled with a false hope that he will return. Kobayashi gives us this distance between the film and the audience prehaps to remind us that these are folk tales, settings and situations wildly diffirent from encounters much of us have in everyday life, watching simple stories as one would watch on a stage. Even shots that aren’t sprawling and wide are sprinkled with a sense of obvious, but effective theatricality. In a archery contest, we are shown several quick shots of a man waving a fan to start the contest, a shot of hooves violently running, a long shot of the man on horseback, we eventually come closer and closer to him, where we are shown what is obviously the actor sitting on something other than a horse, a fan blowing in his face, the camera rocking back and fourth to give us the illusion of movement, followed by shots of his lover. Through this, we understand his guilt and how his thoughts of her have led him to ultimate distraction.

Cinematography in "Do the Right Thing"

In Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing", the style of cinematography is manipulated specifically to emphasize the racial tensions between the characters. This is implemented through camera angles, camera movements and distance. Throughout the film camera angles become a direct medium for expressing the relationships between characters. For instance, the use of canted angles during a scene with Radio Raheem and Tony in the pizza parlor. As they are arguing the camera appears to be flip flopping between the two but at slanted angles, emphasizing the anger and animosity amongst them. Canted angles are especially critical in that they visually express that there is something demented or dysfunctional about the relationship between these characters. There are also low angles used in the same scene which highlight dramatic differences in stature between Radio Raheem and Tony and how they see one another.
The movements of the camera also plays a part in conveying the racial tensions amongst the characters. Much of the camera's movements are rapid shot-reverse-shots, because characters are often yelling at one another throughout most of the film. These fast paced camera movements create a heightened sense of tension and confusion. The speed of the camera adds an edginess to the dialogue through which the audience learns that the characters allow their personal struggles to interfere with their judgement about other races. Lastly, the camera's distance from the characters allows the audience to be more emotionally involved with the characters point of view. For example, the camera is normally close up on characters, placing the audience in the middle of the immediate action line. It increases the sense of mental and emotional stress that characters endure from dealing with one another in the heat of the moment.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders of the Lost Ark uses many shadows in its shot composition to give the film a comic book like feel. The use of shadows in the cinematography helps give a hint towards the story. The bar scene where Indiana has to get the headpiece to the staff of Ra, we first see Indy in a large shadow taking up the entire wall beside Marion. This shadow represents the fact that Indy was a large part in her life. As soon as she saw the shadow she instantly knew who it was. Then she goes on to tell Indy how he ruined her life because she was in love with him. Her explanation proves that Indy was huge part of her life and the shadow represents that. In the middle of the scene, Indy is leaving the bar, his face is completely in shadow but a small bit of light is shown on his eye. Indy needs the piece that Marion has. He leaves the bar empty handed and that little bit of light represents that Marion is the only way he can get that piece and she has rejected him. The light on his eye is the little glimmer of hope he needs to get that piece. When the Nazis come into the bar to try to obtain the piece, there is harsh shadow across the head Nazi’s face to represent that he is evil. This contrasts when Indy came in because Indy’s face was brightly lit.

Children of Men

In the 2006 dystopian science fiction film, Children of Men, single shot sequences were used to elaborate pivotal moments in the film in which sometimes complicated actions were occurring.  After Theo agrees to transport Kee, he is riding in a car with his estranged wife Julian, Kee, the midwife, and Luke. Their vehicle is ambushed on a country road during a brutal attack. The scene opens with the passengers in the vehicle joking around and Theo and Julian passing back a ping-pong ball with their mouths. A burning car blocks their car’s way and they are attacked as they try to reverse. Julian is shot and fatally wounded and the car is still moving and they are shot at some more. The scene is done in a single shot that lasts approximately four minutes and is an important scene in the movie that foreshadows the danger Theo will face after he agrees to transport Kee.

When Kee, the girl who is being transported, gives birth to a baby girl the shot lasts for over three minutes.  The birth of the baby is important because it is what is causing all the conflict in the story.  The current dystopian world suffers from infertility and Kee giving birth marks the first time a new human has been born in over eighteen years.

The siege at the end of the movie lasts a little over six minutes.  Theo escapes from being captured and runs through a building in the middle of raging battles.  This scene provides hope that he will be able to finish his mission of transporting Kee.  The director Alfonso Curaron’s decision to use single shot sequences help to emphasize important moments in the film. 

Cinematography in Jaws

 I have seen the film Jaws more times than I count. This viewing, however, was my first viewing of the movie under academic circumstances, with some beginner’s knowledge of the filmmaking craft under my belt. As such, this time around many realizations about the film’s cinematography and the underlying, almost subversive tactics used in camera positioning became blatantly apparent. I counted and tracked no less than 7 distinct strategies in the cinematography of this film, most of which had been completely unknown to me, despite my repeated viewings of the film, and most of which all culminated in the ending sequence. However, I have chosen to relate the specific strategy detailed below because of how blatantly it smacked me in the face the first time I realized its presence in the work.

            Anyone who has seen Jaws once can tell you that the character of the Mayor of Amityville, the movie’s prime location, is an idiot. Having seen the movie over and over, upon the first appearance of the Mayor, I knew the oblivious ignorance that was about to come. Each time, the Mayor converses with a protagonist, save the final scene he appears in, the protagonists get nowhere with him. Brody wants to close the beaches, the Mayor refuses. Hooper wants to perform a necropsy on the shark, the Mayor refuses. Figuratively, the Mayor cannot be swayed from his position, literally, when the Mayor is onscreen, we get nowhere with him.

            What I mean by this is that anytime the Mayor is onscreen, and especially when he is arguing with the protagonists, all of the characters are moving, quite animatedly in fact. Yet, the camera is positioned in front of the Mayor, zoomed in tightly on all the characters integral to the scene, and shot at just about chest-up. This completely flattens the image, taking all sense of depth out of the shot and completely negating any physical movements toward or away from the camera. In this way, every conversation with the Mayor gets no where, literally. There is no depth in the shot, just as there is no depth to the Mayor’s perspective, and there is no discernible range of movement, just as there is no change in the Mayor’s staunch position. In fact, the only bits of discernible movement and depth in scenes with the Mayor occur precisely when he or a protagonist make a point, or when the conversation is ending. The camera becomes the Mayor. It is the Mayor’s shot. There is no depth and no give, just like the obliviously ignorant character himself.

            This technique can be seen most well in one specific scene: this scene being the very first appearance of the Mayor, in which he declines Chief Brody’s wise decision to close down the beaches of the island. Throughout this conversation, the characters are actually moving on a ferry across an expanse of water, with ships and other things moving in the background. And yet, the camera positioning keeps the characters staunchly in place throughout the entire talk, utilizing a long take to never let the characters move from their position or get any depth out of the Mayor’s perspective. The only time in the scene that depth can be discerned, and it is only a small amount of depth, is just as the conversation ends, the Mayor makes a point, and Brody has lost this first of many verbal spars.

            This hilariously played technique, which directly describes the Mayor’s character, is used over many scenes of similar content, culminating in the final scene involving the Mayor. This scene, occurring right after an undeniable shark attack, gives us the most depth available in any scene with the Mayor and features Brody literally leaving his biggest, and least bright, roadblock far behind. The Mayor gets ever smaller, as Brody gets ever bigger, indicating that all power to halt Brody’s progress has been lost by the Mayor. Indeed, the Mayor is never mentioned or seen in the rest of the film after this this breaking of depth and movement, and except briefly in a conflict between two diametrically opposed protagonists, this technique of flattening the image to an extreme degree never occurs again. The Mayor, and his ignorance, have been broken forever by our main protagonist. 

“Conformist” (focus on cinematography)

Sometimes, we blame the traitor easily. But just think about it. Is it right to dare to say “You are wrong” to the man naturally without experiencing or understanding such a situation?
”Conformist” by Bernardo Bertolucci defenses a man whose desire is to live a just normal life in the era of Fascism and the ruin of it
The important thing is that the movie appeals to audience emotionally about his situation by the camera working and shot size.

First, tracking shots are often used to follow his emotional feeling.
The first scene which he picks the phone up and wears the clothes and puts the gun in his pocket is shown as long take by tracking shot. And then, he goes the step down and opens the door of the hotel. By that time, camera dolly(track)s in toward him quickly.
Surely, he is in emergency and has to move fast. From the beginning, we cannot help starting with the concentration on his harsh movement. If first track shot is just for expressing his own emotion, the successive track shots evoke sentiment by representing the relationships between him and his family. See his mother. She lives without a certain purpose, sometimes depending on morphine. Tracking shot compares two persons by moving from the bathroom she is to the room he stands. And then see his father. The camera follows protagonist walking fast toward his father sitting in the mental hospital through the track. He has to solve the problem about his abnormal parents to marry his fiancee. These two tracking shots show his tension and audience understand his poor background. Maybe, some people may feel sympathy to it.

Second, bird’s eye view with camera fixed shows his resistance is no use. See him surrounded by many dancers including his wife and wife of the professor. He didn’t want to join them. He just
stands up there. He is just a weak man, therefore cannot but being confined by the mass.
After collapse of the Fascism, look at him surrounded by the mass marching for the rally. Only thing he can do is to avoid them carefully. In both of two shots, no moving, fixed camera of bird’s eye view functions as bystander never helping him. And that symbolizes it is meaningless for him to protest against the main current of the era.

Third, two close-up shots of protagonist reveal his agony.
See him talking to the professor, revered one in the past but must be killed by him now, During the conversation about Plato, his face is shown as close-up. He is in the middle of the fierce conflict. We also contemplate his pains, even though it is indirect, through the close-up together.
And the other close-up shot, the last shot in the movie, is so impressive. After the collapse of the Fascism, he, was a fascist, struggles to survive. At last, he accuse even his friend to the people,
Now, there is no one beside him. He sits down alone in front of the steel-barred in the street. And then he turns his head forward. He seems to be in the jail. In the long run, his hope just to live a normal life ends in tragedy. The last close-up is enough to unfold his feeling and the message of this movie.

In the conclusion, this movie takes a role of the lawyer for a man in the law court. It persuades audience by using the various effects, camera moving, angle and shot size. Those overwhelm our sensibility. And his tragic ending makes audience silent or feel pity rather than reproach his fault

Tropic Thunder

This film clashes cliches and classic photographic forms to provide it the parody of the war/Vietnam film genres to draw out the snickers while also providing the hard light upon a shadowed face to give it's comical main characters a sense of suspense.

After the faux credits, this film begins in a battle zone. Fast edits and up close shots provide the sense that you are in the action. The group starts to escape and then we see Ben Stiller re-enact the classic scene from 'Platoon'. There is also the sweeping helicopter over a jungle/Viet Cong village and the helicopter machine gunner shooting everything in sight. The close battles and, much like 'Hamburger Hill', provide extreme gore. Much like the 'Platoon' moment, these scenes are crafted to show the incredibility of an enlarged ego recreating such a real moment.

To offset these recreative scenes, non-parodied scenes used creative use of light to create the mood that was best fitting for these scenes. The vast majority of the indoor shots in Laos (actually New Zealand) use lighting shades of yellow/gold colors in darkly lit rooms to provide the sense that they are in the Golden Triangle and it's not a good place to be. What enhances this effect is that when one sees the indoor shots of the office of Les Grossman (Tom Cruise), is that these are lit with a balance of white light. These deeply contrasting shots, in their use of light toned color enhancement, helps provide the film a sense of realism once it sheds away from it's comedic beginning.

This movie recreates several classic scenes from great war movies not to make fun of those film stories (as most parodies do), but instead to show how unheroic the actor is who portrays a films hero by casting the right light upon them in the right local.

Metropolis-Cinematography

In the film Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang, I noticed that there were a lot of close ups. These close ups occurred when you saw the main character, Freder, and his love interest Maria together. The most frequent types I saw in the film were two shots. The two shots were appropriate for the two lovers, because it established an intimacy between them. It allowed you to see fully the love they had for one another in a shot just between the two of them.

Another type of shot I noticed was the telephoto. In the shots with Joh Fredersen in his office with his assistant, you see him looming in the foreground while His assistant is in the background. His assistant looks a bit blurred and small in the background, while Joh's image looks powerful and crisp. It establishes his position of power, besides just him having a stern, authoritative look on his face.

Lastly, the last type of frequent shot I noticed was just regular close ups. There were a lot of these with all the characters, and it helped you to read their emotions more clearly. There is a particular scene where Maria is being chased. We get a close up on Maria's face during the chase and we can clearly see that she is terrified which helps us better than a medium shot, per se. We get a close up of her when she is first introduced as well, and the close up shows her as this pure, innocent person. This helps us to see that rather than just the title cards for her words. Also, Freder looks panicked a lot in the film, and we can see this beautifully in his eyes and expression from the close up shot.

Though Lang was a bit ahead of his time with these things, they worked together nicely with the mise en scene and the title cards. His cinematographers camera work was splendid to help us better understand th position and emotions of the characters.

No Country for Old Men

The Coen brother’s award winning film No Country for Old Men is one of the eeriest movies I have ever watched. This time I looked at the brother’s film in a different way then their standard style for films, rather then the crazy characters, the twisted plot, or the beautiful cinematography, but the sound design. In No Country for Old Men, the element of sound or should I say lack of sound is used to create a feeling for what the film exactly is, a suspenseful thriller.
Through out the entire film the silence constructed by the sound design makes the film’s environment seem so strong and natural. Rarely if not at all is there a soundtrack played, all the audience hears is the diegetic sound. I often found myself listening to every little detail in the sound sometimes. The quietness led me to anticipate what was going to happen next, whether it would be a gunfight or the next important event in the film.
A perfect example is when the hitman is trailing the stolen briefcase of money he is after in his car. He has a little tracking device to help him locate the money and it beeps, as he gets closer. On screen it switches back and forth from the hitman, to the character that has the money. As he gets closer the beeping sound increases creating anxiety on what is going to happen. The entire time there is no dialogue, just what exactly is happening on screen.
No Country for Old Men is as raw as it gets.

The science of sleep

The exposition of the movie "Science of Sleep" Michael Gondry introduces us to the Fabula of the story. In the opening scene we see Stephan (Gael Garcia Bernal) The protagonist who is confused and lost between reality and his dreams. Michael Gondry shows us how sometimes we can get lost in the thin line between our reality and the nightmares. Stephan is like a 10 year old boy who is trapped in a body of a young man. The cradle-bed he sleeps in, car prints bed sheets and his inventions, all serve as motifs that keep repeating as a reminder of Stephan's childlike character. Stephan develops a friendship with his neighbor Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and she becomes the only person who can see his dream world. Yet in the act two of the movie, Stephan finds himself in love with Stephanie who wouldn't open her feeling toward him. So he starts to feel rejected by his shy neighbor and starts to lose control over his dreams mixing it with reality.His love for Stephanie makes him more confused and lost in his dreams.

Syuzhet of the movie is to show that we often try to escape reality in our dreams yet here our main character is trying to escape dreams by reality. I think Gondry was trying to say that dreams would be so perfect if only we could have a full control over them. The Mise-en-scene is structured around Stephan's imagination made of cardboard mockups of the set of Metropolis, hand made stuffed animals and lego toys. The movie uses stop motion in the style of Russian animation to give a certain feeling of surrealism. Movie is followed with a first person narration of Stephan's voice which switches from French to English and sometimes to Spanish. The movie is a strange way of storytelling that is unpredictable,exciting and in some arguable way open-ended.