Screening Notes

In a very quick shot, there is a shot of a man and a woman talking intimately at a dinner table in a restaurant. There are people behind them, and there is another woman in the shot. The female is smoking a cigarette, and the man has her hand grasped between his. The shot is a POV from another woman across the table. The man is talking and the woman is listening.

This dinner talk is a symbol of the main character's infidelity to his wife, who holds the POV. The shot is quick because the wife is only taking quick glances to look, and the people around him show that he does not even try very hard to keep the fact that he flirts and teases with other girls a giant secret. Him talking, holding HER hand, and her listening and smoking also show that he is the predator of the conversation, the initiator that is holding the conversation afloat. He was not roped into it or was not manipulated. This shot symbolizes early on in the film how terrible the relationship between the two main characters actually is. The smoking of the cigarette symbolize the woman as the one in the affair, as cigarette smoking is usually associated with the more bad characters and the ones doing things that are considered "against the norm".

If I were to make it a myth, I would say that from this shot, you can believe that this man has cheated on his wife before, and possibly multiple occasions. The clearly apathetic demeanor towards his own wife, across the dinner table, is showing that his feelings towards her do not extend far. He also does not car about embarrassing her or himself at this very public dinner. Just from this shot alone, I would not be very surprised if there was a past of infidelity  between the two main character's, which I predicted in the previous paragraph. Otherwise I would have only believed them bored within their marriage and now stuck with each other, and that being the biggest problem in their relationship.

Essay 1 Outline Blog Post

Main Argument: While both approaches can and do accurately theorize and criticize film, I believe that the Formalist Approach is the more effective method of STUDYING film. While the ideological approach has importance and sound, it can be used as a general method of studying all arts, while the formalist approach gives light to various aspects of cinema that make film unique, and critique whether those moments were helpful or hurtful to the film.

Claim 1: Formalist theorists and critics take a single aspect of the film (an edit, a camera angle, a lighting choice) and from there make claims about the directors themes and styles and all different analysis. These aspects are usually only unique to film, and therefore so is the formalist approach.

Support for Claim 1: There are no approaches to studying books in which we look at the type of page the publisher decided to print on, or the size of the text, or where he placed the words on the page. Instead, like most art, we use a ideological approach and look at it from a more narrative perspective.

Claim 2: The Ideological Approach loses its validity once a second person places their hand into the project. Whether it be a director taking a script from a screenwriter, or an editor making choices between shots without the director, or the producer limiting what the director is allowed to do. More than more set of minds went into building the project, and while looking at the rooted story (I.E. the original draft of the screenplay) would be very impactful in using ideological approaches, the formalist approach more accurately can show the entirety of the film, and how separate and different choices altered the effect of the film.

Support to Claim 2: "You have to be a great storyteller. And you have  to master the tools that you have to tell the story which are, in order of importance, the script, the actors and then the technical means."

—John Frankenheimer, director

Claim 3: It is easier to decipher what a filmmaker meant by making a film from concrete and proven shots and decisions than it is to assume the director was in a certain mindset or was pushing for a certain motive.

Support for Claim 3: If we were to look at the scene with the knife, and both the ideological writers and formalist writers were attempting to give evidence of their theory that Hitchcock was using the knife as a symbol of many different things, talking about the knife and the scene in an ideological way is going to be much less persuasive than someone with shot for shot proof of why they believe how they do. 

Screening Notes Pyscho

Friday, December 11^th, 2:43 pm.

So why are they so secluded, if she’s not married and he’s divorced? I understand he just comes during business trips.

Marriage has come up twice now in the first 5 minutes. I wonder if this will be the underlying “theme” that we were talking about, similar to the Wizard of Oz

He’s drunk!

THIRD TIME “He was flirting with you. I guess he must of noticed my wedding ring.”

Oh that’s pretty cool, she sees her boss.

I think the voiceover was pretty clear, it did its job in a good manner.

Well THAT doesn’t seem guilty! Look into a cops eyes, and immediately turn on the car and try to escape.

That exchange about something being wrong and am I acting wrong was pretty funny. She is an absolutely terrible liar and she should get arrested right here. I’m excited to see how this plays out.

Knowing what this film is actually about, this movie, set-up wise, is completely taking its time making its way to the Bates Motel and on a completely different plot point. That is pretty interesting to me.

She is a TERRIBLE LIAR. And now two people are almost positive that she has done something. Like he said, he doesn’t want any trouble.

I don’t think someone could act more like they have just stolen or murdered someone than this woman does right now.

These voice-overs are really, really well done.

I like that although it sounds like she’s going to be caught, her face during the flashbacks was that of satisfaction, of being able to steal so easily from him. She doesn’t mind that she will go down as a thief, that she will be known to have stolen it, but just that she got away with it. She’s not a good character because she not only stole, but got away with it BECAUSE of the faith people had in her, and she played on it and is proud of the fact that she thought to do that.

I really enjoy when a villain who comes across as likable.

“With my trusty umbrella”

I wonder if Norman Bates, the actor, actually does the voice of the mother during the argument our protagonist can hear from the window, because if so, that’s a very good old woman voice.

You could take his manner as pretty weird as of now, if she were more aware.

But I think that’s a huge personal trait. She not only cannot lie well, but she also isn’t very aware when strange things are going on around her. Its fitting that she trusts Norman so much when she herself broke so much trust.

“A boy’s best friend is his mother.” Classic line.

“She’s as harmless as one of those stuffed birds” – FORESHADOW. See, shit got real in an instant. She just goes a little mad sometimes, oh my god I completely forgot that the entire reveal is that the mother doesn’t exist. I forgot that up until then that everyone thinks the mother is the killer.

I wonder if the shower scene from this movie was considered risky at the time, showing so much skin.

I also didn’t realize that they just straight up made it look like the mother. Hmm. That makes more sense.

I feel like I almost saw some boob, making my comment about the scene being provocative seem more legitimate.

And there’s the money. It is interesting that they make the plot seem to be about the money (technically, that’s what it IS about) but that no one remembers it for that. They remember it for this motel.

Furthermore, I really like that this female character is dead. Based on trust. It is very cool to have a main character (almost the only character as of now) die so soon into a movie. ALSO I really enjoy this cleaning scene. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t bore me like slow paced moves from old movies do.

So now we have reason to ever look for her again. I like this, it isn’t about the money or anything to do with Miriam, but it’s about the demise of a psycho killer. He’s probably done this a dozen or so times, maybe more.  And it just so happened this time he killed someone who will be followed back to the hotel, and will be caught. Smart.

This is great, he has no idea why this guy is here. No one can lie in this movie.

He’s lying about the wrong thing. It’s a shame, he could have completely told the truth (except for the murder) he probably would have believed.

I’m a little saddened by the fact that I’m positive I saw Norman walk away from the house when Asbergers showed up, and then was somehow on the 2^nd floor after that.

NORMAN BATE’S MOTHER HAS BEEN DEAD FOR YEARS

This psychiatrist is annoying. We get it, he’s acting like his mother. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that he physically did it. So stop saying it like he didn’t.

That’s a great ending. Enjoy your day!

Grapes of Wrath Blogpost

        Grapes of Wrath, a novel by John Steinbeck and soon afterwards a film adaptation by John Ford, follows family struggling to make ends meet, as they cross the country looking for work during the Great Depression. At the very end of the film, our protagonist Tom Joad leaves his family and a pretty decent work camp because and promised to help out all men who couldn’t help themselves, the same way his friend did before he died. This is a completely different ending of the novel, in which the younger family member who was carrying a child finally gives birth, but to a stillborn. She then uses the milk in her breasts to feed some of the men of the camp she is living in. Changing just this scene creates a completely different message of hope that Steinbeck was not trying to approach in his novel. I believe John Ford’s decision to change up this moment shows his desire to win over critical acclaim in sacrifice of making a bold statement. In this sense, I believe that it was a cinematic move. Everyone involved in cinema, producers, audiences members, etc, felt more comfortable with the decision, and are left to enjoy the movie more. However, I believe this change in the film is proof of Ford’s inability to become an auteur. To tailor any part of your film you are creating to Hollywood in hopes of becoming more award-friendly or more audience-friendly shows an alternative motivation for creating films than a theme or message. Whether Ford, or Toland for that matter, was using the same style as previous films is something I cannot comment on, but I do not believe that makes someone an auteur. Instead, to further critique Ford and his decision, I believe not being able to change up your style to fit whatever theme you are trying to promote shows a lack of diversity in your cinematic skills. I can only lower my opinion on this film and Ford if most of his pervious and future works after Grapes of Wrath have a theme of hope and moving onward, but I do not believe if it did he would have chosen this novel to adapt in the first place.

      Auteur theory is an important subsection of film study, especially for students interested in creating films themselves, but there should be strong parameters that educators use when teaching it. I believe auteur theory in a critical sense should be dismissed. There is no reason to categorize a director as am auteur until 100% of his work has been released. If a director or filmmaker is still creating films, we cannot completely categorize him as an auteur. Some examples of current auteur directors were brought up, mainly due to style of film; Tim Burton and Quentin Tarantino are what come to mind. Yet these filmmakers are changing up their style with every film they make. Tim Burton was after all the creator of the first Planet of the Apes adaptation, which I believe to be completely different from Sweeny Todd in every aspect. Quentin Tarantino films are changing as he acquires more and more budgets for his films, and his early work dialogue and long shot work has been replaced with more action heavy scenes. Even Martin Scorsese, who continues to make films after 30 years, changes up his styling. Shutter Island was extremely different from The Departed, and both were on completely different spectrums of the cinematic world to Raging Bull. To study auteur in a critical sense takes away from your views of the films as an individual. Going back to the Scorsese example, if you look at Scorsese as an auteur, you begin connecting themes and styles from Shutter Island to his previous work, trying to make sense not of the film at hand, but instead to fit the director’s choices into predetermined mindsets of themes that he “must” be trying to make. I believe that if looking at a director as an auteur limits your ability to judge a film objectively, it should be left out of the discussion. 

Screening Notes Grapes of Wrath

This is a very uncomfortable hitchhiker.

Someone always told me that movies made in black and white were always made that way for a reason, and I always have to be left thinking older movies are either too old for color, or they meant to be in black and white. I am left wondering that with Grapes of Wrath.

This is a very odd way to go about describing the dust bowls.

Very abrupt flashback cut. Does not feel like a flashback visually.

This is very strange to try and take notes on auteur theory when a) I’ve never seen this director’s current or previous work and b) Have never read the book this is being adapted from.

This is very character heavy I believe.

Did… did he just die? Oh ok. That was a completely emotionless fade away.

The whole movie strikes me as a little emotionless. We have a seemingly unlikable protagonist we are following, and get these excerpts into people’s lives that don’t have much of a opening and then not much of a resolve. Maybe it’ll all get better.

Well that was genuinely nice of the policeman to do. AND so much for not stopping or getting off.

See I don’t like this movie because of little things like “He shoves him towards the car, the person refuses to go, until he is put into handcuffs. He’s put into handcuffs, then walks to the car on his own accord.”

THIS IS SO SLOW.

Help her Tom! You have a gash that’s gonna give you up for a murderer, but you should stay.

They left, absolutely NO suspense between the car breaking down, and coasting “Oh look, we broke down. Let’s coast. Ok.”

Maybe is was for that wacky comic relief of falling out the back. Honestly don’t get movies of the early age.

I just can’t cry for a double murderer as he once again escapes from the law.

Screen Notes Midnight in Paris

Montage at the beginning of Paris.

I already don't like Owen Wilson's wife's character. I hope he leaves her.

Immediately they play with this character of the know it all, who are having all these interactions. I hate every character that's been introduced so far.

Going into the point about how cities look different in film, i can't help but notice how clean everything is. Even the alleyways and the side streets are spotless. 

DONT GET IN THE CAR.

Again, going off heat we talked about, but this movie I think is early on just a fun concept. Own Wilson is just going to go around a see all these different parts of France and get insight into their lives. 

And immediately notice that it'll be something different. I hope we meet some Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises characters. 

This kinda seems like a more adult version of Night at the Museum.

And there's Hemmingway! 

"Writer's are competitive" "If your a writer, declare yourself the best one" 

I'm so glad I have a computer to look up the people. I have no idea who Cole Porter is. 

This characters are so completely exaggerated its, ridiculous. Maybe I'll walk in the rain soon….

Conversation with Hemmingway and Own Wilson is great. I enjoy that.

I hope that picture conversation in exaggerated too, because if not, i know nothing about art and should never even try to be a writer. 

Paul. Paul's the guy I hate. 

I just get mesmerized during the midnight parts, and then Paul shows up again. Or his wife. And I remember I hate them and get distracted and then came here to take notes. 

I'm a little confused on the premise. That he actually goes back time and IS apart of the 1920's? Also did the private investigator see him after he left? Maybe tonight we'll figure it out. 

"You always take the side of the help! That's why daddy says your a communist"