Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Kornelija Gudzeviciute
Student ID: 5824283
Everyone has his or her favourite film or movie which they can
watch more then one time. When we are watching movies we never
pay a lot of attention to details. For example, what were cameras
angles, what was music and visual effects? According by David
Bordwell masses of people belong to the first tier where film is just
for entertain purpose. They aesthetics are actors and music and the
most important part of the film is narrative. Today, I will try to look
with the first and second tears and analyse them. As an example I
chose the film The Prestige directed by Christopher Nolan in 2006.
The director is famous for his innovated narration techniques such
as his precise editing to confuse the audience with plot twists.
(Harverstockmedia, 2014) This film is a thriller drama and I will
compare, contrast and juxtapose it with Andr Bazins
understanding and application of the theoretical positions. Bazin is
one of the most famous French film critics and theorists who had
important thoughts that cinema try to represent reality. A total and
complete representation of reality the reconstruction of a perfect
illusion of the outside word in sound, color, and relief a recreation
of the world in its own image, an image unburdened by the freedom
of interpretation of the artist or the irreversibility of time. (A. Bazin
1967) He also argued that an audience should interpret films. His
thoughts and theories will help me to look more deeply to my
chosen film and examine what similarities and differences
Hollywood Classical Narrative Cinema and famous theorists theories
have.
First of all, I would like to examine more about The Prestige context
and what influence external factors had in it. To start with the
context, Christopher Nolans film explores what makes an illusionist
tricks and how men extremely achieve their deceptive performance.
The film is not about trick at all, but rather our and characters
helplessness obsession. Moreover, The Prestige is told through a
fragmented timeline. It is constructed as a post-modern puzzle,
framing stories within stories, flashbacks within flashbacks.
(Jamarch 2008). Film is related with magicians and the big
performance in theatres stage where cinema was started. First
movies where shooting in theatres because filmmakers wanted to
show what people are doing, to show reality. My chosen film shows
not just reality between magicians and audience but also you can
see what a big influence had an economic and technical evolution
and the imagination of those things. Bazin was arguing that
production of technology reproduce reality as it is perceived.
Furthermore, we can see in The Prestige film parts of technical
evolution factors. For example, when director involve machine in
this film. One of them was physicist, mechanical and electrical
engineer, scientist inventor. Machine was created to make clones.
Moreover, film The Prestige how magician needed to use this
technology to have a good trick. It shows that even in magical word
Bibliography:
Andrew,D.(2010)OpeningBazin:PostwarFilmTheoryAnItsAfterlife.New
York:OxfordUniversityPress
Bazin,A.andGray,H.(1967)WhatIsCinema?.Berkeley:Universityof
CaliforniaPress
Brunette,P.(1985)"RosselliniAndCinematicRealism".CinemaJournal25
(1),34
Duckworth,A.R.(2008)InfluentialTheorists:AndreBazinTheMythOf
TotalCinema[online]availablefrom
<https://ardfilmjournal.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/influentialtheoristsandre
bazinthemythoftotalcinema/>[10March2016]
Shapiro,S.(2001)TheCinemaOfAbsence[online]availablefrom
<http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=7939>[10March2016]
Totaro,D.(2003)IntroductionToAndrBazin,Part1:TheoryOfFilmStyle
InItsHistoricalContext[online]availablefrom
<http://offscreen.com/view/bazin4>[10March2016]
Mygroupsremakeclip:https://vimeo.com/154823608
Dossiertasks:
Sucker Punch
The film which made me think a lot what I saw in the screen. I was
confused by the genre, about the story, about jumps between shots
between reality and fantasy. A lot of special and sound effects
transfer my mind into film really deeply. Sad and dark music let me
understand one of the characters Babydolls feelings and how sad
she is. Special video effects were massing around with my minds
because I wasnt sure is it stupid and crazy and really unnatural or it
is really great work. It was really feminist film where majority of
characters were women. I like that all girls had nicknames and it
gave each of them a sense of danger, mystery. It was really great
where you can see different symbols represent different genre of
films. Dragons and rabbit from fantasy, robots from sci-fi. It was
used voice over which gives girl a voice and sense of empowerment.
When she is dancing location is changing really fast. She jumps from
reality to fantasy. The non-diegetic music used in the fantasy world.
You can hear electric guitar or heavy rock drum beat which is an
element of action genre films. For me, it is a film thats at once too
much and not enough, groovy and laughable, dead serious and total
joke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoebZZ8K5N0
IchosefilmTheRevenantdirectedbyAlejandroGonzlez.Before,Italian
neorealism,filmmakersdidntshownegativesideintheirfilms.Theydidnt
wanttoshowalotofproblemsinunequalsociety,increaseofunemployment
becausetheyknewthatpeopledidntwanttowatchthis.Butin1943intheend
oftheWorldWarIINeorealismbecamethemainstreamofItaliancinema.
NeorealismwasarejectionofclassicalHollywoodactingstyles,a
documentarystyleofcinematography.Usually,itwasnonprofessionalsactors,
theyhadverysmallbudget,filmdidnthavehappyendlikeinHollywood
movies.OntheonesideTheRevenantwastotaldifferentfromneorealism,
butatthesametimewecanfindalotofsimilarities.Oneofthemwillbe
outdoorshooting.Whenneorealismstartedfilmmakerswereusingnatural
spacetoshowwhatisgoingoninthestreets,alsotheywerefocusonsimple
gestures,glances.IntheAlejandrofilmTheRevenantwasusednatural
spacesaswell.Allsceneswereshootingoutsidewherewerereallycold.
Moreover,thesamestyleinTheRevenantandneorealismisthatthey
wantedtocapturethebeautyofordinarylife.InTheRevenanttheyshowed
allbeautyofCanadianwilderness.Thefilmwasreallyamazingbecauseofthe
naturaloflandscapes.Also,theyusedopenformnarrativewhichwecansee
inmychosenfilm.Theytoldallsocialproblemswhichareworldaredealing
with.Oneofthemisclimatechange.Itisahugeprobleminnowadaysandthey
spreadthehugemessagetoeveryonethroughthefilm.Furthermore,filmhas
cameratechniqueswhicharetypicaltoneorealism.Itwillbelongtakes,
mediumandlongshots,profileangles.Filmmakersofneorealismhighlighted
therealityofsocietalproblemsanddidntadornit.IthinkthatfilmThe
Revenanthasalotofsimilaritieswithneorealism.