Mien En Scene

For my analysis of a specific movie scene I have chosen the film Goodfellas.
At the beginning of the film there is a very iconic scene centered on the three main characters. Henry, Tommy and Jimmy. Henry is driving the car with Jimmy in the front seat and Tommy at the back. The shot stays at the same angle and covers all three characters in the car. They hear a thumping sound and they start having a conversation about what it is. When they exit the car to check on it they all gather at the back and stare at the trunk. Again they are all in shot. The scene continues and they hear moaning coming from within. Jimmy motions to open the car boot and inside they see a man half dead jerking and groaning in his own blood. Tommy, who had pulled out a big knife, stabs him, and that is followed by Jimmy shooting him. The camera then pans to Henry who closes the boot and looks up past the camera. This ends with a freeze frame and a voice over by Henry.

What makes this scene historic can be broke down in to several different segments.

Camera positioning and movement of the camera have been used to great effect. The director framed all the important pieces into a single shot, this being all three lead characters as well as the boot of the car where the thumping is occurring. Doing this gives us all three different responses to the situation and also how each character converse with facial expressions and gestures, thus letting us monitor their reactions. Using slight panning movements we get to capture the most important features of the scene to fulfill the greater purpose. Keeping the back of the car in frame enables us to register what they are focusing on. Leaving this out of the shot would confuse the audience as to what is happening so it is important to keep it in.

This aside what I find more intriguing is the lighting used in this scene.
Because it is set outside on a dark night in a secluded area there are not many lights, so the director looked at different ways he could shoot the scene.
Considering the only light sources the director chose to use the cars natural lighting to set up the scene. But giving the violent nature of the scene he took advantage of the cars red stop lights to light up the cast members. Having the rest of the backdrops black to enhance the night time theme really gave the shot a dark, horror like quality, which really gave the scene its membarable moment.

I think this is really effective because it enables us to consider every source available.
It withholds the artistic integrity of the director and provides an outstanding unique look.
Any film maker can make good use of these techniques to influence their work and help them sustain their creative ingenuity.

Semiotics

American Psycho is a novel that was made into a movie in the year 2000; it is about a serial killer called Patrick Bateman.
As well as having the serial killer theme, it is also a portrayal of Wall Street in the 1980s, about materialism, value, and vanity. It also blends in its own style of humour, making it more of a comedic watch over a horror/slasher one. The opening credits starts with a blank white canvas that persists through the intro. There is a reason for using this particular colour. In most films about serial killers there is usually an element of darkness and shadows. There is also a lot of red to symbolise blood. This film has taken another approach. Because it is not just about a serial killer, but his own persona of self-perfection and vanity. It has used the colour white for its own symbolisation. The description of the colour white is one of perfection, completeness. It also means to be independent and it is also reflective, something that means something within the film. The film shows how people strive to be perfect, to act pure and innocent. Because the film is also comedic heavy, it wanted to let people know that it isn't as dark and scary as people might have gathered from the name. The white background is also used as a way to phase out of the introduction scene into the storyline. The second most important thing in conjuncture of this is the metaphorical use of preparing a meal that looks similar to a scene of murder. On the white canvas behind we see several blood drops falling and then they hit the floor, also a white canvas. The blood looks a fake, almost computer generated. A hand lifts a large knife out of shot then fades into it whacking it on to a piece of meat, cutting it in two. We then go to see the food being prepared gracefully, obviously at a fine five star restaurant by the way of presentation. This leads into the opening scene with the main actors.
This misleads people to think that something sinister is going on when in truth it is the exact opposite. It makes people think two things. People know what they are watching just by reading the title, but it wants to assure people it is what it says it is, but it also says a lot about characters in the film just by this short opener.






The third thing about the film is the music. At the beginning we can hear a very sharp, eerie sound every time a piece of blood drops. The music gets more sinister along the way then transitions into the restaurants own music.
This is a tool used to shift between both meanings of the sequence. The murders and obviously the restaurant own music. So it starts of a bit dark, and then slowly shifts into calm relaxing music. The same as the opener in general.
All of this, the colours, the music, the way it presents the metaphorical murder for expensive fine dining has all been used so people understands every aspect of the film just by the short opening sequence. To watch this is to understand what is to be expected once the film truly begins.
The thing about this sequence is that it is similar to the T.V show Dexter’s intro scene that was first shown six years later.
Both are about serial killers, who seek to fit in to the modern day world. How the characters wear their own masks to blend in. Both introduction scenes use the metaphorical meal to display their own secret message for violence and murder. American Psycho is very subtle, whereas Dexter makes clear it is a meal, but does so in a way that suggests how he lives and private serial killer lifestyle.
After the introduction scene in American Psycho, Patrick Bateman talks about his daily routine, and shows us how to put on his "mask".
Dexter does the same thing within his own title sequence. How he fulfils his morning routine. Both drawing similar lines.

Both titles are extremely different, but the message is quite clear when looking at both sequences and comparing their similarities. 


Narrative Analysis Blog

Narrative Analysis

For my Narrative Analysis I have chosen the film Reservoir Dogs.
It was one of the first films written and directed by Quinton Tarantino, itis a very interesting film in terms of Narrative storytelling.

It has several main things that make it very unique to all other films out there.

Firstly, it has a none linear storyline, meaning all the sequences are muddled up. So at one moment it might show the present. Then it will go off to the past, then back to normal, then ever further into the past. Despite how confusing this sounds, it works really effectively.

It begins with an opening sequence at a café. It is only one of two scenes that shows all of the characters together. This is mainly used to familiarise people with the characters and all their different personalities. It has no meaning to the story, no connection with the plot itself, it is used primarily to put everything in place and to get us to know the characters better.

This is very interesting because in film, we learn everything there is to know about a character throughout. This has put most of everything into one scene so it doesn't have to try and explain 8 characters individually. So it can spend the rest of the film telling what is important without having to have anything get in the way.

Within the film it has a short backstory of three of the main characters shown at different times. These are the dominant characters so it makes sense for them to have some back story. If it had to tell all there is about every character there would be eight back stories. This is why it simplified it by telling the story of the three main cast and keeping the rest at the beginning.

The second things about this movie is that, even though it is a heist movie, it doesn't show the actually heist, just the events around it. How they met, the planning, and the aftermath. The scene itself is told through dialogue by the characters, and how they are explaining their interpretations of how it happened.

To iterate another way. It has the opening sequence to familiarise with the characters. Then the story starts with the aftermath of the heist. From after the title sequence to the end this is the primary story it tries to tell. It just interjects with key information from the past. Like how people got away from the cops. The back story of several characters, and the planning of the job. It could have shown the planning before, but it would give too much away, and having seen the characters back story we get to see it from a different light. So showing the back stories, then showing the preparation makes more sense because the story is telling more. But showing the back stories from the beginning wouldn't make sense either. Because it gives too much away of the original story. This is why the story shifts around too much. Because we only make sense of every situation after it happens and it doesn't give too much away.

The mechanics of the film don't seem hard to watch either, it is presented in a way that makes it easy to watch. It flows information smoothly so you know what piece goes where and it doesn't become a cluster of random information.

These are a few tools used to tell the story and an overview of how it is structured. I think that is extremely effective is telling the story and how people come to understand the purpose behind it.

Genre Blog

For my paper I have decided to write about gangster movies in film
There are several types of gangster movies. They are best divided into sections by region.

There are your British gangster films. These movies are mainly centered on thugs and hooligans. Gangsters with very little code of respect or honor. They usually involve a lot of fist fighting, drugs, and a lot of unsavory language.
American gangster films usually involve a cast of Italian-Americans who work in their own organizations known as families.
There are also your Chinese/Japanese gangster movies. These are usually a bit more violent and focus of the Yakuza or similar fictional gangs or respected and feared businessman and their crime related involvements. There are also plenty of martial art films that are gang related that center on one lone individual taking the syndicate down.
Other counties have their own gangster movies, but because these are the predominant, I would like to focus on these.

A British Gangster movie is very violent. It deals with street thugs and football hooligans and it contains a large portion of fist fighting and the use of knives and melee weapons, with a gun normally taking an appearance to signify the films peak point.
It is very much a portrayal of the lifestyle dealt with in London and several hard hit areas, because of the violent nature in life. The vision of the film is made to replicate these truths and portray the lives of British gangsters perfectly.
An important factor in British gangster films is the football influence. Britain being one of the dominant countries for club loyalty has spurred on a nation of football hooligans. This is a general theme when playing with British gangster films because it is a huge part of our culture.
So it is almost impossible for another country to replicate it in their cinema.

Because the movies are based on the low lives of society, they often have low budget to work with. Because it is not dealing with glitz and glamour, they don't need all the resources a film would normally need.
This makes them easy to produce so they are made with the same quality and aesthetics of every other film, and since movies like The Football Factory and This is England have been released, we have seem many duplicates of these types of film. Artistic vision has often been replicated based on several successes in that regions cinema.

With American gangster films they try to make things a bit more serious. Less continuous violence, and funnel elements of historical facts to utilize the reality of the story.
The most successful gangster movies to date include The Godfather, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco and many others.

The thing about all these movies is that they are inspired by true stories.

The Godfather was based on the Five Families of New York that ran since 1931. Although not directly told through their point of view, all the themes and elements that made the film where influenced by the real gangsters of those times.
Goodfellas is another good example. It is a slightly dramatized retelling of the story of Henry Hill, a real life gangster between 1955 and the 1980s, and it is told through first person narrative.

In comparison to British movies, American ganster movies are usually more serious. The actors are well spoken, with an honorable dress code. Mainly suites, bowler hats and so forth. They are fluent with their language, keep swearing to a minimum compared to British movies, and are essentially less upbeat, prolonged, and have a assortment of music tracks spanning from the 30s to the late 80s.