Miss Yujin's Film Studies

Realism in Juno (2007)

2009-11-29T16:14:00.000-08:00

Juno (2007) is a comedy drama film about a young high school girl named Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) confronting an unplanned pregnancy. Along the way of illustrating the events in Juno's life that results from this, the film introduces the audience to refreshing characters and gives a look into the American high school which Juno and her friends attend.

In the following sequence of shots, she is ridiculed by a classmate and then reflects upon the strange dynamics of high school social relationships. By breaking the common stereotypes people hold about such relationships, the film becomes much more realistic. It also uses a variety of other cinematic techniques to portray realism either directly or via contrast.

In the above shots, Juno drops her textbooks and is mocked by a male jock named Steve Rendazo (Daniel Clark). After he passes with his friends, Juno says, in a voice over, that he "secretly wants" her. The audience then sees the said Steve Rendazo looking longingly back at her, then an image of a blond, well-dressed female high school student whose look begins to change as Juno lists the qualities she considers to be those of "freaky girls" like herself. She mentions that he would not admit liking her because he is "supposed to be" into the "perfect cheerleaders" like her friend Leah (Olivia Thirlby), who, "incidentally, is into teachers."

The romantic interests portrayed in this series of shots are far from what one would expect to see in a typical high school, yet because they break the stereotype they appear much more interesting and realistic. Other cinematic characteristics from the shots also indicate that the director wanted to create believable environment and characters.

In the first shot, the audience sees Juno opening her locker in the school hallway to get her books. As the audience sees the locker open and her left side, it also gets a glimpse of the inside of her locker door, which she has adorned with several images and items.

Although Juno would come to hint that she classifies herself as one of the "freaky girls" she mentions later in the sequence, she does not quite fit the stereotype she explains then. Juno does not fit any particular stereotype, which makes her a unique, believable character of her own. A look at the locker door tells the audience this rather effectively.

She has several photos of her and her friend Leah, a "perfect cheerleader". That a unique character like Juno would have a friend who she places in a stereotype (which, "incidentally," Leah does not quite fit into, either) makes Juno a much more believable character. This is because it shows that by having such a friend as Leah, Juno herself does not really fit into the stereotype of the "freaky" girl.

There are other things on the locker door that portrays Juno as a unique and therefore a believable character. For example, she has a small rubber snake clipped onto the door and some sticker name tags with words in graffiti. These show the more tomboyish side of Juno, giving her character some more depth and therefore making her even more realistic.

In this shot, Juno drops her books, turns from the camera, and moves to the right, with the camera following her. She drops to her knees to pick up the books, and that is when the focus of the scene shifts. The camera, instead of following her down, starts following a group of boys walking down the hallway.

The mise-en-scene here is quite important. Even before Juno comments that Steve Rendazzo is a jock in shot five, the audience can get the hint from the banner behind his group of friends. The message on the banner becomes readable only as soon as they walk into the scene. It reads: “Football Pep Rally,” which hints that they are a group of athletes.

The banner here is perhaps the only hint to indicate that Steve Rendazo and his friends are athletes; nothing else about them could tell the audience that they belonged to a particular group. This is again where the audience can see that the characters are very realistic. In other films portraying high school students, the “jocks” are often readily recognizable.

For one, they are often seen carrying something that represents their devotion to a sport, such as a basketball or a football:

As for attire, they are often seen in a school jersey they wear with pride:

However, the “jocks” in Juno are different. They are dressed rather like everyone else at the school. One of his friends may even be considered slightly Goth with his large silver cross, et cetera. Even the person Juno classifies into a stereotype does not quite fit into what the audience is used to seeing in films, which makes the characters much more realistic. It suggests that there is more to each character than what the labels of stereotypes indicate, hinting there is more depth to each person.

In this first shot, Steve Rendazzo says, “your book fell apart” and stares down directly at Juno. In the next shot we see Juno, who looks up from her fallen-apart book to stare back at Steve, says “right?” and then returns to gathering up her book. As she is on the floor she does not move, but the camera moves. It is in the point of view of Steve, who is walking constantly. This emphasizes that it is a quick conversation that takes commonplace in real life; Steve does not even stop to talk to her, and neither does the camera. Also, “shot-reverse shot over a continuous soundtrack to represent a conversation” (Turner 17). Such technique is used to represent realism in cinema. Turner further writes:

“Certainly, the feature film, like the realist novel, sets out to construct a realistic world, to provide psychological depth for its characters, and to place itself within notions of real life” (18).

We have already established that the characters in Juno have much more depth than there stereotyped characters in some other films. Combined with the cinematic techniques such as the continuity editing using shot-reverse shot, such characters create “a realistic world” “within notions of real life”.

This constantly moving, shot-reverse shot conversation continues onto the third shot in which Steve makes fun of Juno by saying that the reason why her book fell apart is because it looked at her face. In the fourth shot we hear he and his friends laughing as they walk away but see Juno getting up, looking annoyed. This points out that it is she who they are laughing at, which further establishes that it is a continuous, uninterrupted communication with no confusion as to who its participants are.

As Juno gets up, the camera follows her up. She cocks her head in the process, and her voiceover starts with “The funny thing is…” As her voiceover begins the background music enters a different part of the song in which it is purely instrumental, whereas before it included the singer singing “doo-doo-doo-doo”. The change in music helps establish that the real-life conversation between the two characters has ended and that the audience is now entering Juno’s narration.

The music is the mostly instrumental version of Kimya Dawson’s song, My Rollercoaster. The original is below:

The original song starts with the following lyrics:

“You were on my mind at least nine tenths of yesterday
it seemed as if perhaps I'd gone insane
what is it about you that has commandeered my brain?
Maybe it's your awesome songs or maybe it's the way
when I look at your face I can tell that you're not going to be stopping soon or even slowing down”

The lyrics could apply to how Steve Rendazo feels about Juno. As the audience would get to learn very soon, he is attracted to Juno but is afraid to admit it. It is likely he is not too sure “what it is about [Juno] that has commandeered [his] brain.” For those familiar with the song, the music would be the earliest indicator that Steve is attracted to Juno.

As Juno gets up and starts her voiceover, the camera moves in a strange angle as Juno cocks her head back. It sets itself straight at the same time Juno sets her head straight. This unconventional, flowing movement of the camera further establishes, along with the music, we are now leaving the real world for a while and entering Juno’s thoughts. This helps set the boundary clear between the real world and Juno’s thoughts, which makes the sequence of events easier to follow and therefore much more believable.

The shot-reverse shot continues on throughout these scenes, however. Juno, in her voiceover, says: “Jocks like him always want freaky girls.” As she says “jocks like him” we move onto the fifth shot, which is a slow motion shot of Steve Rendazo looking back at Juno with a more serious look on his face, with the humor from the tasteless joke completely gone. His look directly reaffirms Juno’s rather blatant statement from the previous shot that he “secretly wants” her.

In the sixth shot, we not only hear Juno’s thoughts but also visually see it. We first see a well-groomed, blond girl in a short skirt, white blouse, and a light, pale pink cashmere sweater top. It is interesting that Juno would start out with such an image; it seems to be the image of what Juno considers to be a typical girl she definitely does not identify herself with. It is also frozen in place, with her arms to her side in an extremely unnatural looking pose. She seems more like a mannequin than a person.

As Juno explains the details of what she considers are the characteristics of a “freaky” girl, the figure changes accordingly and also in ways Juno does not mention. Juno says, “Girls with horn-rimmed glasses and vegan footwear and Goth makeup.” Meanwhile, the figure not only gets the said glasses, footwear (although one cannot tell by looking that it is indeed vegan), and Goth makeup but also gets different layers of darker clothing and black hair.

When Juno finishes with the comment about Goth makeup the previously frozen figure becomes real; she moves and looks rather surprised to see how she has changed.

As she stares down at her hand, she gets frozen back and her posture is kept as she holds a cello and a bow and Juno continues her narration: “Girls who, like, play the cello and read McSweeneys and want to be children’s librarians when they grow up”. Playing the cello, reading McSweeneys (an independent American publishing company) and aspiring to become a children’s librarian is a rather strange mix of interests. That Juno would think these up and put them together in her head gives the audience a glimpse of her creativity, which is yet another layer to her character.

The sound that plays whenever a change is made to the figure is also interesting. It is a high-pitched popping noise that sounds computer-generated, which goes along with the largely unnatural image of the figure Juno thinks up. The entire shot gives one the feel of jump cuts as things are added and taken away from this mannequin-like figure. Since realism is almost impossible to portray in this shot that takes place inside Juno’s head, the filmmaker seems to have opted to make it seem as unreal as possible to create a contrast to the real world Juno resides in. This contrast is emphasized by the previously mentioned moment in which the figure moves as if suddenly come alive.

The camera returns to the real world in the seventh shot. We see Steve Rendazo looking back at Juno and then turning to walk off, this time not in slow motion. This shows that we are now back to the more real world in which time is again constant.

Steve is walking in the direction he has been traveling in and therefore should look there, but he is staring back at Juno, whom he is secretly attracted to. Directly in the scene in his direction is yet another banner, which reads: “Cheerleader Tryouts”.

This is a direct foreshadow of what is to come later; Juno comments that although Steve likes her, he is too afraid to admit it because he is “supposed to be into” the “perfect cheerleaders”. Steve is “supposed to be” looking in the direction he is traveling, which holds the banner with the word “cheerleader,” yet he stares longingly back at Juno. The breaking of the high school social relationship stereotypes in the film is one of the largest factors that contribute to its portrayal of realism.

In the eighth shot, Juno makes the comment about Steve’s reluctance to admit to liking her in her voiceover. The audience sees her looking back at Steve (shot-reverse shot) and then turning a bit to stare somewhere else. As she says, “…they’re supposed to be into, like, the perfect cheerleaders, you know?” we move onto the ninth shot at the word “cheerleaders”. Through eye line match, the audience sees what Juno has turned to see: Leah, her cheerleader best friend, and a teacher. Leah is seen talking animatedly with him, though the audience cannot hear exactly what because the rest of the real world’s volume has been turned down to give focus to Juno’s narration.

Leah, the “perfect cheerleader” in the film, “incidentally, is into teachers.” As Juno finishes her narration, we return completely to the real world and the volume of her surrounding increases back. We hear Leah say to the teacher, “Me, too! I love Woody Allen!”

Leah and the teacher were presumably talking about Woody Allen, an American film director, actor, writer, comedian, and musician. He has been respected in the film industry for decades to come, which means the teacher, who is many years Leah’s senior, would know him. That Leah mentions her admiration for Allen shows she is trying to express a common interest between her and the teacher.

Although Allen is world-renown as a successful director, his romantic relationships have been highly publicized as well. At age nineteen he married the then-minor Harlene Rosen, who was sixteen years old. After some more marriages and divorces he became involved with actress Mia Farrow, who is ten years younger than he is. Although he never married her, they adopted two children together. Farrow was married to a composer named André Previn, and together adopted some children including Soon-Yi Previn.

In 1992 it was revealed that Soon-Yi was having a relationship with Woody Allen, who is thirty-four years older than she is. They married in 1997. The large age difference and the seemingly inappropriate nature of the relationship (as she was his partner’s adoptive daughter) came under great heated debate in the 1990s.

The mention of Woody Allen in this shot, therefore, may be an indication of how similar the situation would be if Leah were to attempt to develop a real romantic relationship with the teacher. Adding to the impropriety of this relationship is a sign behind them which reads: “Vice is Nice!”

That Leah would be attracted to the teacher at her school, as is Steve Rendazo’s attraction to Juno, is unconventional of the high school relationships seen often in commercial films. This is another opposition to what the audience would have been expecting to see in a film that displays relationships between high school students.

The following is a quote from The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema by Daniel Dayan as he explains points given by Jean-Pierre Oudart: “the impression of reality produced testifies that the figurative codes are ‘natural’ (instead of being ideological products)” (111). The stereotyped characters would be the “ideological products” here, which Juno definitely tries to break away from.

The social relationships portrayed in the film, along with several cinematic techniques and hints given throughout the sequence of shots, attempt to illustrate a believable world with realistic characters that do not easily fit into stereotypes.

Written Works Cited:

Turner, Graeme. Film as Social Practice. IV. New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Dayan, Daniel. "The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema."Film Theory& Criticism. 7th Ed. (1974): 106-117. Print.

Subtle Revelations Through Shot by Shot Analysis

2009-11-14T22:58:00.001-08:00

She's the Man (2006) is a romantic comedy film based on William Shakespeare's play "Twelfth Night". In this modernized interpretation of the famous work, a high school soccer player named Viola Hastings (Amanda Bynes) finds that the female soccer team at her school, Cornwall, got cut. She and her teammates are denied the opportunity to try out for the male team, as the coach laughs and dismisses the idea that girls could be good enough to compete with boys. At the same time, Viola's fraternal twin brother, Sebastian (James Kirk), needs to start at Cornwall's rival school Illyria but wants to go to London so that he may be able to perform with his band. He asks Viola to call the new school and make up an excuse as to why he would come to school late. However, Viola decides to disguise herself as her brother and join Illyria's soccer team so that she may be able to prove to everyone that she could play with and against male players.

For a shot by shot analysis I randomly selected the part in which Viola talks on the phone with her brother while he is in London playing music with his band. He explains what great enthusiasm with which the band was received in London and mentions that he will end things with his girlfriend, Monique (Alex Breckenridge). Viola absentmindedly scratches at her wig while talking with Sebastian. Illyria's very friendly but slightly odd Principal Gold (David Cross) notices this and approaches closer with the conclusion that she has male pattern baldness.

This rather simple sequence of shots involving two dialogues subtly reveals a lot, including a hinted reference to the play the film is based on, significance of what hair and use of a wig symbolize, the characters' personalities, and more.

The first shot, which begins at 38:45, is right after when Sebastian asks Viola if she has called his school. She replies she has done so and reminds him to be "back by the twelfth," which is a reference to the original play's title, "Twelfth Night". Meanwhile, Principal Gold is in the background cleaning a window. The camera does not move in this shot except at the very beginning; it moves extremely slightly to expose a bit of the right, in the same direction Principal Gold is in. This would allow those more observant to notice his presence, but Sebastian's voice and the music in his background effectively takes the focus off of Principal Gold. This makes his presence, and slow approach seem very subtle.

The second shot is rather short. In it the audience briefly sees Sebastian in London. The music that had been playing in the background, along with his voice, gets louder to show that the audience has now been taken to where Sebastian occupies the physical narrative space. It is a closer shot of a character than in the last shot; Sebastian fills up more of the screen and the focus is entirely on him, perhaps to emphasize his mood of self-fulfillment and excitement.

The only line we both hear and see spoken by Sebastian here is "they went nuts for my lyrics". Olivia (Laura Ramsey), a pretty girl at Illyria, takes great interest in Viola disguised as Sebastian and one of the main things which attract her to him is the lyrics he wrote. While in a lab class Olivia finds a piece of paper on which Sebastian wrote his lyrics for a song, and this greatly touches her. Therefore, although Olivia first falls for Viola disguised as Sebastian, she does not have too much trouble connecting with the real Sebastian later because the lyrics were still his. In fact, Olivia's first encounter with the real Sebastian consists of her kissing him and then whispering his lyrics into his ear:

In the third shot the audience is taken back to Viola. She continues to talk with Sebastian, and meanwhile Principal Gold approaches closer and puts down his cleaning supplies on the stairs next to her. That he would put his thing down shows that his focus is now on Viola, and by this time most of the audience would notice the principal's presence in the scene.

Another significant thing to notice in this sequence of shots would be that her conversation with Sebastian are one of the very few instances in which Viola can break out of her character of being Sebastian. This is her relief, and she subconsciously extends this relief to complain, through her gesture, about the hardships of living in a disguise all day and night. Her scratching and pulling of her wig makes it rather obvious that she is wearing one.

The fourth shot we are taken back to Sebastian, and his voice and the background music is amplified again. Like the second shot it is very brief. The majority of what Sebastian says is played while the audience sees Viola and Principal Gold. This allows the audience to see the central action, Viola's meddling with the wig, which foreshadows the upcoming confrontation. The subtle approach of Principal Gold, of course, adds to this. However, the insertion of very brief shots of Sebastian in London keeps reminding the audience of the conversation between the twins being held. This serves the role of continuously distracting the audience from preparing for or at least anticipating Principal Gold's confrontation with Viola.

The only line in this shot is "She's history," referring to Sebastian's girlfriend, Monique. The fact that the real Sebastian is announcing that he will end things with her is of considerable importance, which explains why that particular line was chosen to be said while Sebastian is present in the shot. Earlier in the film Viola, disguised as Sebastian, unceremoniously dumps Monique. That the real Sebastian would reaffirm this and with the amplified voice and screen presence justifies Viola's breaking up of the couple.

The fifth shot is the longest of the five shots. In the beginning of the shot the camera reveals a great deal to the right and shows Principal Gold staring rather ostensibly at Viola as she pulls and pushes at her wig. His presence now is impossible to miss. Because his approach was so subtly filmed, the audience shares Viola's surprise and minor panic at seeing him so close to her, added by his line, "Problem with your wig, Hastings?"

In this film hair takes on much meaning. The entire movie focuses on femininity and masculinity, and Viola's long hair symbolizes the former. Her central disguise as a boy would definitely be her wig, and later in the film when she tries to reveal her sexual identity the first thing she does is to take off her wig.

Her true identity is obscured to many characters for the majority of the film. The audience identifies nevertheless with her, as it knows and understands her situation. Daniel Dayan, in "The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema," writes: "Identity is thus a formal structure which fundamentally depends upon an identification." Viola's identity, however confusing it may be for other characters in the film, is very clear to the audience and even somehow possible to relate to because the audience identifies itself with her character.

Principal Gold's first line makes it seem as if Principal Gold knows all about Viola's secret. As Viola quickly says that she has "a scalp condition," he repeats, "no, you don't!", adding to the panic both Viola and the audience feels. As the principal presses on, behind him the audience can see a student couple sitting on the stairs. The male student has a considerable amount of curly hair, and the female student is seen touching and pushing at it, rather violently so. This reemphasizes, again very subtly, that the main focus of the now started conflict involves hair.

Right after Principal Gold announces that Viola has "male pattern baldness," he walks over closer to her and the camera follows him. This obscures the view of the two students in the back and emphasizes that the focus of the shot is now solely on Principal Gold. The camera keeps on moving until Principal Gold says, referring to his own baldness: "just can't stop Mother Nature's vindictive fury and neither can you." The stopping of the camera demands the audience's attention and forces it to pay concentrate on what is to be further said. The shot ends at 39:57 as he finishes his talk about baldness and leaves.

Although these shots are of two simple conversations, close analysis of them subtly reveal so much about the film and the characters. There are references to not only "Twelfth Night" but also what happened earlier in the film and foreshadows some of what is to happen later on. The comical monologue David Cross delivers as Principal Gold is in fact of the least importance in the analysis of shots; it is the small, subtle hints spread throughout that reveals the most.

7 Stylistics of Film Noir

2009-10-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

Paul Schrader writes in his article, "Notes on Film Noir," the following: "There is not yet a study of the stylistics of film noir, and the task is certainly too large to be attempted here...For the present, however, I'd like to point out some of film noir's recurring techniques." We will now examine the seven of these "recurring techinques" Schrader points out and see how they apply to some films that are often classified as noir.

The first stylistic seems straight forward; after all, the word 'noir' in French means 'black'. Schrader writes, "one always has the suspicion that if the lights were all suddenly flipped on, the characters would shriek and shrink from the scene like Count Dracula at sunrise."

Vampire kitties are certainly noir.

So there is an overall lack of bright lighting in noir films. This certainly seems to be the case for films such as Chinatown and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; although there are plenty of scenes with adequate lighting (such as the outdoor garden scenes in the former and couple of flashbacks in the latter film), much of the scenes that make up the story take place at night outdoors or in poorly lighted indoor spaces. It is also the case for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo:

The second stylistic would be "oblique and vertical lines...light enters the dingy rooms of film noir in such odd shapes - jagged trapezoid, obtuse triangles, vertical slits- that one suspects the windows were cut out with penknife." We do see examples of this in some of the noir films. The following is a black-and-white still from "Chinatown":

The lighting from the window is slanted rather than nicely horizontal. Schrader writes that such "oblique and vertical lines are preferred to horizontal." The purpose? This kind of light is unsettling, "making it restless and unstable."

The third technique again has much to do with lighting. Instead of putting the light emphasis on the central character, noir films often hide him in the dark. "...in film noir, the central character is likely to be standing in the shadow. When the environment is given an equal or greater weight than the actor, it, of course, creates a fatalistic, hopeless mood." We see once again that noir films are far from making its audience feel comfortable.

Example of this technique from "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang":

As I have marked on the screenshot above, the main character is unlit; he looks more like a shadow. Yet his environment is better lit, with orange light in the background and a lamp on the left.

The fourth stylistic of noir according to Schrader is that "compositional tension is preferred to physical action." Instead of putting too much emphasis on the physical actions of the character, there's much of "measured pacing, restrained anger, and oppresive compositions." This plays into the discomfort noir films seem quite fond of making its audience experience. Of course, in many noir films physical actions, many violent, are prevalent, but there is always a good deal of "oppressive compositions" that are much less expressive but still make the audience squirm.

...much less expressive but still make the audience squirm...

The fifth stylistic would be that "there seems to be an almost Freudian attachment to water." Although Schrader's point lacks a hypothesis in why there is so much water and wetness in noir films, such do appear often. Chinatown, for example has much to do with water, with many scenes with and references to lakes, ponds, dams, and drowning. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang's first present-day scene takes place at a pool, and many of the streets are "almost always glistening with fresh rain (even in Los Angeles)."

One can only speculate upon the reasoning behind all this wetness in noir films. There is something uncontrollable about water, something beyond human control in the same sense as Noah's flood, which could play into the overall discomforting feel of noir.

"A love of romantic narration" would be the sixth stylistic of noir films according to Schrader. He speaks temps perdu, which means "an irretrievable past, a predetermined fate, and an all-enveloping hopelessness."

In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang complications arise due to what was in the past, and characters struggle with the fact that what is done cannot be changed. Harmony Lane (played by Michelle Monaghan), an aspiring actress, feels that she is getting old and that it is too difficult for her to compete with the younger women in the entertainment business. Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) gets extremely upset that Harmony slept with his friend in high school when he asked her not to although it was a long time ago.

In Vertigo Scottie (James Stewart) struggles thinking he could have prevented the death of a woman whom he believes to be named Madeline Elster (Kim Novak). When he meets Judy, who had been acting as Madeline, he becomes obsessed with getting a second chance; he makes Judy dress like Madeline and takes her to the top of a church where Madeline supposedly "died". He wants to "save" her this time as he had failed to do so previously. This seems to make the "past" seem not so "irretrievable" as the first part of temps perdu. However, it all is a part of "a predetermined fate," for Judy falls off the top of the church and dies just as Madeline had.

The ideas of both an irretrievable past and a predetermined fate work together to create the said "all-enveloping hopelessness"; there is nothing to be done about the past, and if the future is predetermined, where is the sense of human control people so desire? It again goes back to the strong feel of discomfort as mentioned earlier.

The seventh stylistic is the use of "complex chronological order" which is "frequently used to reinforce the feelings of hopelessness and lost time" created by all of these techniques working together. This is immediately apparent in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The audience sees a scene of Harry at a party and then finds out how he got there.

Harry further claims that he is a "bad narrator" and certainly lives up to that title by forgetting to explain several back stories and having to go back a couple of times. This makes the film viewing rather confusing and adds to the overall discomfort.

With so much ambiguity concerning whether film noir is even a genre or not, Paul Schrader does a nice job in listing some of its recurring stylistics to aid in better understanding of it.

Narrative Space in Sleepless in Seattle and Suspicion

2009-10-09T11:12:00.000-07:00

What is narrative space? In both writing and in film, it refers to any space in which a narrative can take place. This space does not necessarily have to be always physical: it can be emotional, psychological. Many films take use of these intangible narrative spaces to create moods and tones. In this post we shall examine two films: Sleepless in Seattle and Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion.

In Sleepless in Seattle, the physical space of the top of the Empire State Building carries with it a meaning. Annie and her friend imply that they have seen the film An Affair to Remember "too many times"; in the 1957 film which inspired Sleepless in Seattle, two lovers reconcile, by fate, at the top of the Empire State Building in New York. The viewers of Sleepless in Seattle come to identify, as Annie and her friend do, the physical space of Empire State Building as a symbol for true love and destiny.

As in the film An Affair to Remember, the arrangement to meet on top of the building does not turn out well: Annie decides against it and Sam disregards it completely. Sam only goes to New York to find his son, Jonah, who has traveled to New York so at least he could meet Annie. She does not turn up, and disappointed Jonah leaves with his father. Annie, after finally coming clean to her fiance Walter about her previous plans to meet Sam, and seeing a lights display of a heart in celebration of Valentine's Day on the Empire State Building (this reestablishes the building as a narrative space of love), breaks up with Walter. She decides last minute that she wants to go to the top of the Empire State Building at least to see if Sam would be there.

When she arrives, as it is very late, she finds no one. She does, however, find Jonah's backpack with a teddy bear in it. It is then that Jonah and Sam return to find it. Sam and Annie, in various twists of fate (as the audience comes to believe by that point), finally meet. The narrative space is not merely physical; it sets the mood for romance and destiny. The film's use of clips and music from An Affair to Remember accentuates this tone-filled narrative space.

In Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Suspicion, the physical space of the main characters' home is also a space of "suspicion" according to Stephen Heath. Lina is extremely suspicious of her husband, Johnnie, who has been revealed to have lied to her or kept facts from her on many occasions. She suspects that he would be capable of committing crimes as awful as murder in order to get what he wants, and her home represents this fairly well. For example, the high windows cast a shadow that resembles a spider-web upon the living space and the people, symbolizing the complex web of suspicion Lina is forming out of what she seems to consider to be hints.

Furthermore, when Lina is reading a newspaper article which convinces her that Johnnie has murdered his friend, the audience can see a large portrait of her late father behind her. Her father greatly disproved of Lina and Johnnie's marriage, so his portrait reminds the audience of his suspicions as if reaffirming them.

The audience is also given a hint that there is a different way of looking at this narrative space by showing one of the inspectors being drawn to a Picasso drawing on a wall. This is the way out of the space of suspicion: out of this particular space one would be able to see a different space that is free of Lina's suspicions. Picasso's paintings epitomize the way in which Modernist artists depict things: things are rarely depicted as how they are perceived normally. Is there a different way of looking at this situation?

Likewise, non-physical narrative spaces are used often in films in order to associate certain moods or underlying ideas with the physical spaces in the film. It can be very effective in convincing the viewers to see things from the perspective which the director or the cinematographer may have intended.

My Sister's Keeper

2009-09-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

It's semi-lit in the theater, filled with more people that you expected. You look around and see a male in the theater, presumably with his girlfriend. You smile to yourself. Ah, there comes another one. That makes two, and alas, the theater darkens and the movie begins. This noticeable lack of males in the theater is not too alarming; after all, you know it's a weep story. After all, it's My Sister's Keeper (2009).

I am not a big fan of sad drama movies. My love for romance movies is limited to romantic comedies such as You've Got Mail (1998), She's the Man (2006), and The Proposal (2009), which is why I have to this day refused to watch some of the romance drama films like The Notebook (2004). I therefore was not too enthusiastic about watching a film from the makers of The Notebook involving a girl with leukemia and her family. I am not, on the other hand, completely against these drama films, either, which led me to believe I would be able to deliver an unbiased review on one.

The film is based on a novel of the same name by Jodi Picoult, although with several differences such as the ending. One of the biggest criticisms the film has received from the general audience has unfortunately and wrongfully been its difference from the novel.

The film follows the story of the Fitzgeralds, composed of a fireman father Brian (Jason Patric), ex-lawyer mother Sara (Cameron Diaz), eldest son Jesse (Evan Ellingson), and daughters Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) and Anna (Abigail Breslin). When Brian and Sara discover that Kate has leukemia, they decide to conceive another child, Anna, genetically engineered to match Kate perfectly. In many ways, it was their only hope, and for eleven years since her birth Anna provides blood, bone marrow, and whatever else is needed to prolong her sister's life. She does not seem to mind, as she and her sister have a surprisingly good relationship. All goes haywire, however, when Kate's kidney fails and is in need of Anna's. Anna consults a famous lawyer (Alec Baldwin) and sues her parents for medical emancipation so that she may be able to be in charge of her own body.

So far it seems like an exciting legal battle story. However, after a series of various flashbacks which take up the majority of the film, Anna's true reason for the lawsuit is revealed: Kate no longer wants to live and asked Anna to file the lawsuit. Sara finally relents and Anna does not donate the kidney. Kate dies in her sleep, and Anna receives the result of the lawsuit and learns that she has won the medical emancipation rights.

The real motive for the lawsuit certainly puts Anna's character in a better light, but it does turn a rather interesting legal story into a sad, moving one. Plot-wise it definitely would be considered a twist, although not a necessarily shocking one given the noticeable lack of dispute between the sisters during the lawsuit procedures.

The majority of the film, as mentioned previously, comprises of several flashbacks to the past that reveal more about the characters and how Kate's disease affected not only her but also those around her. Her brother Jesse, for example, has always felt neglected by his parents because all the attention had to paid to Kate. This is emphasized by Sara and Brian's lateness in realizing Jesse's dyslexia and the fact that he wanders about the streets at night away from home without his parents noticing his absence. While definitely interesting and perhaps necessary to give the audience a better understanding of the family, many of the flashbacks are irrelevant to the lawsuit at hand and can make the plot seem scattered.

Few of the flashbacks involve the romance between Kate and Taylor Ambrose (Thomas Dekker), another leukemia patient at Kate's hospital. The two start dating and Taylor takes her to the hospital's dance event, after which they engage in sexual intercourse. Kate hears nothing of him after the night and is distraught, thinking he no longer cares for her. It is later revealed that Taylor has died, presumably of the disease the two are both fighting.

Is "My Sister's Keeper" classical Hollywood cinema? One could easily argue that the film has the "dual plot line" David Bordwell classifies as one of the characteristics of classical Hollywood cinema, but the romance between Taylor and Kate ends on a tragic note. While the flashbacks definitely reinforce the causality between events and actions, the single protagonist is difficult to identify, as many members of the family all play significant roles in telling the story. And perhaps most importantly, it is worthwhile to consider if the ending could be considered a "cliche happy ending." Kate dies, but it was her wish, and the family members are finally able to find their own lives, Sara returning to her occupation as a lawyer, Jesse going to art school, and Anna finding that to save her sister's life was not the only reason she was born into the world. Ironically, the death of a dearly loved one results in a happy ending" definitely not cliche, of course, but happy nevertheless.

"My Sister's Keeper" is a visually interesting film. There are many scenes that are aesthetically pleasing and meaningful such as the beginning of the film, narrated by Anna, in which the audience sees a blur of images, some that cannot be made out. She talks of how she was genetically engineered, born to save her sister's life, and also mentions that her family is a "dysfunctional" one. The blur and flurry of lights and images do a great job of hinting at this point. There is also a scene in which Jesse lets go of the torn-up drawing of his sister Kate on top of a building, signifying his letting go of her as she let go her desire to live, and one in which the entire family has fun in the yard blowing bubbles and jumping on the trampoline. The bright light with soap bubbles reflecting different colors sets the right mood of a scene perhaps too happy to be true; the family may appear to be content and problem-free on the outside but is plagued with several problems on the inside.

Overall, "My Sister's Keeper" is an interesting film that gives its audience an insight into a struggling family. Despite the unfortunate circumstances of leukemia and other problems, there are some aspects that seem too good to be true, such as the impeccable relationship between the siblings. While excellent visual-wise, the plot can seem a bit scattered (due to the flashbacks) and rather forced in that Anna, as it turns out in the end, has a heart of pure gold instead of being a vindictive, cold, and wonderfully charismatic girl who'd sue her own parents and let her older sister die. The film may have been much more fascinating to a larger audience without the "twist" in the end. However, for the audience who seeks 109 minutes of shedding tears, breaking into occasional smiles, and most significantly, being touched, "My Sister's Keeper" is a keeper.

Boardwell's Classical Hollywood Cinema

2009-09-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

"You've seen one, you've seen them all."

This statement applies to quite many things. For one, it could refer to the Final Destination films:

Can you guess which Final Destination movie this would be from?

Or, in a broader sense, the statement can refer to practically all of Hollywood's classical cinema. According to David Bordwell's "Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrational Principles and Procedures," there are certain features which almost all Hollywood classical movies possess.

As we refer to some of the characteristics of classical Hollywood cinema, we will examine how these traits are present or absent in the three films: Fight Club, Amelie, and Cinema Paradiso.

For one, the film is driven by a single protagonist, "who becomes the principal causal agent, the target of any narrational restriction, and the chief object of audience identification" (Bordwell 18). All three films I have mentioned previously adhere to this. Focusing on the film we have not discussed yet in this blog, Cinema Paradiso is a depiction of a single man's life from his childhood to adulthood, although about thirty years of his adulthood is never shown, but only referred to.

Salvatore, or "Toto," shows great love for film from a very young age. This love and passion continue throughout his adolescence and to adulthood, when he becomes a successful fimmaker. He indeed fits Bordwell's definition for the most specified character; the audience finds itself not only identifying with but also getting extremely attached to Toto.

Another characteristic of classical Hollywood cinema according to Bordwell would be causality: "In classical narration, style typically encourages the spectator to construct a coherent, consistent time and space of the fabula action" (26). This is one trait that is violated, although in varying severity, in all three films. In Amelie, the omnipresent narrator jumps to show even the people Amelie never encounters and places she never visits. There is almost no causality in these shots.

Consistency of time and space in Fight Club, on the other hand, is very ambiguous, mainly because we are presented with two characters that are in fact one. We see Tyler Durden as a character of his own for the majority of the movie, when he is in fact a fragment of the unnamed protagonist's imagination. It is truly remarkable how time and space works in such setting; for example, the protagonist is seen coming home to hear Marla and Tyler having sexual intercourse in the room upstairs. He sees the ceiling crumbling from the kitchen downstairs, yet Marla is having intercourse with him. Is he imaging the noise and the movement when he is in fact downstairs? Or is he truly upstairs?

The changes in time and space in Cinema Paradiso are abrupt yet obvious (due to the physical differences between the child, adolescent, and adult version of Salvatore). The film is largely the adult Salvatore's flashback of his childhood, with abrupt flashes of the present.

Another aspect of Hollywood film Bordwell points out is that it presents "two plot lines: one involving heterosexual romance (boy/girl, husband/wife), the other line involving another sphere- work, war, a mission, or quest, other personal relationships."

Again, such is indeed the case for all three films we have mentioned. Amelie finds her love in the end, and the unnamed protagonist in Fight Club reunites with the character Marla Singer not as his second personality Tyler Durden but as himself. And last but not least, Cinema Paradiso presents its audience with a beautiful, almost stereotypical teenage love story.

What is interesting, however, is that in Cinema Paradiso, the audience is left to ponder on what happened of this love story. It is quite literally a teenage love story in that nothing comes of it. Salvatore is depicted as having failed to settle down with anyone he truly loved or who truly loved him. Bordwell claims that the two plot lines as mentioned previously often "coincide at the climax," as they do in Amelie and Fight Club, but such is not the case in Cinema Paradiso. It is in fact a bit frustrating.

Speaking of the climax, another aspect of classical Hollywood cinema would be the "cliche happy ending, " a narrative resolution for both plot lines. Of the three films we are discussing momentarily, Amelie would have the happiest ending: Amelie finds her love and is happy with her life. Fight Club does have a comparably happy ending, although I use the word "happy" with much caution. The protagonist is able to fight off his unconscious identity of Tyler Durden from continuing to have a strong undesired effect on him and comes to admit his affections toward Marla Singer. However, it does not change Tyler's plan of "Project Mayhem"; the corporate buildings get destroyed around the city as Marla and the protagonist watch.

Whether Cinema Paradiso has a happy ending or not is, again, debatable. Salvatore promises Alfredo, the town's projectionist before Toto and also a great friend and advisor, not to return to his town so that he may not be distracted from working and becoming successful. He keeps this promise for thirty years and becomes a successful filmmaker. He only returns to the town for the first time to attend Alfredo's funeral. Alfredo's widow tells Salvatore how proud her husband was of him and gives him an unnamed reel of film. During Salvatore's visit tThe Cinema Paradiso building is destroyed to make room for parking space as the villagers watch sadly.

Back home, Salvatore plays the film left to him by Alfredo in his private theater and discovers that it is a montage of several scenes that were censored by the priest when Cinema Paradiso was in its initial stage. This makes the character Salvatore happy and reminiscent, yet is it a "happy ending"? That question I will leave for more consideration.

Promoting Narrative as the Essence of Film

2009-08-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

Walter Benjamin's essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," makes readers ponder what the true essence of any film should be. Is it the narrative? Is it the visuals? Is it about showing the audience what it would normally fail to see? It is without doubt that the camera is capable of focusing on certain things we would bypass without much thought: "the camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses" (Benjamin 680). Would that be the essence of film?

The French film Amélie directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet appears to promote such attention to negligible detail as the essence of the film. There isn't really a specific story to the story; although it is unmistakably a depiction of how a young woman named Amélie Poulain comes to help others and deal with her own feeling of isolation, it is a closely-woven series of separate events rather than one solid narrative. The true essence of the film would be the attention to detail.

Amélie, having been raised in a rather strange household, often resorts to wild imagination and "silly questions." In the process the audience is introduced to the small details of life, close and personal, through the perspective of Amélie. Her secret pleasure for dipping her hand into grain would be an excellent example. It is such a small thing, a brief little action, yet it gives Amélie great sensual satisfaction and is referred at least twice in the film. By slowing things down and paying closer attention to what would normally be ignored, the audience is able to see the things it would normally ignore. Returning to the idea of promoting narrative as the essence of film: as mentioned before, Amélie lacks a solid story. It's mainly about the visual art, embracing the French film director and theorist Germaine Dulac's idea that promoting narrative in a film would be a "criminal error."

Director David Fincher's 1999 film, Fight Club, on the other hand, has an extremely complicated, well thought-out narrative, adapted from the 1996 novel of the same name by writer Chuck Palahniuk. However, like Amélie, it is also rich in visuals and attention to detail, while without its impressive narrative it would be nothing but a set of interesting images Dulac may find fascinating.

In other words, Amélie has only the aesthetic visuals while Fight Club has both a narrative and the visuals. What if a film was to focus only on the narrative? Would it truly be a "criminal error" as Dulac condemns? I would argue that it is so. If a film was to be based solely on the narrative with not much care or thought given to the visuals, it would have about the same purpose and importance as a poorly illustrated picture book. It would be in many ways worse than a book with no illustrations, as it bars one from conjuring up his or her own images from the narrative. The narrative should always be present- unless, in some rare cases (as in Amélie), the visual art form is fully and almost excessively celebrated. In most cases a film should consist of both a strong narrative and an aesthetic show of images often hidden or ignored in everyday life (as in Fight Club). It would be a risk for a film to lack a strong narrative; however, it would be a "criminal error" for a film to lack its visual art.