The sound and camera angles in Mike Nichols’s 1968 film The Graduate gave a greater insight to the life of the main character Ben. From what the audience can see, Ben has just graduated from college and does not know what he is going to do now that he has just finished. Specific scenes in this movie show how pressured Ben really feels.
Examples include how in the opening scene there is a party in Ben’s honor taking place at his home and there are many people. The camera is very close up and gives the audience a sense of a claustrophobic feel. At this time everyone is greeting Ben, shaking his hand, kissing him, and asking many questions. With the camera so close, you feel as though Ben is feeling very pressured by all that is happening and is just being pushed through. Two other examples include water scenes. In Ben’s room he has a tank and is constantly seen looking through the tank at his fish and nothing but the sound of bubbles can be heard. Also, Ben is given a scuba suit and is forced to go in the pool with it. All that can be heard is Ben’s heavy breathing and all the people crowding around him. Being under water for so long gives a feeling of suffocation and once again, a pressurized environment is being displayed.
The use of color in Gurinder Chadha’s film Bride and Prejudice was beautifully done. This specific element of mise-en-scène gave greater meanings to certain scenes in the movie.
The first example is how every time we were in India everyone was always dressed in very bright colors and the sun was always shinning. While in America, people were dressed in duller attire. I think the purpose of these color contrasts was to show that when in America the main characters, who are from India originally, saw it as a foreign place that was not their home and one that they did not wish to move to like Lalita’s friend.
The color worn by the characters were also used to express their moods. For example, Lalita wore a white gown to her friends wedding in America. In America, white is seen as a color of purity where in India it is seen as a color of mourning. Lalita wears the color white to show that she is sad after William appears to have a girlfriend.
It is amazing how something as simple as colors can give a different meaning to a movie.
After reading Sound by Steven Johnson, it is truly amazing how to see how technology has advanced over the years. Due to these innovations, we are able to experience such significant breakthroughs in science during our lifetime. For example, Johnson talks about how thanks to Edouardo- Leon Scott’s phonautograph, throughout the years cultural innovations came from using new technology in unexpected ways. These miscalculations lead to the invention of the sonar, which was the main tecnology used in finding the Titanic. The link above teaches and shows how truly amazing the technology is.
The history of all the different inventions of sound is much like that of the moving picture. Along the way humans wanted more out of the technology they had been given and thus new innovations were created. From Gutenburg’s printing press to motion picture, film has a come a long way.
After watching Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK, I am in complete awe of how fascinating this movie was. Aside from all the A-list actors that did a great job in their roles, the editing of the movie presented an incredible amount of facts about the assassination of President Kennedy in a way that was true genius. In a way, the editing helped to simplify a great deal of information to the audience with the constant overlapping of past and present footage in what was being discussed at that moment in the film.
Having read the recent reading in Stephen Apkon’s Age of Image, Stone’s film goes hand in hand when Apkon talks about this “new age of literacy.” Apkon talks about how visual media is transforming most professions in this world and he is 100 percent correct! Still-life images are not enough anymore to prove a story and convince people of the truth. When an event is actually seen by someone, it brings on a whole new meaning to them. JFK is the perfect example of this, in the movie and the movie itself. At the end of the movie, in the courtroom, DA Garrison exhibits many pictures to the jury and audience, but once he presents to them the actual video of President Kennedy being shot, the courtroom is in complete silence. The event had become real to everyone because it wasn’t something they were reading about, it was something they were actually witnessing. Personally, the movie itself made this historical event feel more realistic to me because for the first time I wasn’t reading in a history textbook about the conspiracy theories of JFK’s death, I was seeing a movie picture that was expressing to me actual facts and providing an image to go along with them. For me, words became a reality.
After discussing Stephen Apkon’s book The Age of Image, I found this video in the link above on his website. I think the video posted is a great short film that really shows exactly what Apron is trying to say in his book in reference to the evolution of literacy. In today’s day, it is not enough to be able to just know how to read and write, but one needs to be aware and know how to use the technology that surrounds us and use these new advancements to keep up with the world.
When watching director Ponetcorvo’s film Battle of Algiers, this was the first time I have ever watched a movie where I focused primarily on the camera shots and angles instead of paying more attention to the plot. Having done this, I came to appreciate the movie more and will make sure to observe these techniques in movies I watch in the future.
Taking notice of the different camera angles helps to give more meaning to the scene. For example, I noticed there were many bird’s eye view shots after a bombing had taken place. In these shots, the audience could see the aftermath of the destruction of the setting around the characters and really take in what just took place in the story. Another powerful camera shot was the close-ups on bystanders face when something sad had just taken place. An example was in the ending scene where one of the main leaders of the organization had died and the camera pans the whole crowd and then just moves in closer on one woman’s face while tears are falling down her cheeks. By making the audience just stare at this poor woman’s incredibly sad face, it makes us feel like we are really there and experiencing the same emotion.
After the class analysis of the different elements of the mise-en-scène that comprised the opening scene of directorJean-Pierre Jeunet’s film Amélie, I came to realize how truly important the opening scene of a film is. The opening scene sets the tone for the entire movie. It draws the audience in and makes them wonder what is yet to come. Also, what many don’t realize is that the opening scene provides the viewers with basic knowledge about the characters and the setting they are situated in.
For example, in Amélie, aside from the obvious accents of the characters, we know right away that the setting is in France due to the quick camera shots of the outside and even by the way the characters dress. We are also given insight to what the main characters personalities are by their actions. We know the parents are strict by the way they obsessively like to organize their toolboxes and purses and how they behave toward their daughter. We know the daughter is innocent and isolated from the outside world based on the props she plays with, being homeschooled, and having a fish as her only friend.
Above are only just a few examples of the elements of mise-en-scène that help to create the opening scene, but before being exposed to these ideas I had never given a second thought to all the opening scene had to offer.
After reading the Foreword by Martin Scorsese in Stephen Apron’s Age of Image, Scorsese made some really powerful statements that made me look at Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing in a different way. Scorsese talks about how every element in a film is “counted” and more importantly how filmmakers are storytellers. Films are meant to be “read and attentively and lovingly returned to and studied.” This is exactly what Spike Lee presented to his audience. He tells us a story that deals with racial tension through music and colors. Then, at the very end, two quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X appear. Both historical civil rights leaders with two different points of view. I felt that Lee was asking us to think about which point of view way was right or wrong, just like how when reading books they put your mind to the test. Sometime people tend to just watch movies and once they are over they don’t think about them. Scorsese was absolutely right, movies are definitely meant to be studied to unfold deeper meanings and this is exactly what I did after watching Do the Right Thing.
After watching and analyzing the opening scene of Apocalypse Now, I researched facts online about the movie and came across a documentary that was actually made about the film called Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse. What I found extremely interesting was that in the opening scene, the actor actually hits his hand in the mirror and bleeds from it. The director, Francis Coppola was very particular on making the movie feel and be as real as possible. Other examples include when filming in the jungle the crew came across many obstacles when filming scenes and becoming sick.
