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.

It has been a couple years since I’ve read the graphic novel Persepolis, and I am not sure whether or not they explain the title in the novel, but I realized that “Persepolis” isn’t actually said or directly referenced in the film, so some people walk away confused as to why the novel/film is titled that.

Persepolis (translated to “city of Persians”) was the ceremonial capital of the ancient Achaemenid Empire (an empire centered around Iran between 550-330 BC) and now a famous area of ruins in Fars Province, Iran. It was once a spiritual and social center, where a variety of religious ceremonies took place, and its close proximity to a river also allowed it to be an economic hub as well. Since the fall of the  Empire, the city slowly decayed over time, but is now considered an area of architectural masterpieces, with my archeologists praising its statues and depictions of religious figures.

By titling her novel/film Persepolis, Marjane makes a reference to the old days of her country, drawing parallels between the life she lived with the society that existed in the same place millenniums before. When Marji is young, she expresses a strong desire to become a prophet, and even though she enjoys many modern fads, she seems to have a deep respect for the past. The title indirectly reflects this, and almost expresses Marji’s sadness and regret over the turmoil that her nation has suffered, even after it was established, more or less, so long before she was born.

I’m not sure how many of you guys have seen Jonathan Demme’s magnificent film Silence of the Lambs (1991), but I was wondering if this film could be a good example for the Feminists Film Theory.  What do you guys think of this based on the idea of the male protagonists, who is a cannibal, through the gaze of the spectator, and following her body?

While watching Persepolis, it is very easy to get lost in the plot and the beautiful animation style, sometimes to the point where we forget that it is a true story and that the character Marji not only existed, but is still alive. Her story didn’t end with the taxi drive from the airport, or with her grandmother dying, but continued long after that.

Since Persepolis ended, Marjane Satrapi has obviously become a famous graphic novelist, having published Persepolis Parts I and II in 2000, four-five years after the story of Persepolis ends (when Marji leaves Iran for good). After moving to Strasbourg, France, and following the immense international success of her debut work, Marjane continued to write graphic novels, including Embroideries and Chicken with Plums, which have won multiple awards and many of which also address the civil tensions in Iran.

Since the success of the Persepolis film in 2007, Marjane has also continued her career in the film industry, continuing to work with Vincent Paronnaud (the co-director of Persepolis) to create other films such as a live-action adaptation of Chicken with Plums and a comedy-horror film The Voices (a film starring Ryan Reynolds and Anna Kendrick). She has also made multiple public appearances (including some at Parliament) to advocate for the rights of women in Iran and internationally, continuing her messages and beliefs in Persepolis.

Also, in case any of you were worried about her love life (because, let’s face it, from what we saw, Marji kind of got the short end of the stick with that one in the film), since Persepolis she married Mattias Ripa, a Swedish national, and the two have lived in Paris since then. And another interesting thing to note is that Marji speaks six languages (Persian, French, German, Swedish, German, and Italian)!

I brought this up in class briefly the other day, but I was curious to find more information about it so I did a bit of research. Many old Looney Tunes cartoons featured very racist depictions of various stereotypes and, as a result, many of these cartoons are very off-putting and quite offensive, while still being very interesting pieces of film history. When released on DVD, these cartoons were preceded by the following quote.

The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in the U.S. society. These depictions were wrong then and they are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros. view of today’s society, these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming that these prejudices never existed.

I also found this other disclaimer, presented by Whoopi Goldberg, which is in the same vein as the previous disclaimer.

I find this fascinating, as the cartoons themselves are incredibly well made, despite containing very offensive material. I think it’s admirable of Warner Brothers to admit their past faults, while still preserving the artistic side of these creations.

After watching this film, I managed to grasp onto the simplest form of character progression in a movie. Although the movie was animated, I felt that after watching the simplest of parts, character progression is hard yet easy to notice at the same time. When you can visibly see a difference in the character’s appearance or tone of voice, it is evident that they have aged. When you hear character’s change of opinion due to maturity, it’s easy to notice how they’ve grown through experience and learning. If you take those two elements out of the equation, it is harder to notice. I think it is important to look for ways the character has changed (not physically or through narration) but through dialogue and interactions with other characters. It isn’t direct but it could be important to look for. Who knows, maybe you’ll find something else in your search.

After our class screening of Persepolis last night I was still a little perplexed as to what the use of color in the film really might have been meant to convey, other than differentiating between past and present. So, after looking online for a bit, and reading a few articles about the movie I was able to glean enough information to form a theory as to what else this use of color was attempting to convey.

Throughout the movie Marjane is seen to frequently be in conflict with herself, her surroundings, and most noticeably, the people around her. Much of this stems from her disruptive and war torn childhood, which had forced her to move away from her family at the age of thirteen, sparking a long lasting sense of loneliness, guilt, and confusion within her. Even when finally returning to home Marjane was unable to completely adapt back into her old society as she still could not identify fully with her peers, as her time in Vienna was drastically different from what they had experienced back home. While the film progresses onward, these emotions continue and it seems as though Marjane’s life does not really appear to improve. When Marjane finally comes to terms with the fact that she is unhappy with her life in Tehran, her parents  tell her she must move out of Iran and find a place where she is actually free to express herself, and thus live her how she sees fit. Although this ends the film at a somber note and it is clear Marjane is sad to leave her family behind, maybe this implies that Marjane is finally leaving her difficult past behind her and has come to terms with who she is and what she really wants out of life.

Therefore, by the director using color during the present, and black and white during the past, he is able to more effectively convey Marjane’s emotional maturity, and that her life may finally change for the better.

After watching the Grand Budapest hotel over break, I was amazed about how they were able to create such an amazing look to the movie from the sets to the color. After looking up videos of behind the scenes of the movie, I was able to find a youtube video that shows some of the shots in the movie with and without the effects. While watching I noticed that besides for the great amount of color correcting in each scene, there are also many miniature and CGI- created structures. In the movie, they also used a lot of matte effects and green screen technology. A lot of the movie used green screens in order to fit the characters on a miniature and in front of CGI animated structures. I also though it was interesting that they added stop-motion in the sledding scene which gave the scene a special look.

 I noticed in Persepolis (2007) directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, that cigarettes were used to signal the beginning of a flashback. The inital flashback started right after Marjane light a cigarette in the airport, the man that was in prison (I believe it was her uncle or father’s friend) light a cigarette right before he told his story, when Marjane resumed her flashback, and at the end of the film a man is smoking a cigarette as the film flashes forward to present time as Marjane leaves the airport in a taxi. I liked this subtle signal because to me it adds a sense of pain into whats about to be told. It is as if the characters are saying that they need to smoke to be able to open up and tell their tale. It does also provide a cool tansitional effect as the smoke whispers curl and fade as the shot fades to the flashback.

I came across this article today in the New York Times, and I thought it was very interesting. It discusses  a couple of notable titles from this weeks “New Director/ New Film” festival at the Museum of Modern Art..

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/movies/new-directors-new-films-festival-highlights-bold-narrative-experiments.html?ref=movies&_r=0