Bicycle Thieves

Bicycle Thieves

Ladri di biciclette also known as Bicycle Thieves was an Italian film produced in 1948 which was directed by Vittorio De Sica. Starring Lamberto Maggiorani as Antonio Ricci; and Enzo Staiola as Bruno Ricci whom both of them are social actors. Bicycle Thieves used Italian Neorealism as a style to present the film which first introduced in the 1944 and also known as the Golden Age of Italian Cinema.  

Cesare Zavattini was the theoretical founder of neo-realism in 1942, suggested that new form of Italian Cinema that abolishes contrived and planned plots, use real people and locations so that direct contact is established with the social reality. Zavattini looked at plots as a fake structure of “everyday life” and professional actors are less likely been hire as it complimented the falsehood. Contemporary Social Realism, unconditional emphasis on the ordinariness of Today, Today, Today. There are several characteristics in Italian Neorealism films. Neorealism was known as a cinema of poverty and pessimism. Its decline began in the 50’s when the times were changing for the better because of society prefer watch happy films than sad films. It is revolutionary and happened during a time of non-revolutionary transition towards prosperity and affluence. Which was not economically profitable. Unpopular in Italy, dependent of foreign appreciation. The Italian government does not favor neorealism, bringing about imports of American films. The film is mostly sad, emotional, and involves crimes due to the poverty, injustice and desperation during that period. In fact, Italian Neorealism shot on-location in order to present the realistic of the environment during the post-war era.

The film focus on a man call Ricci, who is an unemployed man in the depressed post-WWII economy of Italy, he found a good job but require him to own a bicycle for hanging up posters. But soon his bicycle is stolen. He and his son walk the streets of Rome, looking for the bicycle. Ricci finally manages to locate the thief but with no proof, he has to abandon his cause. But he and his son know perfectly well that without a bike, Ricci won't be able to keep his job.

                                                                                                                                                        

Italian Neorealism was known as a film of poverty and pessimism we can easily found the element in the starting of the film with a group of unemployed men gathered around, trying to look for jobs from a job distributor. The job distributor stated that all of them are bricklayers and do not worth to take the job. Because of post war, old building and new building are been show in the film. New building shows that the building reconstruction after war and old building shows that the things that left over or being destroyed after war. Besides these, the scene when Antonio help his wife carry the bucket of water to their apartment. The road that they walk to their apartment is unpaved, which also shows that the construction of rebuilding the city. This has showed that the fact that poverty is really happening at that period of time and people who are working as bricklayers are helpless and starving as they couldn’t get a job to survive.

In conclusion, it shows the real human nature even though it’s not real, showing how people’s moral can be twisted when they are over desperate and despair. To be honest, I will not watch this style of film because I wouldn’t enjoy watching that will make me sad.

The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon

The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 film noir directed by John Huston in his directorial debut. Huston's screenplay was based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett.  Starring Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade and Mary Astor as his femme fatale client. The story follows a San Francisco private detective and his dealings with three eccentric criminals, all of whom are competing to obtain a jewel-encrusted falcon statuette.

Film Noir is a type of film which often contains of private detectives, criminals, and femme fatale characters. It features a world of criminals, of darkness and violence with characters’ central motives are usually greed, lust and ambition, drench in fear which shows that there is no pure good people in the world. This type of film approach was from a period of political instability which was 1941 – 1958, the time of WWII and the Cold War in United States. This was a time of women joined the workforce during the war while men fought in the war. Women expanded their knowledge beyond domestic spheres while the men returned from war suspicious and paranoid of the women’s roles in the work force.

The Mise-en-shot of Film Noir features oblique vertical and horizontal lines, dark visual with lots of shadows and high-contrast lighting (low key) which was influenced and inspired by the German Expressionism. The Mise-en-scene of the style of the film usually have locations such as alleyways, cramped corridors and often show the scene was at night. Setting is city-bound, comprising of rain washed roads and dimly-lit interiors.

The character of Film Noir features the man are usually well-dressed in suits and ties who are Detectives, polices, criminal, government agents etc. The woman who is central to the intrigue, making her the object of the male’s investigation. Ultimately, it is her sexuality that is under investigation which threatens the male quest to resolve mystery. By being a strong, active, sexually expressive female, film noir tends to keep the woman contained. Through the film, there’s always a struggle of voices controlling the narrative digenesis, where ultimately, the control of the storytelling ends up controlling the image of the woman. But the closure of the film usually ends at a price for any of the characters and guilt is not so easily ascribed to just one character.

Sam Spade a private detective gets more than he bargained for when he takes a case brought to him by a beautiful but secretive woman Miss Wonderly. As soon as Miss Wonderly shows up, trouble follows as Sam's partner(Miles Archer) is murdered and Sam is accosted by a man (Peter Lorre) demanding he locate a valuable statuette. Sam, entangled in a dangerous web of crime and intrigue, soon realizes he must find the one thing they all seem to want the bejeweled Maltese falcon.

The Maltese Falcon is a Noir Film as it featuring Sam Spade, a private detective which is an intelligent and cunning man. Example, the scene where Cairo threatening Sam by pointing gun toward him but Sam fight back to Cairo, Cairo fainted by Sam’s punch. This has showed us that Sam was tough enough to fight back even though he is being threatened by gun. After that when Cairo was fainted, Spade took the money from Cairos’ wallet, this has represent the element of film noir which is nobody is pure good, even though outside he looks like a good guy but there is still contains of evil within everyone even the good guy.

In this film we can also easily identify the elements of Femme fatale in it. In this case which was Miss Wonderly.  Example, Miss Wonderly had betrayed Sam by not telling the truth. In order to accomplish her goal, she always acted like a weak women and seeking for help saying that she was dizzy to gain trust from others by the seductive body and actions. Besides, Miss Wonderly we also can see that Sam’s secretary Effie Perine is a very obedient and hard work lady who always follow Sam’s order even though it is wrong. Lastly, the elements can be identified throughout the film is the visuals. The film shows mostly high contrast and low key light, showing that the characters that may look good on the outside has a very evil side as well. The film also uses the effect of lines that causes distortion to the scene to make it seems like everything is distorted and out of place. This makes the audience feel like there is always something not right as if it is a warning that something bad is going to happen. Besides that, low angle shots are used to show the characters. Example the scene, where Sam Spade finds the criminal known as Humphrey Bogart. The low angle shot gives the impression that Humphrey is a very rich and powerful or very evil powerful man.

In conclusion, Film Noir is all about blurred morals, this is why they are categorized under Dark Films. There are not one good character in the film, even the detective is bad. The detective, Sam Spade is the main character with flaws, he is the protagonist and an anti-hero of the film. 

In the Mood for Love

In the Mood for Love

In the Mood for Love is a 2000 Hong Kong film which was directed by Wong Kar-wai. Starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung who acting as two different pairs of spouses who are getting cheated on by each other’s partner. And this essay is to talk about the French impressionist approach toward the film.

French impressionist is a film movement which was developed after the World War I. Although France had been one of the centers of film in the medium's formative years, the trauma of World War I reduced the country to a struggling footnote in film history after 1918. Which creates new techniques in non-linear editing, point-of-view storytelling and camera work abounded. The movement is popular during the year of 1919 to 1928. 

The film movement focus on discovering psychological causes and also gives narration considerable psychological depth by revealing play of the character’s consciousness, concerns mental states, dreams or fantasies. French impressionism often manipulates plot time and subjectivity by showing flashbacks or memories. This film movement uses a lot of different camera movement and shots to show visual depiction of mental states through cinematography and editing. By using of irises, superimpositions, masks to show the audience characters’ thoughts and feelings. Visuals are distorted, filtered or vertiginous camera movement to show dizziness or drunkenness of the character. Using POV (Point of View) editing, rhythmic editing to show character’s experience of particular situations. The French impressionism often contains of smooth camera movement which are camera tied to cars, wheels, bobsleds, cables, etc. 

The film focus on the two different spouses which are Mr. Chow a newspaper editor move into an apartment with his wife and Mrs. Chan move in next door with her husband. Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan form a strong bond after both suspect extramarital activities of their spouses. However, they agree to keep their bond platonic so as not to commit similar wrongs. 

The pace of the film overall are slow, to show the mental state of the characters, which is the lonely and repetitive life style even though they are both married. One of the element can be found in this film is the mental state to show the character’s experience of lonely. For example, when Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan went for dinner alone in the noodle store, another scene is after the rain it shows the slow motion water flowing across the street to show the time passes and another scene is showing Mr. Chow was smoking in his office and all smokes are on top him which shows that the relationship between Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan are not clear which bring us to the next element of French impressionism. The scene where the smokes is above Mr. Chow is also related to the Mise-en-scene, which is background behind Mr. Chow is dark and the only light source is on top of him to show the loneliness. 

The second element of French impressionism is camerawork, there are some sub elements that is under camerawork which are camera distance, camera angle and camera movement. Example of close up shot used in the film is the scene where, the two protagonist are in a restaurant eating together, the close up shot shows the emotion and mood of the protagonist to the audience. This film also uses some interesting peeping shot and low angle to enhance the mood. The peeping shot in the film kind of show the audience that how other people think of Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow because of the shot. There is also some low angle shot that showing the slim and fit body of Mrs. Chan in cheongsam to show that she was a sexualize woman. The reason why Mrs. Chan dress up so well even she just going out for a dinner, its shows that she was lonely and wanted attention so that she will feel less lonely. There is also fast cut in this film. Which is the part when Mrs. Chan is going to meet Mr. Chow in hotel room after she received the call from Mr. Chow. The fast cut apply when Mrs. Chan struggling and hesitating whether she want to meet Mr. Chow or not, she climb up stairs and walking down the stairs. The whole film did not focus on the cheated spouses face and just showing up some others characters, because it’s mainly about Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan’s relationship.  

In conclusion, this film involved a lot of element of mental state to show the mood of the character. Also the smooth and slow camera movement also create the mood and relationship between the characters when they fall in love and they hesitate and struggle about their relationships. Overall the film is very interesting, because it was a new approach for me. 

Dark City

DARK CITY

On week 7, we watched Dark City in the class, and we learned about the theory of German Expressionism. Dark City is directed by Alex Proyas in the 1998, the film consists of several genres and is categorized as the Postmodernism Film, but the main goal of this essay is to talk about the German Expressionism approach towards the film.

German Expressionism refers to a creative movements which was beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. It was influenced by the Expressionist movement in modern art of early 1900s. The theme of the movement of German Expressionism are often contain of self-analysis, madness and primitive, sexual savagery. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in Europe culture in fields such as architecture, dance, painting, sculpture, as well as film. It also spread into cinema in terms of narrative, set and Mise‐en‐scene. It is most apparent in set design and chiaroscuro lighting in order word low key lighting. The style of German Expressionism includes oblique camera angle, distorted bodies and shapes, gothic style in looking and framing, high contrast lighting that creates dramatic shadows, and the content is usually about surreal and gothic, unnatural acts or realities. All these style of German Expressionism is to deliver the sense of fear, anxiety and mystery to the audience which influenced a lot of horror movie. The theme of revolt is found through the character Dr. Schreber when he rival against The Strangers by re-imprinted John’s memory in order to reset the world. He believes that with John Murdoch’s abilities in tuning can make his revolution a success. Self-analysis is when the character trying to find or figure it out who he or she really is by finding details and information about it. Besides Dark City, another best example for German Expressionism on film is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Vampyr.

The story started in a scene where the main character, John Murdoch woke up in a hotel bathtub, and found himself could not recall or remember any memories. Soon, he realized that he was wanted for the suspect of murder crime. As he escape from a group of bald and distorted body proportion people who are called “The Strangers”. Murdoch is the only human that wakes up during the Tuning, because he has the power of tuning. The city was in the blend of reality and took ever by The Strangers to study human’s personality and mentality. They believed the outcome of experiment will help them to resolve the extinction crisis of their species. With the help of Dr. Schreber, Murdoch manages to jigsaws together puzzle of his past memories of his childhood, his love for Emma, and key of murders. At the end, he rival against The Strangers and reform the world to brightness.

There are some German Expressionism elements that we can found in this film. The chiaroscuro lighting is one of the important element in this film. So that it can create the mood of thrilling to the audience. In the film, the Strangers always appeal in dark and silhouette lighting, it kind of give the audience the feel of horrific element of monster. Self-analysis can easily been found in the beginning of the film where John Murdoch woke up in a hotel bathtub, found himself naked and unable to recall or remember any memories. He wondered around the hotel, hoping that he could find details or information about himself, then he found out that he was wanted for suspect of murder case, which is why he tested his killing desire by bumping into a prostitute. Dark City also show us the theme of primitive sexual savagery through the series of murder cases. Which is, prostitute was naked and was killed brutally and their bodies were drawn with circular lines, this shows the primitive behavior of The Strangers. Moreover, German Expressionism also talked about the distorted body proportion. The character has been set in different pattern of physical body movements and face movements to highlight the style of character. For example, Dr. Schreber walks with crippling leg and the weird movement of strangers to show the difference between them and from the human.

In conclusion, German Expressionism is an innovative film movement and it has inspired a lot of filmmakers. This movie has used the techniques and concept of the film movement, and extends it in terms of genre, narration, and Mise-en-scene. The lighting shows the contras of light and dark. Which is why the movement inspired a lot of filmmakers to create horror and noir film. Overall it was a pretty nice film, because I personally like the dark and gloomy style of film, which are shown in the film most of the time and the interesting concept of storyline, where it kind of make us thinks that what if the real world is not real.

Up

UP

On the Hari Raya week, we are supposed to write about any film that we watched in that week. I decided to watch Up as it was one of my favourite movie back when I was still a teenager. Up is a 3D animation film, which the main genre was Comedy-Drama. The film focus on an elderly widower named Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) and a young boy named Russell (Jordan Nagai) who is a Wilderness Explorer Member. Then in the journey they met a bird who was named by Russell call Kevin and they also met a loyalty dog named as Dug.

The semantic and syntactic in this film is well thought through, semantic include such as location, characters and props. These are what usually give a film their generic genre traits. For example, in this film since it is also a family film, the scene when it shows colorful lighting and background give the audience the mood of happy, but when bad things is going to happen they will show the dark and gray scene to enhance the mood of sad and scare, because it is a drama based genre, when it comes to bad things happen they often show rain scene. For example, the scene where Carl flying his house going to the South Africa, he face through storm and the scene where Carl, Russell, Kevin and Dug was sleeping, they were also facing rains too, it is because they want to enhance the sadness and make the film mood very dramatic.

Comedy is a genre that intended to humor the audience by using sense of humor, jokes and etc. In this film, there are quite a few scenes that falls under the genre of comedy. The first one is Slapstick, slapstick is a sense of humor by performing physical and gestures movement to make the audience laugh, for example the scene where Carl and Russell was stuck under house which the only way they can go up is using the hose, Russell is the only one who can climb since Carl is too old for it, the scene show a close up of Carl waiting Russell to climb up and Russell making a lot of groaning but when Carl looks up Russell was just a little bit on top of Carl. Another humorous scene is when Russell saw a silhouette of a dog, but it is actually a real dog, and he order him to sit and shake then he order the dog to speak and it actually really speaks. In this film we can see numerous of scene of dogs performing humorously to the audience, for example, the dogs really hate squirrels and also really like the tennis ball.

Road film is a genre that is about the main character leaves the home and went on a journey, on the way the character changes, grows, and improves during the journey. In this film we can easily identify that Carl was a stubborn old man after his wife pass away, then he faces these obstacle and in the end Carl looks through Ellie's childhood scrapbook, and is surprised to find that she has filled in the blank pages with photos of their marriage, along with a note thanking him for the "adventure" and encouraging him to go have a new one, and he then changes his personality of stubborn. The film also us that the journey of Carl working his way toward the Paradise Fall by walking, he faces many obstacle and he began to bond the relationship with Russell Kevin and Dug. Which is why the film has contain the sub-genre of road film.

In conclusion, Up main genre is Comedy-Drama film and mixed with other sub-genre to support the main genre. The film also show us the moral value of don’t be stubborn and stay in the comfort zone instead of going out and find a new life.

Paranorman

PARANORMAN

On week 5, we watched "Paranorman" in the class, the goal of this review is to analyze the mix genres, how post modernism affect this film, and semantic and syntactic. Paranorman is a 3D stop-motion film, which uses 3D printer to print the expressions of the character and physically animate it. The main genre of this film is Horror-Comedy genre, it is a genre which combines the elements of comedy and horror, which in this it often come across the black comedy and this film is more toward comedy genre because it is also a family film genre. 

The semantic and syntactic in this film is well thought through, semantic include such as location, characters and props. These are what usually give a film their generic genre traits. For example, in this film since it is also under the category of horror, the lighting of this film was set to low lighting to show the mood of the film to the audience such as fear, disgust, anxiety etc. Syntactic approach to the elements in the narrative or ideology of the genre. Which depends on the types of characters, heroes vs antiheroes, Ideologies and structures (themes and conventions found in the film). Horror is intended to make the audience or viewer to feel frighten, scare or disgust making the audience to feel terror or horror. There various kinds of sub-genre under the Horror genre. In this film, the sub genre is unnatural horror which include zombie, witch and ghost. Comedy is a genre that intended to humor the audience by using sense of humor, jokes and etc. In Paranorman we can identify that there are some actions and jokes which are the sub-genre of the comedy which are dark comedy. Action film is a genre which is about storytelling through the physical action. The story usually is about a hero that has a goal, but is facing incredible obstacles in order to achieve it. The film will often have many motions and actions which include physical stunts, pursuit, fights, and battles. Which in this film is how Norman overcome obstacles and resolve the problems and put the witch in peace. Post modernism is to subvert the mainstream of structure and characterization to tests the audience's delay of disbelief. 

The film start off with a young boy called Norman who has the ability to see the dead and able to communicate with them too. The people in the town and his family didn't believe him and think that he is a freak, but Neil, one of his classmates thinks that he is different and he become friend with Norman. Mr. Prenderghast told Norman that he is given the role of telling a bedtime story to the witch in order to put her into sleep for another year to stop the curse of the living dead. Norman thinks that the way people been doing for the past few years is not solving the problem, so he went to talk with the witch to find the solution. The witch is actually a little girl who was killed by the villager as she contain the same ability as Norman and they were afraid of her so they killed her. Norman talked to her and calmed her to made her remember the good memories with her mom, she was in peace and the curse was gone.

Analysis of the film, horror scene example, Where Norman go to Mr Prenderghast's house to find the book, in the scene where Norman walks across the room then he falls down then he was lying right next to Mr Prenderghast. Black comedy scene example, the others was trap inside the town hall where burning timber fall over them, after they find covers ,Courtney says If we die tonight, this may be the last chance I get to tell you how I feel

Mitch: Well, no unless we get brought back as zombies. Technically, you’ll have longer. Comedy scene example, where a guy buying snacks from the vending machine and he saw the zombies are coming, he was having hard time to decide whether to run or wait for the snack, as the zombies got close he decided to run away but the snack has drop down from the vending machine and he come back to grab it and run away again. Action scene example, when Norman and the others being car chased by the police at the same time have to deal with one of the zombie which are on the car. Postmodernism base on my understanding is to break the mainstream structure example, hero vs villain. In this film it kinda didn't show who is the real enemy, example, the zombie are actually mean no harm and the witch was actually a victim. Family film example, at the ending scene where Norman and all his family sit together and watch movie together.

In conclusion, Paranorman main genre is Comedy-Horror film and mixed with other sub genre to support the main genre. Postmodernism  also shows how to break the mainstream structure to make the film interesting. And the movie also show the moral value of don't judge the others try and step in their shoes and see what's their point of view. I also like the film using 3D printer to create the character.

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Zombieland Part 2

ZOMBIELAND

Continue from the last week review of Zombieland, which will discuss the rest of the genre in this film. Just a recap last week genre is Comedy, Horror and Romance, this week we are going to talk about the Sci-Fi, Action and Road Trip genre.

Sci-fi

It is a genre that are about fictional ideas which are created based on the technology or science theories. For example, Virus causes people to mutate, time travel, Alien Invasion, parallel universe and etc. So in the film we can find that it is counted as a Sci-Fi films because of the zombie apocalypse is caused by the "mad zombie disease" the idea was based on mutation concepts which is why the film has the genre of Sci-Fi. There is also Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in this film, a sub genre which is about the end of civilization causes by disasters, which in this film it's the "mad cow disease".

Action

Action film is a genre which is about storytelling through the physical action. The story usually is about a hero that has a goal, but is facing incredible obstacles in order to achieve it. The film will often have many motions and actions which include physical stunts, pursuit, fights, and battles. Which in Zombieland is Columbus was a coward and nerdy guy, who has set many strategic rules for himself in order to survive from the zombie apocalypse which one of them is "Don't Be A Hero", but in the end he broke the rules and fight the zombies in order to save Wichita and Little Rock. There is also a sub genre can be found in this film which is Action-Comedy is depending on the characters to bring out the humors, while the action scenes tend to be less intense than other traditional action movie. In Zombieland which is the "Double Tap" performed by the 4 characters with many kinds of way, for example The scene where Tallahassee killed the zombies and drive over them in order to make sure they are dead, another example is that Tallahassee opens the car door and hit the zombies when they are on the journey to Columbus nearly at the beginning of the film.

Roadfilm

Road film its a genre that is about the main character leaves the home and went on a journey,  on the way the character changes, grows, and improves during the journey. In Zombieland, we can find that Columbus was actually away from home, and he wanted to head home to find his family. There is a short scene, where Columbus and Tallahassee's car was being robbed by Wichita and Little Rock and forced them to walk on their journey. Another very obvious scene is that, when the 4 characters on the journey to the Pacific Playland, they take turns staying up and drive, shot where is just showing the 4 characters in the car bonding their relationships and get to know each other better. 

Will I Recommend it?

Yes, because its a very great example of mixtures of genre in just one movie. And I also love the humors of the rules set by Columbus in the film.