SNC: Independent Films

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Thoughts on 'Do the Right Thing'

#1
The color I was assigned was orange. I saw this color quite a bit in the film. There was lighting that used the color, or at least lighting that was used that created this color against the walls in the homes and outside on the buildings. This particular lighting also caused Tina’s skin color to appear sort of orange in a few scenes. When I noticed this it was in the beginning when she was dancing and also in the scene with Mookie and her on the bed with the ice cubes. There were also a few women who were wearing this color in their clothes; mainly tank tops but there was one girl wearing a whole outfit colored orange. One girl was wearing orange bracelets. There were also signs in the window of the Pizzeria that were orange and some of food trays were too.

This color seemed to be used in the places where it was hot, which was everywhere in the movie. They kept talking about how hot it was this day in New York, and the use of this color really seemed to intensify this point. I was sitting next to an open window while watching the film and I was hot. The use of this color and all the talk about how hot it was, actually affected me physically. I think this was really effective.

#2
I was really disappointed in Mookie’s actions towards the end of the film. I was definitely shocked and surprised when he threw the garbage can through Sal’s window. I definitely couldn’t believe that he expected to get paid the next day after what he did. I felt like he turned on the two people (Sal and Vido) who really liked him and wanted to help him. I felt like he stooped to the level of a lot of the others in the neighborhood and gave up on being peaceful with everyone.

#3
After watching the video essay, my feelings about Do the Right Thing, did not change. I never really thought of the film as being political. The word political never came to mind while watching it, anyway. I guess the issues that it touches on are considered political, but I just thought of it as people being sensitive to change. I felt that a lot of the individuals were stuck in the past and could not get over the fact that times were changing. It’s sad to think that color and race were such issues, and still are in a lot of places. It was sad to hear people talk about how they wanted to be treated, but then they would just turn around and treat his neighbor who was different from him exactly how he hated being treated. It’s a vicious cycle, that I think the movie was trying to convey, that needed to be broken.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Response to Richard Linklater's, 'Before Sunrise'

1#
As quoted by Price in his article on Director Richard Linklater,
'Linklater’s camera follows whatever person happens to walk into and participate in the ongoing conversation. The camera then follows one of the characters on their way to another meeting/conversation'

The unifying aspects of Linklater's films which Price observed are the following. A lack of a typical story line structure of a film. The characters meander through a philosophical conversation landscape sometimes seemingly spontaneous. This ability for the film to delve into such spontaneous and deep dialogue is also set up by the following aspects. The characters are in their early 20's, and younger teens, more of an age group that is at a transitory space philosophically, dealing with the 'I am'. There are characters that seem to 'happen' into the films which deepen the character development by introducing banal interaction that spurs conversation and dynamic energy. The intersections of interactions with other characters that 'walk into' the conversation that further build upon scenes and sub plot/ plots.

2#
Style is the world in which the film maker lives, and in turn his representation of his world through his medium, in this case through film. The angle and gauge at which the film maker takes the viewer deeper into the rabbit hole is all style. The eyes in which he sees, is conveyed through a lens .
2# B
Collaborative approaches to creating an artistic vision seem like a natural approach to this style of film. When a film relies heavily on dialogue the dynamic sparkle disco effect between the characters needs to be charged. How to get this genius? by collaborating with different age appropriate creative folk and different genders. Some accidentally believe that the muse of creation comes from inside, but the muse is every where around us, our environment, other people.

3#
Through film we can have cathartic experience. Through film we can also become so viscerally involved in the visual stimuli, that we are enveloped in time and space. We are invited to participate in seeing through the film makers eyes.

Contemporary Independent Film Directors: the start of the midterm project

Here's some info on your midterm assignment, which will have two phases: a "rough draft" phase, due on week 6 of class (Feb. 23), and a "final draft" phase, due on week 8 (Mar. 9).

The basic outline of the project is this: I want you to choose at least two films by a currently-working independent film director, and write about them, trying to define what the director's personal stamp is. What are some commonalities of theme and style between the films? How would you describe the director's personal "vision?" The first article on Linklater's films, two assignments ago, does a pretty good job of this.

Included in your paper, in addition to your "auteurist" analysis, I want the following things included:

1. A brief bio of the director, and some notes on the production history of the films (how was it made, and in what cinematic context did it appear?).

2. A close reading of at least one scene from each film. What was the narrative intent of the scene (what emotions, feelings, and thoughts did the director intend to invoke), and how did the director achieve those ends? Use the language of film-making to describe the formal strategies of the scenes -- how is framing, composition, color, camera placement, camera movement, sound design, and/or editing used to further the aims of the scenes? How do the performances of the actors contribute?

What I don't want to see in your papers is a basic summary break-down of the film, tracing the plot for start to finish, in a sort of junior-high book-review format. Give whatever narrative background you need to explain your points, but I'm not interested in a top-to-bottom summary. Feel free to "spoil" anything in the film, up to and including the ending -- that's fine if it helps you to make your point about the director's relation to style and theme. But don't give plot-summary just to fill space.

Below is a list of contemporary independent directors. It's not comprehensive by any means, and if there's a director not included on the list who you'd like to write about, let me know in the "comments" on this blog post. Plug some of these names into wikipedia (or maybe google images if you want to get a hit of visuals) to get a sense of what their work might be like. I haven't researched availability of the films of these directors -- before you commit to one, see if you can get your hands on a couple of their movies, through streaming, your local rental place, or what have you.

Once you've selected your director, post their name in the "comments" to this blog post -- and make sure no one else beat you to them. I want everyone to be focusing on a different director.

I highly recommend you pick out your director by the end of the week.

chantal akerman

pedro almodovar

alison anders

paul thomas anderson

wes anderson

ramin bahrani

noah baumbach

bong joon-ho

charles burnett

catherine breillat

jane campion

lisa cholodenko

larry clark

the coen brothers

sofia coppola

pedro costa

alfonso cuaron

the dardenne brothers

julie dash

jonathan demme

clare denis

abel ferrara

stephen frears

michel gondry

stuart gordon

debra granik

david gordon green

peter greenaway

michael haneke

hal hartley

werner herzog

nicole holofcener

hou hsiao-hsien

jim jarmusch

jia zhang ke

spike jonze

neil jordan

aki kaurismaki

harmony korine

ang lee

mike leigh

kasi lemmons

terrence malick

lucrecia martel

takashi miike

gaspar noe

park chan-wook

alexander payne

lynne ramsay

robert rodriguez

george romero

david o russell

john sayles

steven soderbergh

quentin tarantino

julie taymor

tsai ming-liang

gus van sant

nancy savoca

todd solondz

lars von trier

john waters

michael winterbottom

You can also choose from directors we've seen, or will be seeing, in class, who are still working (some of these directors have made both indy and studio films -- it might be interesting to compare/contrast their independent and commercial modes. Pick two of their films that aren't being screened for class, if you're interested in one of these)

david cronenberg

spike lee

richard linklater

david lynch

guy maddin

martin scorsese

agnes varda

wong kar wai

The Hangover Can Happen To You

The Hangover

After putting a lot of thought into some of the recent movies I have watched, this one came to mind. As I watched it last night it refreshed my memory from the day after Glitch Mob in Reno last week. The movie is about a group of friends going to Vegas for a bachelor party. They start drinking on a roof along with a time-lapse of the city, then they wake up in there room with no idea what happened last night. This is the scene that seems very real to me, because we have all been there I believe; at least once. The rest of the movie is about the friends trying to find the bachelor and piece together there night. They figure it out in the end after they go threw this life changing journey.

Back to the realistic scene, the actual hangover. We have all been there. Waking up and falling over, not having enough coherency to realize there is a tiger in the bathroom (might not be that realistic to have Mike Tyson’s tiger in the bathroom) but the feeling is shared. Not to mention puking at breakfast. Headaches, Nasuea, dizziness; these were all displayed very well in this scene. There was a part in the scene that actually has the same camera angle we reviewed in class; where the camera is attached to the actor. The actor tries to get up and walk to the bathroom but actually passes out on a couch.

As for the type of realism this film used, I am not really sure which word could explain it. Obviously most of the things they figure out would not happen to most of us so in that sense it is not real. But on the other hand it is possible and not to far fetched. I believe the way in which they dealt with the problems was realistic. You would probably try to talk your way out of stealing a cop car, but in reality it probably would not work. So this is an example from movie and real life. As I stated earlier that the actual hangover scene seemed to be the most realistic. Although I am sure if you were to watch this flick you would find more commonalities than just that scene.

Spike Lee: Do The Right Thing

Assignment: Required Reading, Looking & Writing

For this week's assignment, I'd like you to expand on two of the questions that were on the "Do the Right Thing" questionnaire, and also to make a response to Matt Zoller Seitz's video essay on the film, below.

The questions are:

1. Write about the color you were assigned to look at in the film, and explain where the color appeared, and how it was used. (an online essay by Cynthia Scott, which has a few good paragraphs on the use of color in the film, as well as some other stylistic choices, might be a good inspiration -- the article is here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/pop_print.html?content_type=article&content_type_id=26545)

2. Explain your reactions and thoughts to Mookie's act at the climax of the film. Did it seem justified? Inevitable? Sympathetic? Heroic? Masochistic? Juvenile? Righteous? Misguided?

And here's Matt Zoller Seitz video essay:

Which brings us to question three:

3. Do you think that the analysis of the film here -- as a film that doesn't really endorse a particular political argument, but rather as a film about arguments, and the way that arguments can escalate out of feelings of personal grievance -- make the film seem less "political"? To what extent do you find Do the Right Thing a "political" film?

Here's a transcript of the video essay, for reference:
http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/right-handleft-hand-spike-lees-do-the-right-thing/Content?oid=1197924

The end of the video essay quotes liberally from critic Jonathan Rosenbaum's 1898 essay on the film -- a good piece of writing that can be found here:

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=7536

Recommended readings:

Spike Lee films on Netflix instant:

Do the Right Thing

Malcolm X

Crooklyn

Clockers

(I haven't seen Clockers since it came out, but at the time, it was my favorite film of his)

Lee has also done recordings of several live performances and stage shows by other artists -- of those Passing Strange and A Huey P. Newton Story are on instant view. The former is quite good, and I've been meaning to see the latter, but haven't yet gotten around to it -- it's a one-man show with the actor who played "Smiley" as Huey Newton. His documentaries 4 Little Girls and When the Levees Broke are also supposed to be quite good.

Linklater Reading

1. Linklater's films tend to dwell on ideas and their exchange between people. Along with this one prevalent theme Linklater explores is idleness, which he believes is a key component to the generation of ideas. While most of his films seem to explore the positive nature of idleness the one exception is SubUrbia in which Linklater apparently links the idleness of the characters to their violent, antisocial behavior.

2. In his definition of style I believe wood means that it establishes the way in which information is relayed from the screen to the audience. Style is the personality of the film, it can change how a it is understood by the audience.

I can certainly agree that Linklater's use of heavy collaboration in Before Sunrise works, I would be severely hesitant to believe it should be such a useful method for all, or even most, other films. It seems to me that it has its uses, but I can equally imagine it being damaging to a film. As far as the use of real life encounters in the film, the main example being the actors in the play about the cow, I feel it add minimal if any difference to the film itself. While the film itself certainly exhibits a sense of realism, I do not believe that is a result of such scenes. To me, that scene could easily have been just scripted, in other words it did not feel any more real than the rest of the movie, but perhaps that only attests to Linklater's knack at realism.

3. Film is a medium with a unique position of control on time. Movies can make time move slow or fast, they can skip over years, they can allow audiences to experience the same time in two different locations. The potential to manipulate time in movies is limited only by the ambitions of the person(s) making it.

Linklater Reading Assignment

For reading #1:

According to Price, the unifying theme in all of Linklater’s films is the idea of idleness, particularly the idleness of the young and poor. Rather than glorifying or condemning idleness, Linklater simply explores the effect that it has on people. He is also very interested in time as a concept, and how it can be manipulated through the medium of filmmaking.

For reading #2:

I think that "style is the artist's means of defining the relationship of the spectator to the film" is another way of saying that style encompasses every method a director uses to influence the viewer’s experience as they watch. Everything that a filmmaker does to put their own unique spin on things, or to make separate films feel as if they’ve all come from the same mind or source, is “style”.

As for Linklater’s approach to making Before Sunrise, I think that incorporating elements like improvisation and collaborative scriptwriting do give the film a sense of realism. For instance, allowing the actors to draw from their own personal histories is an interesting way to give the characters a believable back-story. I think that, to a certain degree, drawing on past experience is something that all writers and actors do to ensure a sense of realism.

For #3:

Film definitely has the most unique relationship to time compared to other mediums. You can look at a painting for as little or as long as you want, or you can read a book all in one sitting or spread it out over a period of months, but a film takes a set amount of time to experience the thing in its entirety. And of course, time has to pass within the storyline of the film, which opens up endless possibilities for how time is experienced by the viewer; the story could take place in real-time, or it could be non-linear, or it could encompass the entire life of a character from beginning to end.