Mulholland Drive

Now I'm no expert on David Lynch, but I have recently seen a lot of his films lately due to the fact that I'm in another course that is all about David Lynch and his time in the film Industry. I really enjoyed Mulholland Drive, because of two reasons really, one because it plays a lot with the concept of reality and imaginary, or the whole light and dark world that Lynch typically depicts in his films, and two , because Mulholland Drive really plays around with the audience.

I really enjoyed a lot of the psychology behind the film, with the audience being tricked into believing the happenings that are taking place on screen. That is why I would have to say the the scene with Club Silencio is probably my favorite and probably the key scene of the film. The reason I figured that it is key is because that scene is probably best described as the transition scene, from the light world two the dark world. The club scene included a conductor that told the audience that what they were seeing and hearing was a recording as recording and not the real thing. For the case of Betty/Diane, this was shown to affect her state of mind and even cause her to convulse because she believed in the imaginary so much, which was pretty weird and i didnt get that at the time. Anyways, just like how Betty believed that she was I this imaginary world, the audience also believed that they were in the same world because emotionally we are taken in by the performances, such as the Spanish singing lady. Now this did effect me on an emotional level I'm not sure if it did for anyone else but I do believe that was the point, because there were no subtitles so we weren't supposed to know what was happening exactly. Instead we were supposed to feel what was going on and be drawn in...then brought out as soon as she fainted, but kept singing.

So in my opinion I really liked that it played with us on psychological and emotional level. Alright in class I really liked that we tried to put a narrative to not only this film, but in general for David Lynch's work. He himself has said multiple times that he hates it when people try to make sense of his films, but I really think that we came up with some good ideas to what some of Mulholland means. Now I thought that it was just about the imaginary and reality but in class someone described Betty and Rita to be the same person, one just being the more sexual side of a person and the other being the peppy blond. I think that was a very interesting way of looking at the film because theirs so many ways of interpreting work by lynch. I thought this description was pretty accurate because both character end up being blond, and there is a point where they are next to each other...blond looking at there mirrored images.

The reading that we were given really put the whole fim in perspective for me to in a way make me see what was really happening. What I'm talking about is the whole ordeal with Mulholland Drive being a depiction of Hollywood and the good and the bad of how that town works.I really think that this fits what we are seeing on screen , because of how many different elements from different films are incorporated into the first "dream world" part. I believe that this really shows the whole " I'm gunna be a star" aspect of moving to Hollywood.

Once I read this I really thought that this was a story that happened to lynch, him being in the spot of Adam the director. the only reason I say this is because a lot of his films are beautiful like Mulholland Drive, but Dune was kinda totally against his will, so I though that this was showing what he was going through at the time. Haha I really can see David Lynch smashing someones windshield in.

Crazy Ladies and a Crazy guy

HEATHERS was definitely different. yeah that perfect to start off saying. I can recall myself thinking that this movie seemed like it was going to have the same feel to say the Breakfast club or even Faris Bueller's day off, with the whole upbeat mood , but I was mistaken. I mean don't get me wrong there were a lot of moments where i thought that it looked exactly like these other movies, because the director was the same, but this one seemed like it was supposed to be taken as the same idea as one of these upbeat films, with just a dark side.

The overall film I thought was really nicely done, the story really caught my eye because as I said earlier I wasn't really used to this kind plot from this point of time. Over all I would have to say that my most favorite part would be the character of JD. Now a lot of people don't really like this character because he was the antagonist, and a bit crazy, and at times seemed "insignificant", but the overall tone to Christian Slater's character was...amazing. I personally would have to agree with the half of my class that believes that he was a type of anti hero, even though it may be hard to believe. The reason I say this is because like in the Third man we are given a character that is portrayed in a certain way to the audience, in this case an attractive, smart, witty, relatively likable character that we can generally recognize with, like Henry Lime. I mean like deep down JD does have justification for what he is doing, come on he says it, but like the way he says it just makes it wrong, I have this basic theory that I use to try and figure out if a character is really bad or not at that is called the ratio rule. now the basis is that if you take the three basic meanings behind the character and ask yourself if at least two of them are "negative" then he probably is bad. Alright so J D, kills people...bad, has reason to fix society...good, is a psychopath...bad, thus he must be bad haha . Alright now take Walter White from Breaking Bad.
Married for 20 years with familly always played by the rules...good, becomes a methamphetamine cook...bad, has cancer, so he is making drugs to take care of his family when he is dead...good. Walter is a good man doing a bad thing for a good reason, but JD is a bad man doing a bad thing for a good reason. 2 are bad so in my view he just doesn't make the cut no matter how well he is portrayed.
I thin that the perfect comparison to JD's character would have to be like it was said in class...the Joker. Reall both of them didn't really have a great excuse to why they were commiting such horrendous acts, but they still did them for there own personal pleasure. I thought that both of these characters had some sort of mental illness, but in Heathers, nothing was explained, and in the dark knight he changed his reasons every time. I think the quote from Alfred in the Dark Knight explains it perfectly. "Sometimes there are men, who just want to watch the world burn."

Some formal elements that I really liked would have to be the different things that you would see on the set, for instance while watching JD, he always seemed to have this blue light on him for some reason and it wasn't soft at all it was really noticeable. Now it could be because he was tightly bound to the character of veronica who is always wearing blue for some reason. I guess whet it was were the colors in general... I know it was an 80's film so the colors were bold but that's not what i mean. why did all the Heathers and Veronica have all different colors that they had to stick to? The only reasonable explanation that I could think of would be because it had to do with the pecking order of the school. Even in croquet each girl was a certain color, and if one wanted to change it up then she would get harassed.

The reading that went along with this film really was enjoyable to me, A. because it was really easy to understand compared to a lot of the other readings, and B. it really put a lot f meaning behind some of the images that were scene on screen when viewing the film Heathers. Now it really talks about the post-modernist themes in the movie like repeated references, but to be honest that was interesting to read but not very useful in breaking down the film. What i did find interesting though is when the author said that in the end nothing really changed. This I would have to totally agree with. I say this because nothing really did change, except 3 kids are dead. sure we have this new leader of the school , but we always had a changing role for leader in the film. I guess I really enjoyed it because it just pointed out the obvious to me when no one else in the film really was.

Overall thought it was a really great film i definitely recommend it, see y'all next time.

Shaft B****es!

Shaft...what a fun ride of a film. I knew I was in for a wild ride just as soon as the intro music consisting with funk was introduced. the actor of shaft was what I would have to say as perfectly fitting for the way that I have heard stories about shaft over the years. I have heard many depictions of shaft, and have com up with expectations that I would have originally thought to describe his character, for instance i thought he was going to be a lot like huggy bear from Starsky and Hutch. I had no idea that he was actually a police officer, and a private eye at that, I always thought he was just some kickin ass black dude with no concrete affiliation with anyone. boy was I wrong.

Now when it comes to the cinematography of shaft, my expectations fell pretty close to what I actually saw onto the screen, except for the intro. I actually really enjoyed that walk sequence which included a lot of long shots far away from the shaft himself just showing him interacting with his environment. I ll get back to that in a moment , but the shots I would have to say were realy nice in that sequence especially when the chorus would say his name and it would be a close up on his face, classic action movie style haha. anyways to get back to what I was saying earlier showing shaft in this certain way( interacting with his environment) really sets the tone for the characters overall "swagger & style" for the rest of the film. I mean here we have this black male walking through the middle of traffic,not giving a shit, in what I believe is New york. that was just seemed like a statement of the character and just set the bar for what to expect.

Alrighty well anyway in the article we have this really rare distinction between the shaft of the 70's and the new and improved shaft of the 2000's. now what I came to take from the article is that these two men, both playing the same character, just don't act the exact way. One acts as if it is his mission to just fight and keep fighting till his mission is complete and the other really carries the whole legend behind shaft of being the ladies man. I really think that this is a very important part to how we look at masculinity today. On top of this the conversation that we had in class broke it down even further to help explain it to us. For example we talked about how the new shaft was just this kung fu guy that just seemed to beat people up for the answers he was looking for just like a Jason Statham...Crank. However the old shaft had this intimidation factor that he threw around in a brilliant way. The 70's shaft new he was bad ass and that's what really made me respect him as a character, which was the whole point of his character doing that. He no matter what the dangerous situation brought always stood up in the face of the antagonist and said " man you ain't going to do shit"....amazing; just the perfect line to say.

Alright well this is the part where I just have to ask a huge question concerning masculinity, through a story of my life. well the other day I was walking around enjoying the weather and I came to a crosswalk with no light just a sign that said pedestrians have the right away, so naturally I walk. in the middle of this walk this guy almost hits me coming about 3 feet away even though you could clearly see me before hand. Anyways he gets pissed and yells out the window and I then yell back at him, basically the point being we might have a problem. Now nothing happened eventually just drove away because of traffic, but my question is what Should I have done? Naturally I felt like going Jason Statham on his ass and wrecking him, just like the media shows today how masculinity is defined in films.However do you think If I pulled a 70's Shaft and just intimidated and stood my ground, would I have had better results than if I were to just fight? Overall could I bring back the techniques in masculinity of the 70's to replace the today's standard of kick ass ask questions later. Think about it.

Alright see y'all next time!

Vanishing Point

Now in my opinion Vanishing Point just topped all of the films that we have scene in our class by a lot. The reason I say this is because usually when we learn about some background of the film or about the characters I'm normally not really interested, or I'm more blown away by the cinematography in the film. However, when I watched Vanishing Point Not only was I fascinated in how they shot the movie, but I also really enjoyed the story behind Kowalski and the era that this story to place. Now when I first started watching this film I thought I was just going to sit and watch a movie about some guy in a car, like I'm sure most of my other peers also thought, but when you get into it the subtext of the film really takes you places.

The character of Kowalski really seemed to stand out through out the film as this hero doing something great for the American people that were treated unjust or something like that, but in actuality that's not really what he was going for and he really didn't care to be a hero for this part of his life. In class we disscused how people saw him as this great rebel leader against "The Man " because that is what people including the friendly Dj Super Soul made him out to be. Maybe Kowalski was once this hero they talked bout because he had this background of being in the army and police force both being highly decorated, but since he lost out on all of these better off opportunities, he is just driving. His character is one made out to be one big contradiction.

I really liked the whole aspect of freedom discussed in the article and further discussed in class. The article talked about how as I said before, people portraying kowalski as this hero, but how instead he is just making it possible to get the feeling of freedom that he has been denied of his whole life. He wants to speed. That is how Kowalski is able to get this feeling of freedom, by going really super fast and breaking the limitations that normally constrict people to a certain speed. That is also one aspect I found to be pretty funny in my own humorous mind. I thought it was great how he wanted to go super fast, so he was taking speed to give himself the rush, as well as all of the cinematography aiding that feeling with quick cuts that seem to amplify the drug use.

Alright now I have a theory about something mentioned in class but I don't think anyone really answered it or made it very clear as to why this happened. In the end, right before Kowalski meets his demise, we see a close up shot on his face, and what do we see; a smile. Why on earth would he smile? Now bare with me, but I really think that it has something to do with his past of trying to win or do the right thing, and always having things crushed in front of him. Now personally when I'm trying to do something that I really want to do and I have come pretty far to almost finishing, I really don't want things to come and mess them up. But when that does happen , and it does happen eventually, you really need to just laugh and say "god damn it". So im guessing its one of those this that you need to laugh or smile to keep from crying. Now I could be wrong but if I was in that position I believe that I would laugh as well.

A lot of people thought that the final ending of Kowalski was kinda boring and just kinda fell short of the story, but I really think that him doing what he did was the perfect ending. It was the ultimate F*** you, your going to take my speed and freedom away form me. He even sped up to crash...amazing. Anyway I loved it, a great way to ultimately break the limitations that seem to restrain him throughout his life.... just perfect. On a side not this film reminded me of the character of Walter White on Breaking bad because of all of the let down he experienced in his life, which would then change when he discovers he has cancer so he start to do the opposite. I don't know both of those guys seem amazing to me.

See y'all next time!

Dr. Strangelove

Dr. Strangelove was in my opinion one of the funniest films i have seen come out of that era hands down. Just to start off, I would just like to say that the character of Dr. Strangelove and how the actor played him was hilarious. All of the small subtle gestures that were made by the actor just seemed to capitalize on the comedy. I would have to say that the part where he cant help but Nazi salute to the president, and then fight with his hand just made me laugh so hard and made me think that this movie was ridiculous.

Going along with what I said before, the characters of the film were really interesting. each one seemed to hold very interesting qualities that just seemed to bring out other weird qualities that were found in the other characters. Now I haven't seen a lot of Stanley Kubrick's films but what he did to the characters in this film made it hilarious to watch. the thing that I found very interesting in the character development would have to be how masculine many of the characters were, compared to how feminine the president was throughout the movie. The way that the advisers gave helpful information to the president was like they were throwing there weight around while yelling at him. On top of that the President seemed to just stand by and take the abuse, and even at times when the advisers were fighting each other the president wouldn't like to engage in the confrontation. Now in my opinion I couldn't help but think of a marriage in this day of age when I saw the president interact with his board. Maybe its just me but by the way the president acted, I could see him in a sun dress.

Stanley Kubrick's visuals in this film are what I would have to call amazing. Aside from all of the humor that would be used in the film, the Cinematography would have to be one of the most eye catching parts of the film. What I found to be most interesting would have to be a lot of the camera work, the editing/ composting techniques used at the time, and the overall shot selection. I thought it was really great how interesting the inside of a B- 52 could actually be. For instance when the bomb hatch wouldn't open, a lot of the camera work involved super fast zooms onto some of the toggles and switches, which seemed to just amp up the situation that was happening.
Along with this we talked in class about how Kubrick seemed to use a good amount of WWII footage to give off the feeling of being a standard war movie at the time. however we come to realize at the end that this is defiantly not the case, seeing the main crisis was not averted and the end of the would eventually came. Overall my absolute favorite effect would have to be when the cowboy pilot is riding the nuclear warhead down onto the Russian base,ultimately I thought that it was a great shot with the background moving perfectly with the for ground character. Oh yeah and on top of that I thought that it was great that this scene was reenacted in the film Armageddon when one of the scientists is rideing the nuke out of the space shuttle...hilarious.

The article actually brought a lot of the tone used in the film into a better perspective for me. what I mean by this is for the most part I could not for the life of me figure out why the people in the war room acted like the crisis was not that big of a deal even though basically everyone on the face of the earth will die. Now when I saw this I was like what the F*** because are they really just gunna lay back and have this happen? On the contrary the article explained that this wasn't that uncommon. One section of the article explains that for a chunk of time the New York Times published articles of subjects such as How To Live With Your Radiation Fallout, or even 92 out of 100 Can Be Saved. I just thought that it was kinda ridiculous to think that we could live with something like this happening so we shouldn't really so anything about it. What a Crazy state of mind right?

Overall this film was amazingly hilarious to watch, and just fun I highly recommend it
See y'all next time

Hey guys this week will be my second skip, but no worries I will still comment ! =]

Party Boy

When we first started talking about this film, I really couldnt see myself getting into the whole idea of the high society thing that was described to us, but you know what, after watching the whole thing I got really into it. The whole plot in general and the main character kinda reminded me of a greek god named Dionysus. Now this god is depicted of being the "party animal" of the gods, and that is kinda expected when you have the title of being the god of wine. Marcello reminded me in the way that Disney described Dionysus in Fantasia, running around from place to place, drinking wine and meeting women, oh what a life it is.

I thought that the layout of the film was also an interesting touch. Now what I mean by this is that when I looked up extra information about th film to understand it better, I found out that the film is kinda split up into "episodes" and these episodes, when looked at one right after the other, basically give you insight of Marcello's life for what I believe is about seven days. Now the first episode which is basically the opening sequence discribes the tone of the film really well, because of the actions seen by our main character Marcello. In class we talked about how the catholic church banned this film from being shown basically everywhere, and judging from the time period that the film was made and the content shown throughout, I can kinda understand why they had that feeling. Just how Marcello and the camera seem to be distracted by the women in bathing suits when the christ statue is being delivered makes you think that this character is peobably up to no good. The article also had some good points to how the church saw this film to be insulting to them at multiple spots. Not only is it that the first scene seems to have a statue blessing Rome as it flies over "distracting" women haha, but also there seems to be reoccuring religous icons shown in the film. These icons plus the over all "playboy" feel to the film is what made me think that the church had a huge problem with it.

Alright now I had some questions to the film that I was hoping to get answered so I thought why not just put it out there. For one thing, why is it that they used two languages throughout the film? What was the point? Is it just to show that there is a difference in some of the people or some sort of communication barrier? Now this is just my opinion, but I think that it was used to try and make a seperation between the two types of people. Let me explain myself, I dont know if it was just me, but didn't alot of the dialoge that the americans said seem kinda...dumbed down in a way. For example the american actress seemed like she was just in a different world throughout the whole time we saw hew, and her husband didnt seem any better. The whole time we saw him he seemed to be drunk or had a drink in his hand within thirty seconds. Now my favorite example of what I am talking about would have to be that one woman at the last party scene in the beach house. Everyone is speaking french and I believe that Marcello said something funny, and she laughs along with everyone else and says " what did he say?", I mean what the heck is that.

The last thing I just want to touch on is how alot of people discribe the characters to have not really progressed at all throughout the film. I would have to disagree for only one reason, and that reason is because of the way Marcello seems to be acting at the end of the film. He seems to be just sick of the whole party scene in general making him lose it. Along with that, at the very end on the beach he really seems to be just out of it in some way. Walking away from the party people and talking to the beach girl , but not hearing her, and not really caring weather or not if he does. That just forced me to look at this man differently than I did throughout the entire movie.

All in all interesting film , see y'all next time!

Now this movie was definitely different. I'm really glad that our professor told us not to really look into the whole storyline aspect of the film and just "watch " the movie in all of its visual glory. I found it rather appropriate that this film was compared to a dream sequence in our class, because to be honest I was at times drifting in and our of consciousness. The funny thing about that is that every time I seemed to come out of slightly drifting off it seemed like I was watching the same scene over and over and over again, and at times I'm pretty sure that this is one of the feelings that the director would have liked everyone to experience at one point when watching this film. A dream sequence is a very odd and interesting concept to build off of that's why at times especially when watching this odd film I kinda connected it to some of David lynches work.

Alrighty well first off all the imagry in this movie was amazing. You can just see so many layers of angles built up when watching a variety of scenes in this film. For instance a favorite one of mine would be that they used a good deal of mirrors incorporated shots. The scene where the camera is slowly trucking in while we watch a mirror, that is looking at another mirror, that is yet looking at A, our female character. These well thought out shots brought me back to Citizen Kane and that one shot of him walking through his palace next to mirrors that just reflect into each other. These effects are just so fun to look at, and even though I didnt quite stay with the story I could gain something from what I was seeing.

An interesting thing that was talked about in class would have to be the game that is repeated constantly throughout the film. When I first saw it played I didn't really understand completely on how it was played and won, but as I continued to watch I noticed that M the husband, always won for some strange reason. It was further explained to us that it was because of some sort of algorithm used which would no matter what make the person who went second win.Now what is interesting is that I believe that X had a chance to go second , but managed to lose...ever time he lost and was stuck in this world of loss. Now the narration I could follow with the whole thing of X not being able to move on because A rejected him was kinda comparable to this game that is played. Loss is X's constant burden and curse that he has to live with.

The reading basically brought a lot of my questions together, the reason is as I read on I found that the over all structure of the mansion/hotel and the garden outside was basically the structure the mindset that was supposed to be felt. To explain this its like we are supposed to be stuck, like X is stuck in his progress in his relationship, and that he cant win, thus we are also stuck. Stuck in these long halls that are described in the mansion which is brought out by the cinematography of long trucking shots. Also the gardens are shown to be this twisting maze that seems impossible to escape from. All in all a mind twisting concept with some mind twisting characters not to mention an intense plot to go along with it.


Enjoy this one see y'all next time

Orpheus's Inferno

So the film Orpheus seemed to be a little more difficult to get into than the other movies we have watched in class, I would just have to blame that on the storyline because did not completely understand what was happening at the time I was watching it. I guess it my trouble with the film was that I thought it was going to resemble the Greek mythology pretty much as closely as possible, but it really didn't follow it exactly. Also it was in french so there were times that I would fall in and out of attention if I couldn't comprehend what they were saying.

What I did notice and found interesting was the whole aspect of the poet, and how Orpheus is able to travel into this underworld because he is has this certain gift. Now my big question while I was watching this film was that are poets universally looked at to having this power? The reason I ask this is because this story reminded me a lot of Dante's Inferno, which is a story of a man who is led through the nine circles of hell to find a beautiful woman named Beatrice who resides in purgatory. Now in this story we see a man who is also trying to find his "love" and has to cross deep into the depths of the underworld so that he may find her. The interesting thing about this story is that Dante is led through the nine circles of hell by a poet named Virgil. This was the point where I was like why do poets get these special powers to descend between worlds, and is it any poet who is allowed these powers?

In class we touched on why this power to travel into the underworld is possible by poets,and we found out that they have a certain closeness to death throughout having a "career" of being a poet, which is a really cool concept and fits both of these stories. One would have to wonder though if there were other positions one could take to also be granted these powers such as being an artist in general, or a certain type of musician, maybe they can go into other worlds, I don't know. I do know now that Greek mythology and catholic belief kind of have this same conceptual idea of poets having this power, by looking at Dante's Inferno and Orpheus.

Visually this movie was freaking amazing, the whole underworld being made of post world war two ruins just added to there being two different realms. I'm just a big fan of the third man and how it was used in that film, so naturally it looked good to me in this film as well. The other effects used just immersed me even more into the underworld, like the mercury used for the portal and things like that. My favorite effect would have to be the scene where they're not supposed to be in the underworld and we see Orpheus just slide along the wall like he's being pulled away. I know in class we discussed how this may have been done but I still have no idea how they managed to get that effect with there technology back then.

The article Deadly Statuses: Eros in the films of Jean Cocteau was kind of hard to understand the little bits and pieces, but as a whole I feel that it relates to why Jean Cocteau depicted Orpheus in this certain way, and maybe even why he chose to film Orpheus in the first place. What I took away from the article was that homosexuals in the time of this film were taken to be so offensive, and considered to be a disease, that they were imprisoned, and ridiculed against. So from this they were forced to live in this "secret world" of not letting anyone know and basically going against their way of life just to be safe from being locked up. Now I connected this to Orpheus by the two worlds that we see in this movie, one "normal" and the other in ruin. I believe that there is a big use of symbolism in how Cocteau may have used these to worlds in the film to describe the two different worlds that homosexuals at the time had to live in.

Over all Orpheus was a good film , a little hard to understand at times, but still pretty entertaining. The concepts of the film were probably one of the most important aspects of the piece, so make sure you really keep that in mind as you watch.

Hope you enjoyed, See y'all next time!

Laura Fatale?

Now this was a good film, this movie had a good plot I could sink my teeth into, and for once not be disappointed in the ending by not getting the answers I wanted. I really appreciated all of the different characteristics that were present in all of the individuals. I thought that the many personalities worked nicely with the Noir feel, because of the type of mystery that was going on . I really tried throughout the film to find out who the murderer was, and what weapon was used, just like in those many CSI drama series that are out now. I have come to realize that this film is like Citizen Kane in many ways, like finding out about a person through the thoughts and the stories of others, and how others saw that person. However Laura then is rediscovered to be alive,unlike Kane so i also feel like she in a sense is like Herry Lime in the Third Man. A main character that comes back from the dead.

Laura is a very unique type of film, because initially the femme fatale feel to the movie is present...but as the end of the film came along I kinda didn't get that feeling anymore. I mean sure, the scheme of it was there, like the woman being able to control men with her godly like beauty, and grace, but I thought she was supposed to be the type of person that wont settle for any type of man regardless if her life was saved by one them just like it is described in the Article No Place For a Woman. The article gives many great examples of how through many femme fatale films of the audience seeing this tough girl in charge, but I really just didn't get that vibe from Laura the character in the film. When we first meet her yes, she was that hard working woman that didn't need a man, but then when we come to the end she settled down with the detective...whats up with that? I'm guessing it was the whole journey and experience that changed her, but I still thought that wouldn't have mattered, and she would rather be without a man and still in control. A little of myself wanted Laura to not be with anyone in the end, just to completely be a femme fatale film.

The femme fatale scene that impressed me the most would have to be the scene that McPherson is walking around Laura's apartment digging in all of her unmentionables. At the moment the camera gazes at the portrait of Laura you just get that feeling of...woah, you know this portait, and how we or the characters see it is going to be important. At that exact time McPherson gets that exact feeling that comes across yourself , and that is where I respect femme fatale the most in the film. McPherson was able to fall in love with not the person Laura, but with the image of her...now that's some powerful attraction right there. In our class discussion we also talked about how this way of seeing Laura as an image rather than an actual human is how her character actually is to the other male characters. I would have to agree completely, just with the way Lydecker and Shelby treated her as if she was a toy, or a possession. Shelby treated all women like this , but Lydecker wouldn't let anyone else have her, like a kid not wanting to share with others. I even thought it was funny at times when he acted like a child, like when he was in Laura's apartment and he wanted his stuff back. All i heard was a child going MINE MINE MINE!

I found that the discussion in class sparked a interesting question regarding the items used on the set and certain characters. For example I believed that we linked the lamp to a be a symbol as Laura, because it doesn't really fit in, and it is very frilly and pretty. A question that I have is that are there other items that can be linked to the other characters?... I would have to assume so, somehow. Like the clock could be link to Lydecker in my opinion, because he always mentions it, is seen with it in Laura's house, also the murder weapon is in it, and he shoots it in the end of the movie. However the real trouble I am having now is connecting Shelby to an item as well as McPherson. I thought that somehow McPherson could be connected to his toy game that he messes around with from time to time, mostly when people are talking to him. The reason I say this is that it is a game that needs to be solved, and he is a detective that needs to solve cases, so I guess on one level or another that the game is the symbol of McPerson. I have no idea for Shelby though, i was thinking at times that it could have been items of some sort in the country house or something like that, but its really hard to place him with a certain one. In the end I can really see why this film is in the middle of being a true femme fatale film and not being one.

Orson the Shadow

Now this is the first time I have ever seen the movie The Third Man , and on top of that, this is actually the second movie that I have ever seen Orson Wells in. Now when I compare his role in this movie to his role in Citizen Kane , I believe that I enjoyed the role he played in The Third man a bit more. The reason I say this is because I think that I basically obtained the absolute truth about most of the characters by the end of the film rather than be left in question like I was at the end of Citizen Kane.

Alright well first off I loved the character of Harry Lime and how Orson wells Played him so well. I felt like as soon as he entered the movie and we saw his face uncovered from the shadows , the film just took off from there. I do like that the film presents Harry lime as this type of anti hero rather than a straight up villain , because a villain you see, you analyze, and you know there evil and you can hate him or her right off the bat. However in the case of Harry lime, I'm sure that most of the audience including myself, found themselves rooting for him to succeed I, and get away from the dangers headed his way. I believe that in the case of the this film, camera work had a lot to do with how we saw each of the characters. For Harry, I seemed to notice that there were subtle tracking techniques going on, which in for me made things eventually get a bit up close and personal to really see our characters.


I mean really, look at that face, could that really be the face of some evil master mind that killed children and planned to kill more for his own personal gain? Okay, that was his plan all along but its just so hard to hate a character that just seems so... devilishly charming. I still can't get over that he shot the nicest character in the whole film. i was just completely shocked.

I found that the camera was also very tilted throughout the majority of this film, and I believe it is because we closely followed the character Holly Martins. The world he was entering, and the messed up, dark story behind it allowed for the Dutch angle to be appropriate. I found myself tilting my head for a while just to get used to this shot and the askew world.

The over all look of the film was just amazing to me. I loved all of the grungy, broken down parts of the city. I thought filming in the actual city of Post WWII Vienna helped give heft to the dark shadows that seemed to be a main theme in the film.I learned that this film has a great amount of german expressionism in it focusing mostly around shadows, and a type of dark world created from them, and this ruined setting fit perfectly. The shadows in this film just seem to devour everything. Even the character Harry Lime seems to be a part of them at different points. He is introduced by imerging from them, also later we see him come from the shadows to look over the city. Another thing is that we always see him in this long black coat and hat. With this look I couldn't help but compare him to the character of the Shadow.

These shadows are a nice element to play around with, and I found it rather interesting how this shadow world in The Third Man is compared to the shadow world in Bram Stroker's Dracula in the article The Revenant of Vienna. The setting that is described in both of these stories is actually pretty interesting and rather unsettling for me to see character's wander through it. I loved how the article described the world of Dracula by saying "Harker's description of his journey through this 'weird' atmosphere culminates in his arrival at Dracula's 'vast ruined castle,' whose 'broken battlements' cut 'a jagged line against the moonlit sky' (39). Harker's words, in short, describe a world 'closing down' upon him both literally and figuratively." I find this to fit perfectly in the description of the world that we also see Holly go through.

All in all good story, great characters, and an amazing setting. All of these elements are key ingredients to creating a film that impresses even the toughest of crowds. I would have to say... I was quite satisfied in how everything turned out, and I am looking forward to seeing more films that Orson Wells is cast in.

Two Times The Charm

The Film Citizen Kane has changed dramatically in my eyes, since the first time I actually watched the film. However on my second viewing, I have come to the conclusion that I had missed a great deal of information the first time around. I remember when I first watched it, the thought, "great another black and white boring classic" came to mind. After sitting through two hours of information that I thought was supposed to be important ,but ended up being one big contradiction I found that I couldn't really get anything out of the film, besides learning about some rich guy and his... sled.

When my second viewing of the film began, the same feeling of "How am I going to be able to sit through this", began to happen again, until I decided that if I didn't get anything from the movie the first time I should really try and look for subtleties that I may have missed to better the experience, and to better understand Charles Foster Kane. The Second time around was way more interesting, because I saw all these things I didn't really catch the first time.For example I had no idea that there were models used throughout the film, as well as "Deep Focus" also being a key factor in the meaning behind alot of the content.

I would have to say when looking at the form point of view of this film, and how the camera works , that there are a lot of camera shots that I thought were just out there, and really interesting. For example this one right here that perfectly frames young Charles Foster Kane in the window and yet as the camera pulls back to the conversation of his mother discussing his living arrangements with his father and the banker. We never lose focus of Charles.Everything is really sharp in the for ground, middle ground, and background including the simple hat on the table. I had no idea that this was actually possible to do on a camera back then, until I learned in class that Orson Welles actually wound back the film numerous times to get this sensation of vast depth, and also keeping everything focused. I had a discussion about this film and why it utilizes this deep focus. The first time viewing the film I have to admit I didn't notice it at all, but the second time I couldn't help but always look around to the areas on screen that weren't necessarily important, but were still in focus for some reason. It was explained to me that the focus was used to underatand the world Kane was living in, to better connect to the man himself. I guess that makes sense, because of how a person's character is defined by what they have been through and how they have over came there obstacles.

My absolute favorite shot, or series of shots in this film would have to be at the very beginning, because initially how its set up, and also how we somewhat start to penetrate into this No Trespassing sign through a series of dissolves to this lonely lit room atop this monstrous castle. The reason I feel that this was one of my absolute favorite scene was because of how frustrated the scene made me once I (the Camera) entered the room. It was as if my freedom to penetrate walls was taken away and I was immediately sucked into this glass ball not able to see the intense moment that naturally people would want to see.

I found it fascinating that my "frustration" to being confined isn't that uncommon and is actually one of the main topics of the Article " The Real Fascination of Citizen Kane" by Bert Cardullo.The article discusses that not only does the opening give this feeling of entrapment after being free, but actually there are many examples of the same feeling throughout the movie. The scene I disscussed earlier with the mother captures the same emotions of entrapment." The camera movement changes the appearance of the space the hero occupies from open to closed...Now he appears tiny within the firm frame that remains visible from the table at which sit his mother and father." After reading this I felt that for once I actually felt the emotion I was supposed to naturally feel through subtleties in scenes, rather than having an emotional response happen in front of me on the screen and not caring or connecting as much.

I feel that films that can make you have this type of connection, are the films that become remembered. Granted this is only the second time I have watched this film and there is more than likely a lot of information that I could still obtain from watching it over and over, I can now see why it has been taken to be one of the greatest films of all time.