Screenings

Annihilation

Alex Garland
2018

Science Fiction as philosophy

Alex Garland wrote and directed Ex Machina, and this is his follow-up. He adapted the novel and explored themes of humanity and evolution in very different, ways but you'll see a relationship between the large themes and questions about the nature of existence posed in Ex Machina.

The best science fiction creates a world that embodies an abstract idea.

Pay attention to the women

There are images in this film that recollect old war movies. Consider the visual and intellectual interplay between a classic Vietnam-era all-male platoon and a team of female scientists. Does it matter that the protagonists are women?

Watch the cinematography for beauty and horror
Reflections and mirroring are motifs of this film. Watch how the images reflect (sometimes literally) the themes. There are lots of inverted images through water to continue this theme visually.

Also consider how slow and beautiful some moments are in "the shimmer" and how horrifying others moments are.

u·ro·bo·ros

/ˌyo͝orəˈbôrəs/

noun

a circular symbol depicting a snake, or less commonly a dragon, swallowing its tail, as an emblem of wholeness or infinity.

LOMAX
Can you describe its form?

LENA
No.

LOMAX
Was it carbon based?

LENA
I don't know.

LOMAX
What did it want?

LENA
I don't think it wanted anything.

LOMAX
But... it attacked you.

LENA
It mirrored me. I attacked it.

Ex Machina

Alex Garland
2014

The Turing Test

What happens when it's obvious that we're talking to an artificial intelligence, yet the intelligence still seems human?

Consider technique

There's a pretty strong contrast between inside and outside in this film. Clean, steel & glass lab w/LED lighting vs. lush forest streams mountains & waterfalls. The cinematography highlights the contrast between the natural world and the man-made world.

Until.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Michel Gondry
2004

Fall in love

It's funny and it's romantic. So is it a romantic comedy? There's something messy about this movie- the mise-en-scene, the relationships, the lighting– that makes it feel "realistic", despite its sci-fi imagination. Somehow it avoids the glitz and glam of a major Hollywood production with two movie stars.

That time thing again

Since Joel is getting his mind erased from the most recent memories to the most distant, we get to see his relationship with Clementine in reverse order.-->we start with the bad times that led to their breakup and work backwards to the initial spark that makes them such a good fit for one another. Are they a good fit? Do you remember how it turned out?

la·cu·na
/ləˈk(y)o͞onə/
noun
• an unfilled space or interval; a gap.
• a missing portion in a book or manuscript.

And that poem snippet that Mary recites written by Pope Alexander, er Alexander Pope? Here it is in its entirety, published way back in 1717.

Memento

Christopher Nolen
2000

Film Form becomes Narrative device

First: Consider that Memento is a neo-noir. There's even some of it that's in black-and-white.

Now: Consider that Leonard, the protagonist, has memory problems. He interacts with the world differently than you and me.

So: How can a director use the medium of cinematic storytelling to show an audience the world through Leonard's perspective?

Watch for how Christopher Nolen uses film form- careful structure and editing to construct a reality for the audience akin to the reality of Leonard.

Nolen explains the complications of Leonard's perspective of time vs linear time.

Check out his explanation here.
Then get a load of the visual structure of the film here.

If you're interested in how the reverse-order of editing arrangement might have messed with the viewer, check out this edit of Memento with all of the scenes arranged in chronological order. This story is much more omniscient, more clear and less disorienting.

And here's a quick condensed in-order edit.

Blade Runner

Ridley Scott
1982

Film Noir becomes existential philosophy

“What makes us human?” – Google search (432,000 hits)
e.g., we have a soul, we cook, we remember things, we make tools, we make plans, we feel love, we have self-aware consciousness, we are created in God’s image, we are altruistic, we bury our dead, we have really big brains, we have language, we make cultures, we use fire, we have opposable thumbs, we use symbols, etc., etc.

There sure are a lot of versions of Blade Runner.
We watched the International Cut (1982),
and then the ending (and interpolated unicorn scene) from the Final Cut (2007).

And people really care about which version is best.

Why Blade Runner is Timeless

This article from The Guardian has all the answers, sort of.

Chinatown

Roman Polanski
1974

Film Noir gets an update

After its rise and heyday from the 40s-50s, film noir had become a tired trope-driven genre. There weren't many being made, and little new was developing from the genre. It was dead until Roman Polanski made this 1974 classic- set in 1940s Los Angeles.

Greatest Screenplay of all time?

For the 1975 Academy Awards, Chinatown was nominated for:
• best picture
• best director
• best actor
• best actress
• best film editing
• best art direction
• best costume design
• best cinematography
• best sound
• best musical score

... and best original screenplay.

That's the only category that it won. Robert Towne's script is so reflective of its time, and plays so perfectly with audience expectations of noir conventions. JJ Gittes is not Sam Spade, and justice isn't always served. It's hard to argue when the screenplay is referred to as "the greatest of all time".

A step sheet is basically an outline of every scene for the purpose of constructing a piece of fiction. Check out Chinatown's step sheet and, if you're more ambitious, the whole script.

Double Indemnity

Billy Wilder
1944

Film Noir- with a voiceover

There it is: the classic clever protagonist voice-over that will embed itself into noir genre tropes. Also, watch for more venetian blinds than you can imagine. Hmmm...are those shadows or prison bars?

After critically acclaimed and wildly popular Double Indemnity, the noir genre was solidified with all of its defining characteristics in place.

Insurance Fraud

Double indemnity is a clause or provision in a life insurance or accident policy whereby the company agrees to pay the stated multiple (e.g., double, triple) of the face amount in the contract in cases of death caused by accidental means.

Death by accidental means?
Yeah, right.

This was based on a true story...gone awry.

The Maltese Falcon

John Huston
1941

The first Hollywood Film Noir

Detective film with lots of shadows, smoking, fedoras and a femme fatale. This one really sets the standard for the next decade of film noir. The only trope it's missing is the voice-over narration, and perhaps a little rain.

• Made young John Huston a major director
• Made Humphrey Bogart a major Hollywood star.

Great dialogue "patter":

"You always have a very smooth explanation ready, don't you?"
"What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?"

" We didn't exactly believe your story, Miss O'Shaughnessy, we believed your 200 dollars. I mean you paid us more than if you had been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it alright."

The MacGuffin
According to master of suspense Alfred Hitchock, a MacGuffin is:

"...the thing that the characters on the screen worry about but the audience doesn't care about."

The Maltese Falcon itself is a classic MacGuffin. Some modern examples are The One Ring from Lord of the Rings, the Death Star Plans in Star Wars, Doug in The Hangover, the infinity stones in all those Marvel movies,

Jingle Bell Rocks!

Mitchell Kezin
2013

Well, it's the holidays

"An exclusive backstage pass into a fascinating underground world of alternative Christmas music. Starring an eclectic cast of characters - The Flaming Lips, Run DMC, John Waters - plus two dozen amazing and original songs, JINGLE BELL ROCKS. is a cinematic sleigh ride into the strange and sublime universe of alternative Christmas music."

Moonrise Kingdom

Director
Wes Anderson

Did somebody say centered?

If George Miller used on-center-composition for audience engagement with fast-editing, Wes Anderson uses it for some other reason. We notice it. Boy, do we notice it.

Wes Anderson has a very recognizable visual style to all of his cinema work. If you haven't seen any of his other films, this is a good introduction to how having a distinct vision for style and tone can create new worlds in cinema that don't necessarily feel exactly like our reality. Like Tim Burton, but in a different direction.

Watch for symmetry in composition. Watch for extremely smooth camera movements that begin and end with striking arrangement within the frame.

So the question: If the shots feel so deliberately constructed does that affect our engagement with the characters? Does noticing this deliberate artifice enhance or detract from the audience experience with this film? Is visual reality important for our suspension of disbelief? Is suspension of disbelief even important?

Mad Max: Fury Road

George Miller
2015

He's been making Mad Max movies for 36 years.

Mad Max came out in 1979. The Road Warrior followed in 1981. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome capped off the post-apocalyptic trilogy in 1985. Then...hiatus. 30 years later comes a reimagining of the film- Mel Gibson's Max has been replaced by Tom Hardy, and Charlize Theron adds a moral center to his survival.

What to watch for

There are so many individual shots in the high-intensity action sequences. Just try counting them. Rapid editing of fast action can be difficult for an audience to follow, but the technique of compositional focus with match-on-action editing helps the audience to follow the action from scene-to-scene. Check it out here.

The Village

M. Knight Shyamalan
2006

Frustrated with Sleepy Hollow?

I was. It was visually stunning, then it got creepy, then it got silly. Repeat. This film takes a similar creepy scenerio and draws out the dread, the fear, and the humanity a lot more evenly.

Shymalan was known for his creepiness

By 2006 he had established – The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs– an aura of supernatural elements in his films. As much as Tim Burton's films evoke dark, yet playful "fairy tale" worlds, Shymalan's worlds are a bit more sincerely dark.

Sleepy Hollow

Tim Burton
1999

Johnny Depp again!

That's what auteurs often do- find people who they vibe with, and keep using them. You'll notice the score is also by Danny Elfman- a Tim Burton favorite composer.

This is an adaptation of a classic American folk story. If you know it, you'll see that many details have been shifted- including Ichabod and the very nature of the Horseman himself. Adaptations are sometimes faithful to the original text, but since a movie is not a book, the better ones tend to use the visual medium and 2 hour runtime as ways to expand upon or re-think the original.

Watch for:
those classic German Expressionist elements that Burton is so fond of: dark shadows, unreal angles, psychological duality tolk through visuals.

Edward Scissorhands

Tim Burton
1990

What the heck is this genre?
Comedy?
"Fantasy Romance"?
"Satirical Horror"?

Tim Burton conceived this idea when he was a teenager, and wrote the screenplay, produced and directed it. This film is truly his baby. It was too weird for studios to fund it earlier in Burton's career, but after his commercial success with 1988s Batman, Edward Scissorhands got the go-ahead.

Watch for:

Burton's trademark influence from German Expressionist cinema as well as the Universal monster movies from the 40s. This really is just a Frankenstein story, with a tone shift.

Raising Arizona

Joel & Ethan Coen
1986

The comedy comes through visually

1) Starting with the 15-minute opening "micro-story" (watch the repetition of shots for a "montage style" storytelling technique.

2) Once you suspend your disbelief for the premise, there's plenty of metaphor for thinking people and slapstick for the rest of us.

Nicholas Cage has never been better

He's become sort of a joke- a cultural meme and parody of himself, but before he was in a zillion quasi-action films as variations of the same cool character, Nicholas Cage wasn't afraid to experiment with a role- and he's hilarious.

Cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld tries everything
The canted angles, wide angles, low angles, moving camera, POV shots are part of the fabric of this film. Most are deliberately chosen to reflect the storytelling and play up the comedy.

Get Out

Jordan Peele
2018

His first feature film. Shot in 23 days for $4.3 million. Why is it good?

Because it's never been done before.

"I've never seen the discomfort of being the only black guy in a room played in a film."- Jordan Peele

"It’s such a privilege to be able to experience another person’s culture. You know what I’m saying?"
Dean Armitage

According to Peele

"For me the social thriller is the thriller in which the fears and the horrors and the thrills are coming from society, they are coming from the way in which humans interact."
Jordan Peele

Run Lola, Run
(Lola Rennt)

Tom Tykver
1998

Two Reasons to Watch

1) It's a foreign film with subtitles, yet very watchable for those unaccustomed to that. Consider the mix of media- this movie is shot on film, video and uses some animation as well. Why? How does the medium inform the storytelling?

2) Technique. You'll be looking for how the director employs your "film convention" so you can analyze it and use the example in your video essay.

Although it was cutting edge in it's time...

It doesn't seem very "new" today. Here's an article on how it was important in the context of 90's films.

Director Tom Tykver on one visual choice
"To accomplish this we followed a consistent pattern: each level has its own 'look.' The sequences with Lola and Manni are shot on 35mm. The others, where Lola and Manni are not involved, were shot on video – in kind of a synthetic, artificial world. That places Lola and Manni at the center of their world, in which miracles can happen just like in the movies. The film image is true, and the others are untrue, as it were. So when Lola runs through a video image, it becomes film."

My Neighbor Totero

Hayao Miyazaki
1988

Nothing in a film is an accident

We start with animation because it's easy to see that every pixel is placed there deliberately. Mise-en-scene. Precise planning and coordination of image and sound with plot and emotion are the keys to giving the audience a real entertainment experience. Moement of the frame mimics a "camera" dolly, zoom, tracking shot as well, giving the mise-en-scene of most Pixar animation the "feel" of a conventionally shot film.

Suspension of Disbelief

How do you connect with characters with no gradient in their skin tones? whose mouths occasionally take up their whole face? whose eyes seem disproportionately large? What about when they interact with magical forest creatures?

We suspend our disbelief when we are emotionally involved in a film. Animation studios like Japan's Studio Ghibly or Hollywood's Pixar are great at setting up the rules of a "world" and sticking with the logic of that "world", while engaging our emotions through the characters.

Screenings & Analysis

March 29, 2022