Top 11

1.       The Hitch Hiker: It was an easy to understand black and white film that kept me engaged throughout the film.

2.       Zero Dark Thirty: Amazing action movie that is based on true events that did show a different point of view with the leaders of our military.

3.       Do the Right Thing: A well-directed film by Spike Lee that used different camera angles to emphasize on various objects in a scene.

4.       Blancanieves: A different take on the children’s tale Snow White that was easy to follow and feel sympathy for the main character.

5.       Sherlock Jr.: A straightforward silent film that’s humor was easy to understand.

6.       M: It was film that kept me interested during the film to figure out what the criminals will determine to do. Overall the film was easy to follow.

7.       Devil’s Backbone: Personally not a huge fan of horror movies but this was a different type of horror film that didn’t focus on the gore but the plot.

8.       Seconds: The concept of the film was different and definitely interesting but it was also disturbing and strange.

9.       Piano: Had interesting gender roles and meaning behind each role but was hard to follow.

10.   Double Indemnity: It is a suspenseful film that uses techniques such as foreshadowing but I personally wasn’t a fan of the story compared to the other films.

11.   El topo: The films graphics were not the best and the movie was long and hard to concentrate on. The film had meaning but seemed cheesy.

Blancanieves

Blancanieves is a silent film directed by Pablo Berger. This film, unlike other silent films we have watched, has an amazing cinematographic motion picture. The movie was released in 2012 and is directed in black and white and silent. This is unusual for the time this movie was directed and released but the actions from each character portray the story very well. The story is based around the daughter (Carmen) of a famous matador. One aspect that kept my attention throughout the movie was it was broken into three parts. The first part was about Carmen’s father and mother. Her father the famous matador who was blessed with unbelievable skills in his trait and just before his accident he speaks out to his wife about the child they are expecting. As soon as his tragic accident occurs it shocks his wife and she goes into labor. In labor she passes away giving birth to their daughter but the father is distressed and turns away from his own daughter. His nurse soon realizes who he is and marries him because of the money.

This leads into the second part which is the growth of Carmen. Once her grandmother passes away she is forced to live with her father, whom she’s never met, and her stepmother. The stepmother has an awful hatred towards her and doesn’t allow her to meet her father. Being a child, she disobeys her step mother and meets with her father who is thrilled to see her and gets flashbacks about his late wife. This leads to the third part which Carmen is following her father’s she becomes a successful matador before she was killed. Although the film was silent, Pablo does a great job in adding subtitles to get the main point across. This gives more meaning to the silent movie because the audience can assume what the characters are talking about but with the added subtitles it reiterates the main points shown acted.

One major comparison in the story line that Pablo uses is Snow White. Carmen is Snow White and treated how Snow White was treated in her story. Pablo does take a different take from the fairytale but the overall theme is the same. The step-mother is the evil witch which poisons the apple at the very end to kill Carmen. Carmen’s matador group is related to the seven dwarves, which at the end of this movie find the evil step mother and kill her by trapping her with a bull. Overall Pablo does a great job in showing the art of bull fighting and also tying that together to Snow White.

Zerio Dark Thirty

Your role in society is greatly determined by which gender you are. For many years society has determined what is acceptable for genders even though there those who look past that. Males are expected to provide, lead and financially support their families and society. Females on the other hand are expected to support males, take care of domestic errands and nurture others. These roles can be switched but it has taken society many years to accept this switch and even then only few do it. The classifications of these gender roles are shown in the film Zero Dark Thirty and also show the gender role switch.

In the movie Dan plays the ultimate male role. He is the leader of his team and takes no crap from anyone. He is the one to torture terrorists until they beg for mercy or die protecting the information he wanted. He is also the one to complain and show the truth behind war to his new female partner Maya. In the first half of the film, Dan, proved why males were the leader of society by being aggressive but also looking out for his country. Maya on the other hand proved why women are second in society because of timid approach in interrogating the suspects.

As the movie went on, there was a gender role switch. Maya understood that in order for her to be taken serious in a male’s world, she must act like one. She started to use different tactics Dan used such as water boarding a suspected terrorist into giving information she wanted. She started to take command and demand the respect she deserved. All the males started to follow her commands, even those higher up than her. One example was when she single handedly found out where Bin Laden lived but no one was taking action. She wrote every few days a number on her boss’s office to let him know how many days have passed since the discovery.

I personally believe the director (a female) used the characteristics of gender role perfectly. She was able to accurately portray roles of women and men in society. We were shown that males were dominate and overall had the final say in society and how everyone else depends on that. The gender switch plays a crucial role in showing that society can function with a woman who takes on the male’s role. We saw that the take down for the biggest man hunt in history was due to a female who switched roles for the better. Is gender construction usually seen in movies? No. but did it work for this particular film? Yes.

Devils Backbone

Del Toro's fascination with blending genre's can be seen in Devils Backbone but I would still categorize this as a horror film. Unlike other horror films, this film doesn't focus on the gore and killing but focuses on the plot. Most horror films lack a plot that makes sense or claim that the events are based on a true story. In this film there was blood and murder but the scenes were suspenseful. Like other horror films, there was a ghost in this movie but it wasn't used to terrify people but to show the injustice of greed. The horror displayed in this film can be more realistic because it contains death, war, and greed. Del Toro's intentions of making a horror film are not for the pure scare but for the mental images of lifelike events that can terrify society.

The Piano

Some consequences of certain actions can never be looked past or forgotten. In The Piano Baines is a possible rapist that is shown to be a decent person in the film. Even if he is a decent person, he has crossed a line with possible rape. Although he technically never rapes Ada, he does manipulate her to do what he wants. Rape is defined as forceful sex that does not have consent but with any verbal agreement, consent is then given. In this film, Ada is torn to leave the piano behind on the beach because of the joy it brought her. While she was playing the piano, Baines hears the beautiful music being played and instantly falls in love with Ada. In order to get to know Ada better, Baines convinces her to give him piano lessons. Once she agrees to the lessons, Baines puts forth a deal involving a kiss for every black key on the piano and in return for him to give her the piano. This is one major form of manipulation because he understood how important the piano was to her and used this as an angle to get to know her better. He does ask consent for every action he takes towards her and she willingly agrees to his requests but at this point, she may be saying yes because there isn’t another choice or he as tricked her into it. Throughout their time together, he does fall in love with her and gives her the piano back without finishing the deal but the work was done by him getting to know her at that time. Would I consider his actions rape, no because he doesn’t physically force her to do anything but he does mentally manipulate her a bit which gives a creepy/rape type feeling towards his character.

Do The Right Thing

According to my own opinion the right thing to do is to live life as fair as possible. Spike Lee uses this film to show how life was in the diverse community in New York City. He was able to show us how the African American community was treated with other ethnicity's such as Italians, white Americans and Latinos. Each community had a different style of living life and often clashed among and against each other. The community was still facing racial discrimination even after the civil rights movement but they were also causing problems themselves. Mookie the main character throughout the movie lived life as fair as possible and often times stuck up for what he believed in but also prevented multiple complications without a reason. Even with the different races clashing with each other and others promoting black power, Mookie still worked for the Italians and was even told he was like son to the owner. Towards the end of the movie chaos is brought to the community because the African American community and Italian pizza parlor began a fight which resulted to the police being called upon. This lead to the intentional death of a black male by the hands of the law. At that moment Mookie was given a choice to side with the Italians or his own brothers and he chose his brothers because the killing was not necessary for an innocent kid. 

In this case Mookie did do the right thing by siding with his community. I personally would have done the same because the death of a teen should not be caused by police brutality. Given the circumstance of the era and the area they lived in, this happened often and the only way to get ahead of this awful system is by coming together as one and to fight the power. That being said, in an individual standpoint, no one should go out of their way to cause violence to prove a point but by living life fair. That is the right thing to do.

El Topo

One scene that is interesting is in the very beginning where he leaves the child behind to the monks. This scene confused me because I was under the impression El Topo was the father of the son but he willingly left the boy behind for a female companion named Mara. The relationship the boy and El Topo had made it seem like they were meant for each other because he listened to El Topo and even killed a man at the age of 7. After he was left behind, the monks told him to cry and show emotion and maybe then he will stop but the boy just stood there. The look in his eyes expressed not hatred or love but nothing. It seemed as if he understood in order to become a man, he must not depend on anyone and willingly joined the monks.

Seconds, 1966

This film from the start sets an uneasy feeling by showing disturbing faces at the beginning. The film sets a creepy tone with the idea of a person being able to "reborn" themselves to accomplish goals they were not able to succeed in their first life. A company tricked and black mailed Arthur Hamilton, a middle aged man into an interesting artist named Tony Wilson. During his reborn life, he realizes his new life isn't any better then his old life and understands the mistake he has made in doing this. As he tries to get his old life back together, the company that funded the operation can not allow him to so and kills him for the next person who wants to be reborn.

The scene that I will be analyzing is the operation that turned Arthur Hamilton into Tony Wilson. The scene starts off with a hand drawn blue print of the different procedures that will be done on Arthur. This then switches back and forth between the operation and sketches. During the operation, scene focuses on the doctor operating on Arthur's face. The doctor at one point doesn't look confident in the work he is doing at one point but get through the job and is able to stitch up the newly born Tony. Frankenheimer's use of the camera in directing the close up visuals of the operation and expressions made by doctors and nurses keeps the audience in suspense to see the final outcome of the operation. Along with the camera work, the music also had a huge role on this scene. The music starts off slow with a sad tone but gradually increases in speed to a suspenseful high pitch sound that suddenly ends as the operation is complete.

Overall the movie was strange but does teach a lesson to live the life you have right now to its fullest potential

M

Its hard to pick between two different genres, melodrama or horror, for the film M. I personally was not able to figure out which genre this movie would be categorized in modern time but if I had to pick, I chose melodrama. The reason behind that is throughout the film, its not clear which character to follow but it is clear that certain scenes emotions are exaggerated to emphasize the plot. Although you don't have connection to one particular character, this is can still be considered a melodrama because of the different vocal and facial expressions are noticeable and distinctive. Some may argue that film's genre is horror and not melodrama because the plot follows a serial killer. Even though there is a killer in the movie, the plot isn't portrayed to be scary or shocking like most horror films. The last scene in the movie helps me believe this film is melodrama over horror. The endings in most horror movies are more suspenseful then what happened. Yes justice was served to the killer  but the criminal world has its own set of rules. Instead of taking the killer the police, they take it to a vote to see what everyone wants to do about the killer. All the criminals may do various acts of injustice but seems that they have a code that the killer broke. As a group they charge the killer and kill him but are stopped by the law. In the end the mother will never get her child back due to the murderer.

Sherlock Jr 1924

I've never watched a silent film before but Sherlock Jr. was a great way to be introduced to this genre. Before watching the movie I thought the film would be dull and not entertaining but I was wrong. This silent film does a great job capturing the audiences attention with the different acts performed. One scene I found interesting and a classic move was about 11 minutes into the film.

This scene starts off with a man and girl expressing their feelings towards each other with not words but actions. As soon as they hold hands, another man appears and takes the girl to the back room, away from the first man. The man sits there awkwardly not knowing what to do but realizing another person is flirting with the girl he likes. As he goes in to intervene, the other man slyly gives him a banana to be distracted with. Initially he eats the banana but also lays down the peel in a strategic manner to make the other guy fall. After placing the banana peel on the ground, he looks up to see the other man kissing the hand of his girl and jumps up in excitement and runs over the banana peel and falls over.

This was just one scene that stuck out to me because of the use of the banana peel. Many people have seen this stunt on various shows and movies but the true comedic effect was used perfectly in this silent movie. I was surprised at how entertained I was during this movie and enjoyed watching it. One particular aspect about the scene described above that I enjoyed was the way the camera captured the moment. The use of having both parties visible but having the main focus on the closer character gave us a main point to focus on but also a entertainment in the background.

The Hitch Hiker

The Hitch Hiker is the only classic film noir directed by a woman, do you see any difference in style from other film noirs?

There are differences between this film noir and other film noir's. These differences are because The Hitch Hiker was the only film noir directed by a female. Usually these types of films are directed by males and have the males views displayed throughout the movie but Lupino's process was much different. She was able to use the male characters and add feminine features into these characters to switch the gender roles. 

She was able to direct a film with some feminine characteristics with only all male characters. At this time masculinity wasn't the question or problem but the way women were viewed in there roles. Lupino's style of a slow paced film helped emphasize the characteristics and development throughout the film rather then focusing on the action of the killer. In other film noir, the female is feeling helpless and not in control because the man is always the leader. In this case, Lupino was able to make the men feeling helpless and not in control with a life or death situation. Their helpless feeling went along with the characters trouble of being trapped with a killer with no definite idea of what he is going to do with them. The slow paced build up went hand in hand with with the victims trouble of being trapped and built up to a slow suspenseful conclusion. 

Overall Lupino created a successful film that viewed the roles of the characters in a different way. Her take on reversing the roles of the men by adding some feminine characteristics along with a slow paced action, helped the viewers follow the characteristic changes rather then the action. This allowed her to change the characters from a positive sane pair to an emotionally distraught duo stuck with a killer, much like how many women were portrayed in films at this time. 

Film Noir: The double indemnity. 

The women in the film shows the typical characteristics of women and their manners. The two women that had a huge role in the movie were Lola Dietrichson and Phyllis. Their characteristics are portrayed differently. Lola is emotional and can not control her emotions without the help of men and Phyllis is portrayed as an deceptive woman. These roles are a bit sexist towards women but were the roles given at the time.

The entire plot consists with these two women. The first person is Lola which is emotionally crazy due to the deaths of her mother and father . The cause of those deaths are Phyllis and to cope with all of her emotional issues, she decides to go out with Walter. This goes back to how women are portrayed because Lola starts to get a grip on life once she was with a man. The sexism is clear because she wasn’t sane before she met a man. Phyllis’s character is the villain. She commits murder out of personal gain and sees no use for them. This is why her character is deceptive.

This movie shows the typical view on women by portraying them as either crazy or emotionally not stable. The roles did make the movie better but are not politically correct to society because women are independent and are equal to men. Yet these roles were necessary to make the movie fit the plot.