Formal Film Study Martin Scorsese

I watched three movies that Martin Scorsese directed for my Formal Film Study including Shutter Island, The Taxi Driver, and Goodfellas. There were many similarties and differences between the three. As far as the style of the films goes,  I thought that The Taxi Driver and Shutter Island both had a dark feel. The colors and lighting in these two films were darker giving off an unsettling feeling whilst the style of Goodfellas was more upbeat. The colors in Goodfellas were brighter and there were more shots during the day time then there were at night making the picture brighter. I chose these three films because they were all made in different decades. Shutter Island was made in 2010, Goodfellas was made in 1990, and The Taxi Driver was made in 1976. All three have different genres too. Shutter Island is a psychological thriller, Goodfellas is a gangster film, and The Taxi Driver is a drama. Shutter Island was a very complex and thrilling story that reminded me of other films made in the 2000's like Inception. Goodfellas is a true American gangster story that I think is similar to others like the Godfather. I have never quite seen anything like The Taxi Driver and i thought it was a very intriguing movie. In the movies Goodfellas and The Taxi Driver, there is a voice over of the main characters' voices. I thought this was a nice effect because it makes you feel closer to the main character. All three films had somewhat of an anti-hero main character. This is a 70's film quality that Scorsese seems to use alot. There werent many speacial effects in The Taxi Driver and Goodfellas besides in the scenes of violence. I would say there were alot more used in Shutter Island which is expected because it's a much more modern film. I think that all three of these films have alot to say about American culture. Goodfellas shows a man who thought he had acheived his American Dream through gangster activity and ended up losing all he had and living a boring life in the suburbs. I think the underlying message there is that your whole life can change in a very short period of time. The Taxi Driver is trying to provide perspective. It shows life in America from a Taxi Drivers point of view which I think is a cool experience. It was so interesting to see all the things they encounter while working. Shutter Island wasn't a movie that said a lot about todays culture but I think it portrayed a lot of the old techniques used in mental hospitals in a negative way to show how poorly patients used to be treated. 

I think something that Martin Scorsese does best is violence. Each film has a perfect touch of violence. I would say the most violence is in the film Goodfellas and the least is in the Taxi Driver. These two films have more straight forward violence with the use of guns while the violence in Shutter Island is more thrilling and horrific violence. The violence in all three films is so realistic from the dead body in the trunk in Goodfellas, to the horrific burning body in Shutter Island, to the massacre at the whore house in The Taxi Driver. Scorsese's use of violence is speacial to him because he has had personal experience with it with is reflected in his films According to Charles Breiner, "Mr. Scrosese grew up in a neighborhood where violence was simply a way of life. One of Scorses’s film professors “hammered away at his students with his anti-Hollywood aesthetic. ‘don’t reach for the revolver right away,’ he repeated again and again… He had never had a student like Scorsese. Guns were what he knew. ‘Everyday I grew up in the Lower East Side someone had a gun,’ he (Scorsese) says ‘It was like second nature.’”²One night Scorsese was riding around with some friends in a car. Only five minutes after he got out to walk home, the car was shot at, killing those still in it. A scene which would haunt Scorsese and become the climax of his breakthrough film Mean Streets. When Scorsese portrays a life full of violence, Scorsese in many ways is portraying the only life that he knew. After graduating from NYU film school, Scorsese began his long and influential career." 

Martin Scorsese also has great use of lighting in his films. The use of dark lighting and shadows in Shutter island really reflected the mystery in the film. The dark nighttime lighting in The Taxi Driver reflected the main character's dark personality. And the bright and colorful lighting in Goodfellas does a nice job of juxtaposing the violent acts of the gangsters. Overall I think Martin Scorsese is a fantastic director. I could tell that a lot of time and work went into each movie which I appreciated a lot. Now I'm not surprised at all that he is referred to as one of the best directors of all time. 

1975 Film

My movie, Someone’s Under my Bed is about a serial killer who lays down next to girls’ beds and waits for them to go to sleep and then he rapes and kills them. It works well for viewers in 1975 because horror movies started becoming more realistic which made them popular among audiences. I am going for a very realistic style so that the audience feels a part of the movie. This is always a good choice for horror films because the more realistic it is the scarier it is. My film doesn’t really have a message because the purpose of it is just to scare and entertain the viewers.

The genre is just horror. It fits into the story because it’s about a serial killer which is pretty scary. The actors I chose work well for this genre too. I know that Jack Nicolson was in the Shining as the killer so I used him as the killer in my film. I think that he would play this character well.

I chose William Friedkin as the director of my film because he did a good job with The Exorcist. That film seemed very realistic and I want mine to have the same effect, the lead actors are Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicolson. I chose Faye Dunaway because she would be good at playing an innocent teenager. I chose Jack Nicolson as the killer because he uses scary facial expression to play roles in horror films. My main focus will be the cinematography. The lighting will need to be spot on because most of the scenes are at night. Also, there will have to be good camerawork to get the most realistic effect.

My film is Rated R for sex and violence. Since most 70’s films are pretty explicit there will be terrifying scenes of the girls getting raped and killed which will not be suitable for children. 70’s films were the opposite of Escapism. There was a lot of realism in the 70’s so my film is very realistic. Also Auteur film was very popular and my film is made entirely be me.

I chose to make a movie on this story because my sister told me it a few years ago and it has always stuck with me and made me very scared. This is a true story that a parent my sister babysat for told her.  Jane in my movie is the mom that my sister babysat for. She told my sister that she had a sliding door in her room when she moved to her new house. One night she woke up in the middle of the night and noticed that it looked like there were footprints on her carpet leading to the bed. She counted to three and ran from her bed as fast as she could to her parent’s room and they called the cops. They went back to her room and there was no one there but the sliding door was open. The cops found the killer two days later and told her family that this man had been lying next to girls beds for a while and killing and raping them while they’re sleeping.

MYST

     Over the weekend I watched No Strings Attached. This film was made in 2011 and was directed by Ivan Reitman. It stars two very popular actors of the time, Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman.  This film is about the relationship of a man and women that is just supposed to be physical and emotionless. But their feelings for each other get in the way and they end up falling in love with each other.

 

 

                This film really exemplifies the values of people in today’s society. Many people strive to find love while others feel that they just aren’t cut out for relationships. This film is very comparable to another film that came out in the same year, called Friends with Benefits. This film also stars two very popular actors, Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake. I think that these two films are both trying to portray the lives of many people. Their message is that love comes unexpectedly and you cannot help your feelings. Also the actors used in both of these films are very popular and attractive. This shows that the producers of these films wanted to draw viewer’s attention.

                There are many cinematic elements of this film that are very interesting. The technique used in the beginning of the movie is interesting because it shows different time frames of the main characters lives. They both keep running into each other every few years. The editing is cool because the film displays what year it is on the screen as the time jumps forward. This effect reminded me of that in the movie When Harry met Sally because the two character’s relationship in this film developed in a similar way.

               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One specific scene that stood out to me was the scene when the two main characters are on their first date. They go to a really cool location where there is a bunch of light pools in rows. The setting with all the lights surrounding them illuminates the scene. In the scene they are having a fight. There is juxtaposition between the argument they are having and the romantic setting they are in. The camerawork is interesting because it gets up close to the couple. The camera follows the Natalie pushing Ashton around through all the light poles. There are many collisions between them and the poles because all the light poles are so close together. The camera captures this chaos perfectly and it makes you feel as if you were in the fight with them.

 

 

 

Formal Film Study

Formal Film Study 

Director: David Fincher 

Films Viewed: 

-Girl with The Dragon Tattoo 

-The Social Network 

-Fight Club

-Seven 

For my formal film study I watched four films that were directed by David Fincher. The four films were The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network, Seven, and Fight Club. I found many similarities and differences in all elements of all three films. The style used in all the films had a similar edgy feel. There wasn’t much color involved. All of the settings seems dull and lacked vibrancy. These films are all dramas for the most part. Seven is more of a crime movie, The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo is a mystery, Social network is a true drama, and Fight Club is a dramatic comedy. The scoring of all three movies was subtle but all the scores fit in well with the movies. 

All of these films seem to have the motive of sending a message to the viewer. They all have something to say about today’s culture. The Social Network is the story of how Facebook came to be. The message in this film is that you have to go to certain extremes in order to have a successful business. The movie Seven is about the murder investigation of seven murders based off of the seven deadly sins. What this film is trying to say about culture is that people today sin way too much. Fight Club is about a group of anarchists who rebel against the government. This film reflects how Fincher felt about the government and the message in the film is that there are too may rules in todays society. All of these films seem to be saying that there is a problem with today’s society and how we all live. The political messages in all three that show that David Fincher has liberal views. 

All of david Fincher's films are very edgy. For example the setting is always dull and dark. Nothing is colorful and fun. Everyone in the films are very serious and have strong opinions on things. All the main characters are stubborn. Many of the characters are monotone and sarcastic. "There is a generally down beat or grim subject matter, lack or resolution or "happy endings", dark colors and tones, low angles, dark subject tones, use of fear as motive for characters, violent content, lots of dark greens and blue tones that add to the tone of the film, more low angles, as well as wide angles, generally long-ish movies (over two hours.) "(Smith 2.) 

Overall, after spending some time viewing and analyzing the works of David Fincher, I can say that he is truly an artist. He is now one of my favorite directors and I will definitely be viewing his other films and anticipating many more great ones. 

30's Blog Post

For the 30's project my group wanted to create a movie that sent the audience a message while still being time period appropriate. We came up with Hit or Miss. This is a story about a girl who dreams of playing baseball but feels like she doesn't have what it takes because of the impact of society's views on women. She gets help from a professional baseball player who guides her through her learning experience. As they work together more and more, they slowly fall in love. The style we went for is a lighthearted easy watch. Since feminism was very popular in the 30's, our message to the audience is that gender does not make a difference when it comes to potential. The genre of our film is romantic comedy, so we chose the actors Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, and Charles Coburn. We chose them because they all starred in the popular romantic comedy, Monkey Business. Ginger Rogers was chosen because she was one of the most famous and talented comedians at the time. We chose to use the studio 20th Century Fox because we want our film to be a large scale production, which this studio is known for producing. Our main focus for the movie is sound, which will be edited by Thomas Moulton. We chose sound because baseball involves a lot of sound like the bat swinging, the ball being hit, and the crowd cheering. this movie is Hay's Code friendly and does not include anything scandalous like kissing or drinking. Overall out group worked very nicely together and all agreed on everything so there is nothing that I would change about our project.

MYST

MYST
Over the weekend i viewed the film seven, directed by David Fincher. I would give this film a 4 out of 5 stars. I thought the plot was awesome and i could tell that a lot of thought was put into every detail in the movie. Its about the investigation of murders based off the seven deadly sins. Although it was like many other crime and mystery movies, it kept me entertained and interested the whole time. It wasn't predictable at all which was surprising to me because the plot makes it seem like the film would have been predictable, but i was surprised by things the whole way through. I haven't viewed many films in this genre but it reminded me of another one of David Fincher's films, The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. This film was a murder mystery just like seven. I felt the same feeling while viewing these two films. I couldn't wait to know more about the mysteries in these films.



This film included a lot of great cinematic elements. The film was well structured and you could tell it was well thought out.  The look of the film was very grim and dark. It is set in an unknown city where everyone seems depressed. The use of lighting is well done. At times the light is perfectly angled so you can only see the shadow of someones face. Also the camera work is phenomenal with the use of many long shots. The camera also captures action scenes perfectly.

One particular scene that stood out to me was when the two investigators first encounter the serial killer. They are knocking on his apartment door and he tries to shoot them from down the hall, then a lot of action occurs as Brad Pitt chases the serial killer through the building and the streets of the city. The scene begins with a perfect long shot of the serial killer down the hall, he notices the investigators and whips out his gun to shoot at them. The scene is quiet and calm until this moment. Then there is an abrupt change of feeling as Brad Pitt runs down the hall to catch him. The killer and Pitt chase each other and shoot at each other all over the building. The film work is awesome in this scene because it shows Pitt in the exact same places as the killer as he is trying to follow him. The camera angles are the same as both men pass through different spots in the building. This is my favorite scene because it shows great cinematic work and is the most suspenseful part of the film.

MYST

Last week I watched The Breakfast Club, a film by John Hughes. I’ve seen this film a few times and always enjoy it. I would give this film a four out of five stars. It has great filming and dialogue. This movie is about a group of students who have a Saturday detention and in the 8 hours they share together, they find out a lot about themselves and their peers. You can tell this movie is a good one because it is packed with dialogue.  Since the characters are sitting in a library for the majority of the movie, not much action occurs. The audience gets entertainment from the dialogue. It takes a lot of skill to write a script that keeps the audience’s attention the whole time. The writers did a very good job coming up with funny lines that all ages find humorous. This movie is interesting and different because the entire thing takes place in a school. The characters stay there the whole time.

This film displays John Hughes classic style. He uses all-American, ordinary kids in all of his movies including this one. In doing this he is a genius because it attracts many different people who can relate easily to these characters. This movie will especially attract a variety of different viewers because every character in it has different personal interests. Although these characters seem like stereotypical high school students, including a jock, a queen bee, a Goth, a rebel, and a nerd, there is so much more to each person. As the film goes on, each character opens up more and more, and it is soon revealed that these kids have a lot more in common than they thought. Many timeless lessons can be taken away from this film. It shows that there is more to people than what meets the eye and that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. The filming angles are very interesting in this movie. There are many long shots and close ups, showing just one character at a time. This shows that each character is equally as important. This movie has similar humor to other John Hughes but it is a lot more dramatic than most. 

In the hallway scene, many interesting cinematic features are used. The scene starts out just showing the kids feet. You can hear them discussion which will be the safest way to not get them caught. They take a few steps forward and look down one of the hallways. A long shot shows the principle, who is watching them for the day, walking down the opposite hallway. The figure is perfectly centered and he is the only one is the frame. This shows his significance to the scene. Just as the kids see him, an upbeat song plays and they begin to run away from him. Everything is very quiet and slow until this moment. The use of this song changes the mood instantly. As all the kids run away, the Goth girl stands against the locker and watches. This shows her disinterest in what is going on. The kids continue to run down different hallways trying to avoid the principle. Every time they see him, everyone slides to turn around and runs the other way. This happens a few times and emphasizes the chaos occurring in this scene. The juxtaposition between the principle who is roaming the hallways casually and the students who are running around chaotically to avoid him emphasizes the differences between adults and children which is one of the main themes is this movie.

REVIEW OF THE REVIEWS

1. 
Cath Clarke from TimeOut gave a review on Rotten Tomatoes about the conjuring. She gave it a 4 out of 5. the review is four paragraphs long. she starts out with a good hook, "Getting a blood transfusion of molten steel is possibly the only way you’ll stay in your seat all the way through this haunted house movie." and describes how scared she was throughout the film. She then goes into detail and points out specific elements of the film that made it scary and made the movie a success. She gives the perfect amount of detail and information about the film to persuade people to view it without giving away too much. she gives a plot overview, and talks about the set, actors, and specific scenes. The review itself gives off a creepy vibe, just as the movie does. It is a good persuader to those who love horror films. The critic uses words like mounting dread, unsettling, spooked, and skeletal. while she focuses mainly on the overview the plot, she adds in detail like the directors style, the farmhouse set, and the reason for its R rating. She references the directors other work like Saw, and Insidious. Also she mentions the directors use of predictable movie cliches which are still spooky. She jokes about Justin Beiber being dangles in front of the child actress head in order to achieves the perfect look of pure terror. 

Graham young from the Birmingham mail writes a review on rotten tomatoes. He starts off questioning the truth in the film that is based on a true story and points out the fact that the film had little competition. The review references many other older films that the conjuring is echoing. most of the review is talking about how unoriginal and cliche the film is. The tone is very questioning of all the directors choices. He uses words like yawn, over hyped, mind-numbing, and dead ends to show how uninterested he was in the film. His main focus is pointing out other films that the conjuring has copied like Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Orphanage. He talked about how this film is just like any other ghost movie and gave it a 2 out of 5 

2.
Cath Clarke says, "Wan is going great guns right up until he unveils the source of the evil, and with it unleashes prosthetics and predictable horror movie cliches (he did the same in ‘Insidious’). But by this time you’ll have had the sweet bejesus spooked out of you and may not care." I agree with this quote because I don't believe that cliche is always a bad thing. If horror film lover have once loves specific elements in their favorite horror films then they will probably love when they are repeated. Although this film is like many other ghost movies it is still very creepy and entertaining. 

Graham Young says, "The action begins in 1968-71, so why the crisp, digital format instead of grainier celluloid?" I agree with this because when I viewed the movie it did not seem like it was from the 70's. The filming was way too good for it to be from the 70's and I feel like it would have been more authentic if the picture looked like that of a 1970's movie. 

3.
I think the review by Cath Clarke would have been more persuading because she sounds more passionate about her review then Graham young. Graham Young only really talks about the unoriginality of the film while Clarke brings up many different good elements of the movie that make it desirable to see. 

4. If I were to write my own film review I would talk about the scary suspenseful moments and how real it feels to the viewer. I would point out the fact that there are cliche aspects for any of those who get sick of old ideas. But I would say that although it has some unoriginality it is still really scary and entertaining. I would not talk about the lack of authenticity in the set because I don't feel that it had a major impact on the film. The set was fine but it was nothing to be discussed. 

Film Intro Survey

1. Grandpa's Magical Toys because it showed me how to use my imagination. 

2. Indie/Arthouse, Drama, Horror, Romance 

3. Silent, Western, Historical

4. Lord of the Rings, Say Anything, Halloween, Romeo and Juliet (1996), Hocus Pocus 

5. Good scoring, a lot of dialogue, and entertaining plot 

6. The Artist, Iron Man 2, Remember Me, Dolphin Tale, Fred Claus 

7. Boring, a stupid script, and bad acting  

8. John Hughes, James Cameron, Peter Jackson

9. Leonardo Dicaprio, McCauley Culkin, Zach Galifianakis

10. Titanic, Schindler's List, The Shawshank Redemption 

11. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer 

12. The Descendants 

13. Insidious 2, Monster's University, Carrie (2013), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug