There is a grammar in filmmaking. Much in the same way a writer would construct a sentence with a set of grammatical tools (not one of my strong suits), a film director has a set of tools to construct a sequence of shots. Why use a close-up instead of a long shot? Why cut quickly or slowly? Why use a zoom lens to compact action? It goes on and on.
There are reasons for every composition, some are story related, most are necessity based. But going back to films like Citizen Kane and Ikiru I see purpose behind the visuals. Every composition has meaning. It isn’t just designed to “look cool”
Don’t get me wrong. Things looking cool is fucking cool. Zach Snyder, Guy Ritchie, Michael Bay, and many others make things really awesome. Their films are easily entertaining. It is when film language is taken to the next level and personalized that filmmakers go from good to great. The aformentioned directors might be great, Synder certainly is, but I can’t help but think there is more to the, dare I say, art.
Aronofsky's use of lines and the old "water as the future" metaphor
I recently saw 127 hours and was reminded what that “more” factor is. Danny Boyle knows where and why to put the camera to evoke conscious and subconscious reactions from his audience.
As we move into the next century of filmmaking more and more filmmakers, fueled by the digital age, step forward with an uncanny ability to make things look “cool”, but are they effectively using the tools that Griffith, Welles, Godard, and to some extent, Cassavetes, invented? (If you don’t know who they are look them up)
My answer: I’m not sure. All this might sound overly academic, after all, but my point is Darren Aronofsky is one guy who gets it…big time.
I can’t remember why my brother and I wanted to see Requiem so bad prior to its theatrical release. We had likely been attracted to the controversy surrounding its NC-17 rating and grabbed a copy of the DVD early on in its release. I was only 14 or 15 at the time and had never seen anything like it before. The camera compositions, music, performances, and story seemed so fresh and innovative.
Again, notice Aronofksy's use of lines to establish depth and symmetry.
Of all those things, what stood out most was the camera compositions. Armed with his long time collaborator Matthew Labitique, Aronfosky wanted to use the grammar of film to create a subjective and objective compositions. Doing this he employed many of the similar tactics he used in Pi, but to a degree never seen before.
Back was his “hip-hop” editing, Snorricam, and heat-camera. Hip-hop editing, coined by Aronofsky himself, is employed for extended sequences to put the audience inside the users head. Here is a quicky example of the hip-hop editing used, the clip is not completely geninue as it has been youtube raped, but you do what you can.
Also used is the aformentioned Snorricam, as when Merion has just sold sex for money and she vomits. The camera is actually suspended from the body. This shot is often used poorly to emulate being drunk. The heat camera was also back when harry’s mother is looking at the fridge, the shot used to emulate the madness and distress of the character.
The famous camera rigs to get the subjective shots.
Another set of techniques reused from Pi was Aronofsky’s habit of slowing down the camera so more frames were captured per second. Therefore, the action was sped up like in the following scene:
Again why does he do it? You guessed it, subjectivity.
But there were also shots that Aronfosky employed for his aim at subjectivity that he hadn’t used in his prior film.
First off, there were four characters in this film, not just one as in Pi. Therefore, Aronfosky employed multiple split screen scenes so he could keep a camera subjectively on his characters at all times. Many would claim this is gimmicky. I don’t thinks so. I think it forced the audience into these peoples worlds and didn’t allow them to look a way. Another great example of this is when Marion and Harry are lying together doing pillow talk. The two halves of the screen contain both characters individually, but the characters are also able to reach into their respective frames.
Another composition, or series of compositions, that stuck out to me were Aronofsky’s traditional use of shot/reverse-shot when Harry’s mother and Harry are discussing why she wants to be on the game show. It is important that the viewer notes how simple the editing and shooting is here. Aronofsky knows that stylistically the camera can sometimes distract from emotional impact. If we’re paying too much attention to what the camera is doing, it can distract from what the characters are feeling. Ellen Burstyn in these scene alone proved she deserved the Oscar that year.
Moreover, the most famous element in this movie is, of course, its soundtrack by Clint Mansell. The song is now a manstay in pop culture and I even recently heard the theme at a bar. If you haven’t heard it, here it is:
Am I spending too much time discussing one film? I don’t think so. I think Requiem is a definitive work of the past decade. It was released NC-17 for the ass-to-ass scene, an event I myself have witnessed in person, so it wasn’t able to really build any steam going into awards season.
Part 3 The Fountain
-Collin
By Collin, on December 3rd, 2010
Kevin Smith’s Red State might be auctioned off to the highest bidder at Sundance.
Kevin Smith’s latest film Red State may be auctioned off at Sundance Festival instead of more traditional purchasing methods. What are these more traditional methods? Well, meetings, negotiations, phone calls, offers, etc, etc.
Here’s something that’s not so much news as my stated intentions for Red State : if it gets into Sundance, my plan is to pick the Red State distributor right there, in the room, auction style. Might even bring up a professional auctioneer to make it fun and unintelligible. And if you’re a multi-millionaire who can’t make it to the first screening of Red State, fear not: maybe we’ll set up an eBay page for the post-screening bid-calling as well.
This quote is widely avaible. A quote that is not as widely available in the blogosphere, and all the more interesting, is one such as this from the same E-mail regarding him retiring and the problem with blogs (which I’m included in):
But THIS “retirement” crap? Not news so much as another sad example of how fucking lazy movie pr ess has become: they cannibalize stories by other writers just to have something to post on their own blogs. Yours was the only website that bothered to go DIRECTLY to the source, Peter – other cats ran articles without even tossing a Tweet my way to check veracity. And I answer Tweets like I answer the dinner bell: often & much. While sweating. And already eating something else.
In this way Kevin Smith is a genius. His PR one-on-one is like no other filmmaker active today. And he is very correct in that no one blogging seems to be checking their sources and seem to post from information from a post from information from another post. If that makes sense?
He also goes on to point that the people dissing his movies are often the people writing fictitious stories. I can’t say I disagree, they are the people dissing him. But I have to say that credible journalist are trashing him as well. Also, most of the individuals are just dissatisfied with the recent product that Smith has put out and want something better.
Moreover, Kevin Smith himself has admitted he is a poor filmmaker, but I disagree. Yes, his visuals are bad. Real bad. But in the great book Moviemaker’s Master Class Woody Allen discusses the importance of staying out of the way of comedy in a visual sense. Maybe that is what Smith has been doing, staying out of the way. To distract from a laugh with the film camera is the worst thing a comedy director can do, that is why it remains the most difficult genre.
I have listened to the majority of Smith’s podcasts, including a lot of his Red State stuff, watched all his stand-up, and have seen all his movies. I think Chasing Amy was and is a great movie. A movie that is, dare I say, one of the great movies ever made regarding male jealously.
But he’s claimed that he just doesn’t have any more ideas to make. I think he is a little burned out. Or maybe just out of ideas for a little while. His movies have not been his strong suit of late either. His tweets, stand-up, writing, and podcasts are endlessly entertaining and I think, like his partner Scott Mosier, he might just take a different approach to filmmaking for a while.
Regardless, Red State was made for only four million dollars. So little that the crew actually burrowed a camera packaged from a guy for their C crew. Smith has spoken about the film with such pride in his podcasts. He’s talked about the exciting visual style they were able to cultivate with the Red One camera. Moreover, genius Neil Gaiman watched it and praised it saying it left him “shaken and grateful“
I’m excited, I don’t know about you.
-Collin
By Collin, on December 2nd, 2010
Alex Proyas set to produce and probably direct a really cool new sci-fi film AMP.
Deadline reports that Alex Proyas is gearing up to produce and maybe direct a movie called AMP which is an adaptation of a novel with the same name by Daniel H. Wilson.
Proyas is coming off a pretty big stinker Knowing , as well as a long line of other pretty mediocre films. His first three movies, Spirits of the Air, Gremlins in the Clouds, The Crow, and Dark City, are really fucking awesome and remain some of the most interesting sci-fi films of the nineties. Dark City might even be a masterpiece. Who knows?
But his talent is not in question. The stories he makes are. My point is, AMP sounds really fucking cool. Apparently, the film revolves around a group of a handicap people who are turned super human by technology designed to fix their disabilities. The original material was written by Daniel H. Wilson who is becoming the “it” Hollywood writer to adapt in the genre of sci-fi, having already sold another work to Steven Speilberg.
I write about all this because I really want Proyas to direct this and make it really awesome. I hated I, Robot for the same reason I’ve disliked all his films since Dark City: Not because they are bad, but because they had so much potential.
-Collin
By Collin, on December 1st, 2010
Electronic Arts will no longer be making film-based video games
EA boss on film-licensing and their bond franchise:
Would you rather make a shitty Bond games whose rights you don't own......
Or a fucking awesome franchise you own?
Why not make games based on movies? First off, because they fucking suck. In an interview with develop-online.net (go there to read the whole interview) EA games president Frank Gibeau said since they released their last James Bond game they’ve decided to dump film-game licensing and focus on creating their own intellectual property.
Again, why do this? Because video game adaptations of movies are really, really bad. Gibeau claimed that, “If you want to make a hit, you have to give a game time to get to quality. The days of licensed-based, 75-rated games copies are dead like the dinosaur.” This is something I’ve been screaming since I was a little kid. Video-game adaptations of films fucking suck. All they contain is a rehash of the film’s story and poor game mechanics. Nearly every time. The legendary title Goldeneye is a notable exception, but is an exception not a rule.
Games based on films fucking suck, but why?:
This is a step in the right direction. If a company like EA refuses to continue doing these shitty games either A: Production companies will be forced to give more time to publishers in order to make the game or B: We’ll see shittier and and shittier film-adaptations and they’ll die out. Either way, pretty sweet.
The games suck because game designers have only a small period of time to create the game, don’t own the intellectual property, and must follow guidelines beset by the film’s production company. All this equates a really shitty gaming experience.
Memorable awful games adapted from movies are infinite. It is companies just tryign to make more money of their releases, which is fine. But when Gibeau says the industry is crumbling, it is because people are starting to realize these games fucking suck and aren’t buying them. Huge titles are going to original IP or intellectual property. Franchises like EA’s masterpiece Deadspace is the future, not shitty marketing games.
A light at the end of the tunnel:
Just like the video game world is hard to translate from game to movie, the same can be said from movie to game. The upcoming game Tron: Evolution has my balls tingling, this might just be an answer to gamers’ prayers. It looks like it is truly trying to be innovative and a stand alone title. I’m still a skeptic, but how could a video game about a movie about a video game universe be bad?
-Collin
By devon, on December 1st, 2010
Lottery Ticket (2010)
By Devon Gilbert
It ain't no Friday
I viewed Lottery Ticket with very low expectations; after all, a PG-13 version of Friday doesn’t seem like a very smart idea. In fact, a PG-13 movie that takes place in the projects seems like a bad idea period. I love Friday, and a lot of what made that movie work (besides Chris Tucker) was the non-stop hilarious profanity by very profane characters. That being said, I found Lottery Ticket enjoyable enough. There were some funny parts and the movie was entertaining, if way too predictable. There were funny characters, but also funny actors wasted. In a way, the whole movie was give and take.
The basic plot is one that has potential. In a project filled with several poor people, everyone is buying tickets for the lotto, which is at $370 million. Kevin (Bow Wow) is a laid back teen who works at Foot Locker and doesn’t play the lotto because he feels it’s just designed to make money off poor people’s hopes. However, that doesn’t stop his Grandmother (Loretta Devine) from sending him to buy her a ticket, with her special numbers she got from Jesus. While Kevin is buying her a ticket, he is coerced into buying one for himself from the cashier. Of course, he wins, and news travels fast in the projects. Pretty soon everyone wants to be Kevin’s best friend and more importantly, some just want his ticket.
That’s the movie’s basic plot, with everything else pretty much barrowed from Friday. Instead of Chris Tucker, Brandon T. Jackson tries to be Tucker as Kevin’s best friend Benny. I’ve seen Jackson in a few movies and he seems to be a decent actor, but he is no Chris Tucker and for some reason it was impossible for me not to compare the two. I thought the friendship portrayed between Kevin and Benny worked, but Jackson playing the funny, zany, always in trouble best friend didn’t. Instead of Tommy “Tiny” Lister, you get Gbenga Akinnagbe (whom was part of the excellent cast on HBO’s The Wire)as the bully (Lorenzo) who provides the climax amongst a few other things. I thought Akinnagbe’s Lorenzo was one of the funniest characters in the movie. I looked forward to his scenes because his over the top anger was laugh out loud funny. Also, Mike Epps as Reverend Taylor is mainly why I watched the movie, and he was hilarious. It’s too bad he wasn’t in the movie longer. Loretta Devine also had some funny parts. On the opposite end, Charlie Murphy was woefully wasted. He was consistently hilarious on Chapelle’s Show but doesn’t have the time or material to be funny in this movie. Most of the other side characters aren’t that funny even though they’re trying, but sometimes they’re good for a chuckle. Though again, none are as funny as the side characters in Friday.
I would actually go to church if Epps was the Reverend
The movie has many flaws in the plot department. For one, it seems like walking around with the unsigned lotto ticket is just plain ignorant. Kevin would probably be beaten and mugged in the nicest of neighborhoods, let alone the projects. Also, there’s a side plot in which Kevin goes out with a very hot girl even though it’s so obvious she wants him just for his money I find it impossible to believe the dumbest of human beings wouldn’t see it, instead of trying to get with his other best friend Stacie (Naturi Naughton.) Though wouldn’t you know it, he soon realizes he loves Stacie and not the moneygrubber. Also, I think the idea of giving back to the projects was a fantastic one and could have been its own movie. However, Lottery Ticket really doesn’t do anything with this idea. Also, when you find out Ice Cubes’ loner character used to be a boxer, you know exactly how the movie will end.
I guess if you’re hungry for a ghetto comedy, Lottery Ticket may be just enough to satisfy if your expectations are in check. After all, there really aren’t a lot of them. Just don’t expect to watch it over and over again like Friday.
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