Inside Llewyn Davis

       Today I will talk about the movie, "Inside Llewyn Davis", and share some screenshot with analysis of each photo.

First thing you notice in this photo is definitely the darkness of sky and overall lighting, reflecting the mood of this scene, dark and grim, most likely done on purpose. Then of course your eyes go straight to this woman’s face as she is in the center of the frame, you can see that her facial expression is also very grim and just generally unhappy. With the subtitles you presume that her sadness is do to something medical. This part just may be me, but I believe that they have so many people moving and doing things behind her to represent that while her life feels like is standing still, the rest of the world goes on

This photo also has a very dark mood to it, due to this lighting again, also again reflecting it’s mood possibly. The man in this scene is somewhat hard to see, this could be to say that he feels invisible in life, sinking into the darkness possibly. What you do see of him is somewhat easy to read, his face and body seem very uncomfortable, he is squirming around on the couch which could relate that he may feel uncomfortable in his current life situation(s).

First thing my eyes are drawn to in this photo is the subtitles, “What the N stand for?”, the way the sentence is laid out, with poor grammar and all, I presume that the man speaking must have an accent of some sort. I can see that the man in the background has his mouth open, while the main in the foreground does not, making me believe that it is the man in the back asking the question. Again you notice the lighting is dark. The man in focus looks to not be paying attention, he seems to have something on his mind, and because he is looking to his right that means he is recalling a memory, therefore not thinking of an answer for the man’s question, thus proving he is not giving his full attention. The final thing I notice in this photo is that the background and man are not in focus, again proving that the man and his words are not important to the man in the front seat, also seems to me to say that the road is behind him, the past is the past sort of thing.

Moonrise Kingdom

        The first thing you notice is definitely the fog, there is a lot of fog in the air mainly in the distant. Could represent confusion or frustration in their lives, that is far away from them at the moment. The closer you get the characters the surroundings become more and more positive looking. For example you can see that the water behind them is very calm, reflecting their mood. It noticeably overcast, maybe another example of the calm nature 'in the air', not storming but also not overly bright and sunny. My final observation of the nature aspect,  is that the forestry is only on the sides of the two characters, nothing is behind them, keeping the focus on them, you could even say it is framing them.

       Now onto their wardrobe, or lack their of,  I believe it shows how comfortable they with each other. To be half-naked in front of a person you must be comfortable with them. To the right of the boy there is brightly colored suitcase, not only drawing attention to itself but also pointing out that they are away from home. Moving onto the objects in front of them; the record player, her shoes and her binoculars. All are one very old looking leading the viewer to think that this movie may be set in the past. But the objects are all front in center, drawing just as much attention as the two characters, presumably because all those objects are very much involved with the rest of the movie.

The last thing I will discuss is the characters themselves. First off they are both facing each other which by body language 'laws' that means they like each other (friendship or in a romantic way) or are just enjoying the others company in general. She is casually dancing by slightly moving her hips and legs, while he is just giving it all he's got, maybe showing that he is more outgoing. Neither of them are looking at each other, I don't believe this is as a show of dislike (as I've proved earlier they like one another) but more just due to that they are really into the music.

O Brother, where art thou?

I would like to speak today about the movie; 'O Brother, where are thou?' But more specifically how it showed acceptance in a time of a lot of prejudice.


        The three main characters run into a lot sticky situations, sometimes literally. They run into a man on the side of the road and decide to pick him up, well he just happens to be a black man. In their day (1930's) that was un-heard of. It wasn't really until the 1960's that people started to even think of them as equals, let alone let them sit in the same car as you. But they just rode in the car with him and spoke to him as an equal, just making regular small talk, they clearly didn't think anything of it.


        Then a few minutes later the four of them all decide record a song together, and even when the studio manager said something nasty about the fourth man being black, Everett,  Pete, and Delmar all think, 'Well what's wrong with that?', and fight for him to be in the song with them, in the end the man (Tommy) does end up being allowed to play with them.


           Finally and most importantly towards the end of the film the three men are fighting over the fact that there was never any treasure, then they hear singing coming from below. It turns out to be a meeting of the KKK, where evidently the men's friend from earlier, Tommy, is the main event of the night. The KKK plans to hang him. When the men find this out they immediately rush to help him.

          They do eventually get their friend out of this mess. Notice again I say friend, it's just astounding that this being the 1930's AND in Mississippi, and these men in no way find this man, Tommy, inferior to them, they find him to be completely equal, so much so that they don't even speak of him being a different race than them except once. My point being that this film showed a very different, very refreshing view on the black in that time period.


            Now let's go back to one particular scene, the one I spoke of where the three men pick up Tommy. First we have the three in the car talking of their baptism, Delmar tells Everett to stop to, "give the colored boy a lift,". Then the camera zooms way out to a shot from above showing the car, Tommy and that's about it. I believe they did this to show how they truly were in the middle of nowhere. Tommy then asks if they are going to Tishomingo, again they show a shot from above. Everett (of course) begins the talking, with general small talk. Now what I notice here is while Everett is going on and on about prison food and such, Pete is looking at him with slight an evil vibe, almost as if he didn't want Tommy there, but then I realize he is the first to suggest helping Tommy out later in the movie, so I think that he didn't think it was a good idea to have anyone in the car as they are trying to escape the law.

          Now the camera focuses on Delmar, smiling like a fool, as always, he contiunes the small talk with talk of how like I had said they isn't really anything out where they are. Tommy talks of selling his soul to the devil, now we go back to the front sit with Everett and Pete. So that we can now see Pete giving tommy another one of his 'looks', assuming this is because Pete is trying to rid his spirit of all evil. Everett still talking, gets yet another look from Pete like, 'Are you hearing yourself? This man sold his soul to the devil!'. Tommy then explains he gave his soul for the ability to play the guitar 'real good', Delmar being the sweet man he is, just shows him pity. The young man assures him that he wasn't using it. The rest of the scene is just them talking of Tommy's plan and they end up at a recording studio, and if you've seen the movie I'm sure you know the rest.


        My overall view of the scene is that as the river scene, it is a very good interpretation of the men's personalities, but here it is adding Tommy into the mix. It shows Everett showing off his gift of gab, to the max. It then shows Pete's suspicion of everyone, it shows Delmar's true innocence and kind nature, and finally it shows Tommy's true youth and gullibleness.

O Brother: Presentation/Analysis

Presentation



 2. What is the difference between Homer's Penelope and the Coen's Penny?

   Answer: Homer's Penelope waited for her husband. Coen's Penny did not.


 3.  How did the Coen manage to represent the cyclops?

  Answer: The have the older southern gentleman with an eye-patch covering one eye, making him a cyclops technically, also adding the 'giant' factor in with the angle they use to make him look much bigger than Everett and Delmar, and finally they sprinkle in a bully factor with his violence towards them with not only his hands but also the help of a tree limb.



Analysis


 2.  How is cross-cutting important in the river scene?

   Answer: Because it allows us to see the core of the main characters personalities; a chatty kathy, confused, and greed.


3.   The opening credits show a combination of shots to achieve different purposes, select one and explain how it works and why was it used.

  Answer: One camera shot that was used was an above angle, it was used to show the prisoners better and it was made possible by a crane.

The Piano

        The relationship between Ada and Baines starts out very odd. He immediately is attracted to her, and that attraction turns into an admiration. Some say he was just attracted to her piano playing skills. But at in any case he knows what he wants, and that’s her. He takes the piano away from her, then offers it back, but only if he can admire her a little closer. She agrees. 

        Baines inches closer and closer to physical intimacy with his requests of Ada, until finally that is his exact request. He does not request sex, but to lie down naked next to one another. Now these next few moments in the movie I find to be verging on rape. I do not believe that at any point in the film Baines rapes Ada. Rape is roughly defined as one individual forcing another to participate in a sexual act, without one of the person’s consent, conscious consent that is.

         Every time her and Baines performed a sexual act together she did agree and she was completely of a sound mind. Furthermore they did not actually act in a complete sexual manner until it was actually Ada’s idea. So no I do not believe that Baines (George as they refer to him sometimes) raped Ada, while Stewart is another story completely. 

        Before I end this post I would like to explain the relationship development between Baines and Ada a little better. Like I said before Baines was immediately smitten for Ada. But for Ada the feelings didn't come about until after he sort of 'let her go', I'm not sure whether it was the feeling that she had to have what she couldn't have, or what, they did not explain what changed her mind too well. But she fell for him just as he did for her. She became a different person, doing anything and everything to get to see Baines, she would even ignore her child, which she was very close to in the beginning of the film, she risked a lot. 

        Now the feeling of love was mutual, I think the build up to their 'relationship' was good on timing but lacked details. Again I couldn't actually tell you why she changed her mind about Baines but by the end watching them fight for their love was quite sweet. 

Annie Hall

        There is a scene in the movie were the characters Annie, Alvy, and Rob, go out to brooklyn to see Alvy’s childhood home. They go inside and as Alvy tells a few stories the don’t only see a few flashbacks, they are in the corner re-living the events. A minute or so later they begin hassling Alvy’s Aunt Tessie, about such things as her looks and her personality. The scene even goes as far as to have the present characters and the flashback characters have a back-and-forth conversation. That scene is definitely an example of Woody Allen’s humor at the time, odd dry and lots of breaking the fourth wall scenes. I’m not a huge fan of this movie, but I did find myself smiling at some of the scenes like this. The awkward unrealistic way it has to it is so weird and out there that it’s funny. 

       But as I said overall I did not like this movie too much. I thought it was a bit depressing, the whole plot of the movie was about a break-up between a couple, and I did not like the character Alvy very much either. I thought he was quite whiny and negative in his overall mentality. I do realize that all of this is supposed to be taken as dry classic Woody Allen humor but I just did not enjoy it, for whatever reason I did not take it in very well. 

Daisies

   

   I'll just start this post out by saying I did not like this nor was I able to follow this movie. I pretty much had no idea what was going on at any time. But I will try to explain my thoughts on the subject given best I can.

         The way this movie is set out is definitely odd. Like nothing I've seen before. You could very well say the genre is humor. The director clearly wanted humor to be a big part of it. At any given moment the girls are either giggling or making snarky comments to either each other or another new gentleman.

         The whole story is weird. Are they sisters? What do they want to do with their lives? I truly do not see this movies purpose. But nonetheless it is clear that humor was all visual.












Photo found here: https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQggAP7s6XPbYHvqkU_t236viVJtpM1ryE_QTk43aFFZltv7_OYKA

The Significance of the Music in Vertigo

         There are many moments in the movie Vertigo where the music plays a huge role, whether it be in the mood of the scene or implying the characters interior motives. But I believe there are two instances in the movie that really stand out.

         The first is the scene by the water, next to the Golden Gate bridge. Here the character Madeline, who at this moment is believed to be possessed by a dead woman, jumps off the dock and into the San Francisco bay. Naturally the character Scottie runs to rescue her. At this moment the music gets very dark and very loud, with lots of violin and low baritone type instruments I believe. It is also terrifying, sets the mood perfectly.

        Second example of a mood set by the music I believe is the moment when the two lovers embrace once again after Scottie believes his true love has died, and to his excitement he has found this woman who looks just like her. The music here is very uplifting and positive. It starts when Scottie sees Judy now as the 'new' Madeline, then continues as they hold each other and you can feel their contentment with this new situation. With the upbeat but yet romantic sounds you feel as if finally, happiness for them!

       In the end happiness is not the case of course, but overall with it's twist on a classic love story it was a enjoyable film to watch.



Photo found here: http://flavorwire.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/vertigo-lg.jpg
       

Film Noir's Representation of Women

         Film noir is known for changing many things from the norm of society at the time. It had a much darker tone to it, with many accounts of criminal acts and a hint of romance in it. Before this all films were a bit wishy washy, gooey romantic, fairytale type of deal. But then again, society at the time was changing into a much darker age as well. In this post I will talk about the representation of women in film noir.

         From the 1900's up to the 1940's women were thought of as the weak character. The "Oh yes sir, golly me," sort of character. The main woman character would take off the man's shoes and cook him dinner, then ask about his day, completely disregarding herself. Film Noir changed that concept of the women.

         Take the movie 'Detour' for example, Vera was stubborn, strong-willed, 'I don't care what you think, this is what we're doing', type of gal. That had not been seen on screen until that day and age.  Not only was the woman now in charge in a lot of the cases but she had a very noticeably evil side to her.

         Again I'll use Vera as an example, she knew what Al had done and knew how to use it against him, and she did. The woman should not and would not cross the man before the 1940's film noir presence. But with the change in society, came a change in cinema and film would never be the same again. In the times to come, cinema in the 1940's that they called 'dark' or 'disturbed', would be laughed at by the folks in the 1960's and 70's when women's rights and power took center stage. Film tends to reflect society and society reflects films.  But that's a story for another time and post.



Photo found from the following: http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTQxMzA0ODk4OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTkwMzQyMQ@@._V1_SY317_CR3,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

Freaks: Impact on Equality

        In the 1930's most did not think this movie would even be heard of again, let alone become a gateway to equality for people with deformities. Yes even today a lot of people are cruel in their thoughts and comments of people with birth defects/deformities, but as a society we have grown a whole lot in accepting these people as the equals. I believe that without this film the progression of our growth would be severely diminished, and yes many other movies and TV shows since then have also helped us along the way, but this was one of the first steps.

       Many movie critics argue in favor of this being a step to equality, by saying the amount of heart and emotion is portrayed by the actors really humanized the characters (not to say they aren't human of course). One critic even pointed out that these actors with the deformities choose to act in this movie, they were grown adults that made a conscious decision to act in this movie. This perspective was a argument against the people who believed the film was poking fun of the 'freaks' and thought it was extremely disrespectful, believing that the film should be thrown away and never to be heard of again.

       I truly believe this film was a well thought out, well-written movie (that for sure tugs at the heart strings) on the everyday challenges the 'freaks' had/have to deal with in this cruel world, and without this movie we without a doubt would be way behind in our human progression.

Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr.

9/04/14

          Buster Keaton was a comedic genius of his time. He performed in a way nobody had ever seen before. You could very well say he was the creator of slapstick comedy. Maybe even the creator of the modern day stand-up comedian. The distance between him and his audience was unknown at the time. Keaton always had a plot of action in mind, he definitely put on a show. He redefined the field in a very eccentric manner. Adding a hint of a romantic aspect with glimpse of the ideas of the future, seeing as this time was very much about hope of the future, people were always very excited to grab a seat at his shows.

         Although Keaton's shows weren't based around his characters, they always had their spots in his shows. His characters displayed a lot of what I just mentioned, a mix of romantic heroism and a new outlook of the industrial age. As you may think, the two themes contradicted each other quite a lot. A lot of Keaton's shows were very strongly based on slapstick comedy. Falling on a loose floor board, tripping over once hidden piece of furniture. You could say that if not for Buster Keaton bringing this sort of comedy to the public in his time we would not have had movies like, Home Alone, Home Alone 2, (and 3, 4, and 5. Yes there was 5.), Dumb and dumber, etc etc. Some of those movies are a few of my favorite, while others are not. But nonetheless I think that Buster Keaton played a very important role in the evolution of comedy.

       
         Sarah Amend


Photo found on: http://acertaincinema.com/media-tags/buster-keaton/page/2/

My Top Ten Favorite Movies

1. Forrest Gump. Tom Hanks portrayal of Forrest is heart-warming. How can you not love that character?

2. Finding Nemo. The under-lying relation to real life situations and issues, with of course obvious comedy.

3. A League of Their Own. The relationship between Dottie and Kit, and how it evolves throughout the movie.

4. Mrs. Doubtfire. Pretty much the sheer fact that you get to see the lovely Robin Williams play a hilariously sassy old woman.

5. Anchorman. I loved Will Ferrells take on 'Ron Burgundy', how he thought he was ALWAYS right, even when he was talking out of his butt. His relationship with his dog, Baxter, is hilarious as well.

6. ELF. I love the sweet childish humor in this movie.

7. Fault in our stars. The obvious chemistry between Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort make the story so personal and so sweet. With the occasional funny moments, that made it that much better.

8. Zoolander. I love it's sarcastic sometimes hard to catch humor, makes you think twice. Oh and blue steel of course.

9. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.  I love that this whole movie series is about a kid outsmarting a couple of evil 'mastermind' criminals. I also do find the slapstick pretty funny. I choose this installment of the series because of the beauty of the city of New York is showcased in the background throughout the movie.

10. A Christmas Story. I love the movies take on the odd adventures of the holidays that we all have experienced in some way.


Sarah Amend

Introduction

Hey there! My name is Sarah Amend. I'm a freshman at the University of Cincinnati this year. My major is E-media. I love movies, I think my favorite part about them is watching the character development over the period of the film. Even though I love quite a few dramas, my favorite genre is definitely comedy. I'm taking 'Movies of the 20th century' this semester because I find the subject quite interesting and I want to explore different genres and decades of film.