Run Lola Run

In class on Wednesday, we watched the 1998 German film Run Lola Run by Tom Tykwer. The film follows Lola and Manny, Manny did some sort of deal that included delivering 100,000 dollars to a man, when he loses the money on a train and a homeless man takes it he needs to figure out a way to get that money fast or who knows what will happen, this begins the story which the rest of the film will revolve around. He calls his girlfriend the redheaded Lola to ask for help, she begins to run as she figures out what move to make next.

The film then changes, it shows us their story and then it restarts. This plays out 3 times overall in which we see the same 20-minute story with the same characters, even the pedestrians but see how time and chance change the outcomes of the story/stories. This is a super complex film which plays with a lot of ideas, mainly the idea of theme and chance. Fatalism (turns out from the reading the director was a philosophy major which makes sense if you watch the film) is the theme for one part, the car that gets into a car accident, it doesn’t matter the situation as we see, there is no way to get around the man crashing his car into the other one with 3 men. Although the last story makes him completely avoid the said be a crash, later he still ends up doing it. This is one example of how much is packed into this film. The reading Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run and the Unusual Suspects: The Avant-Garde, Popular Culture, and History by Barbara Kosta go way more in-depth about it, it starts with a quote which sums up the film well “Brings Hollywood pizzazz to the European art movie”. The first thing this reading points out is that it really embraces pop culture rather than criticize it, unlike many other new German filmmakers. You can see this in the aesthetics throughout the film. It brings all forms of German culture together and rebels against what was being made at the time, the all too familiar narratives we saw in film at the time while spontaneously including the mainstream.  As the reading continues I found out a lot of super interesting things, you were right, there really is a lot to it and it is super interesting to read! The back of the woman’s head is a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, (one of the directors favorite films) something I would have not noticed myself but found very wild once it was pointed out. The painting in Run Lola Run (left) reflects Madeleine looking at a painting of Carlotta in vertigo. (right)

Also from the painting in run Lola run, you can see a spiral in the hair, a common visual occurrence throughout the film (a reference to Fritz Langs M). Another thing that made me geek out a little was when the author of the reading talked about all of the other influences that went into this film, there is a framed Man Ray photo framed in Lola’s apartment, one of my personal artistic influences, a photographer and painter, its just so cool to hear that the influences expand as far as the futurists, so much went into this film which makes you appreciate it more.

the Man Ray photograph that is hanging in lolas apartment. I have seen this film before many times, its one of my favorite movies along with the other option for this previous weeks screening In The Mood For Love are so good so i had a ball watching it in class and then reading about it learning more than I thought id ever know (in a good way). The reading was super good as well, makes me want to read something like that after every filmi watch.

Which brings me to the next part of the blog, a reflection on this past semester. First, I love these classes and plan on taking more in the spring, I enjoyed this semester very much, probably more than last semester taking intro to film (and that class was fun too). I find film to be such an interesting medium, it is a combination of it all to just take you elsewhere for a little bit, to transport you into a different story, I have found that the things we learn, discuss, and watch in this class have influenced me in my artistic practice so much, they have helped me think more about my work in terms of narrative and mood and I appreciate that a lot. This class truly has helped me a lot. Watching the first silent films and getting to where we are now is just a crazy and amazing transition, thinking of all of the advancements (ideologically and technically) but also how they’re very similar in plot and other things. I watched many films I have not seen before which I continuously go back to like Casablanca (an Honestly amazing film that I hadn’t seen but adore ever since seeing it) Bonnie And Clyde and Pink Flamingos. I have found out so much new information, I watch movies a lot by myself and weirdly enough what I was watching on my own synced up with our classes and it was always fun when that happened, noticing the things I am learning about in class in the films I am watching. Overall I enjoyed this class and will truly miss it, I wish I could take it over again. I enjoyed writing about films as it made me understand them better. Thank you for a great semester full of great films and enthusiastic lectures, it is always fun watching a film and hearing everyone’s reactions. I look forward to exploring more movies and hopefully taking more film classes.

Cinema Du look

Cinema Du Look was a French film movement in the 80s-90s, also called the “New New French wave”. Implied in the movements name, the films focus more on look more than the content of the movie, saturated colors, grainy grungy aesthetic, high production cinematography, great scored and overall a very stylistic look. Luc Besson, making films like Leon: The Professional (A sad great movie) Jean-Jacques Beineix with Diva our screening this week, and Leos Carax, Boy Meets Girl(1984) were the main directors headed this movement Many of the main characters in these films were young, lower to middle-class people, themes revolve around, love, youth, rebellion ect.. (themes we see in American 80s coming of age films at the time). Ideas of alienation, loneliness, separation from society, doomed love are what you will see when watching these type of films. The filmmakers were inspired by American New Hollywood films.

The first film i would like to talk about from this movement is Luc Besson’s Leon: The Professional (1994). The film has all of the key characteristics and themes present in a Cinema Du Look Film. The film revolves around two outcasts in society, Leon, a quiet hitman and Mathilda, a young girl whose family was just murdered. Leon takes Mathilda under his wing and shows her (reluctantly) the skills of his trade, you watch them develop a special bond as they are both scorned from past bad relationships (Leon with his ex-lover, Mathilda with her dysfunctional family) They relate to each other and help each other in that aspect. The film has a sad but lightly optimistic ending which I will not spoil. This film is very stylistic, shot with a slight sepia tone, there is a contrast of innocence and corruption that we see in Mathilda, themes of alienation, isolation, this is what makes it a main film in the cinema Du Look movement. It is overall a very interesting film with a weird love story that really pulls you in.

The next film is Diva (1981) which might be the best and most popular example of a cinema du look film. I watched this film on Thursday, it is about a postman who gets mixed up in a TON of stuff, there was actually a lot jammed into this plot, many stories, characters, anyways, basically there are two tapes, one, a recording of a famous opera singer who refuses to be recorded, as she has never heard her voice. The second he got in a passing interaction which incriminates a higher up police chief. Both of these tapes have people after them ready to kill to get them. We watch as all of these stories pan out over the span of the film. Ultimately it ends, the bad guys die, and we see Cynthia, hearing herself sing for the first time while embracing Jules. I enjoyed the look of this film very much, I liked the story, it was interesting but I definitely found the visual aspects of it to be what I was drawn too more than the plot, which, after reading about this movement is what it’s all about. The aesthetics were dark, murky, dirty lighting, colorful, it was refreshing to see, Some of the scenes reminded me a bit of Wong Kar Wai films, a director who started making films a few years after diva came out, they have that same grit to them, although I believe Wong Kar Wai can not only portray that stylistic type of film and one that is heavy on the visual stuff, he does a good job at also adding depth to the story being told, heavy emotions. Anyways, I liked this movie a lot and want to explore the movement further! The shots below are a still from the film Diva and a still from the film Fallen Angels (1995). When seeing that scene in diva the look reminded me so much of the scene from Wong Kar Wais fallen angels.

The 80s & 90s

The seventies were a time for revival in Hollywood, many great films were being made for both artistic and commercial reasons. Young directors were emerging bringing their own personal style to filmmaking introducing the “Auteur”. The 80s and 90s were also an exciting time for film in different ways.

The Blockbuster film became a major thing in the 80s, blockbuster films are usually made with large budgets, are very flashy, have major stars, most are extremely popular. Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, etc.. all were blockbuster films, we see the merchandise, the popularity, extremely successful films that still are largely adored and have sequels being made to this day (for example Star Wars). While Blockbusters were a popular film in the 80s there were many other themes being explored. David Lynch, a director known for his films such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Dune, Elephant Man, and the popular 90s tv show Twin Peaks. While the hero, good guys and feel good films of the 80s were being made David Lynch was going beneath that, he was digging to show what is under all of this commercial happiness, the “Dark Side Of The American Dream”. His heroes were tracking down a killer with their biggest clue being a severed ear, fighting surreal dimensions such as the black lodge to figure out why their friend was murdered. His films were often dark, nightmarish and surreal, diving into the subconscious to make sense of the world at the time. His film Eraserhead, an experimental cult film which follows a couple with a mutant newborn child, seemingly appearing from nowhere. The whole film has a loose narrative, shot in black and white with heavy contrast that really captures that industrial American nightmare.

The 90s was a whirlwind of new things for film, there were so many new things emerging as long as taking things from old filmmaking patters we see films like Pulp Fiction by Quinten Tarintino or Natural Born Killers by Oliver Stoner becoming popular. Pulp Fiction is an interesting one, in the reading the author talks about how Tarantino uses the Hitchcock tool of not showing violence on screen much, but building to the moment so intensely that it seems like you witnessed more violence than you actually did. I ended up re-watching some of his films this week and noticed that was an interesting thing to discover that I had not noticed before.

This week in class we watched David Cronenberg’s The Fly, this film was referencing the aids epidemic at the time, the way he portrayed the body turning against itself was funny but also really dark to watch. At points there were funny things like “Get in my teleporter, it will make you feel sexy.” When Jeff Goldblum said that it just made me laugh, but then you see the innocent (at first) tender relationship turn bad over a mistake so easily avoidable it makes you want to shout at the screen. We watch as the seclusive scientist Seth Brindle splices his genes with a fly and turns into a fly mutant man. It was unnerving. The ending scene where he basically gives up and puts the gun to his head and she puts him out of his misery honestly brought tears to my eyes, it was not only a gross, entertaining film it also managed to pull at the heartstrings and I enjoyed it very much.

Midnight screenings and cult films

The 1970s were an intense period in time for the film, the way movies were being made in us was changing drastically due to the release of Bonnie & Clyde and New Hollywood. The first glimpse at cult movie culture was with Alejandro Jodorowskys El Topo, a film id describe simply as a western desert acid trip. All of Jodorowsky’s films were crazy, definitely not appealing to most of the masses id say as they have explicit content, murder, rape, animal cruelty in them most of the them, this film happened to find itself being shown one night at the Elgin theater in Chelsea new york, it was a hit and this is how the midnight movie culture started. On a side note, Jodorowsky is a great filmmaker and I’ve seen a few of his films, The Holy Mountain , in particular, is my favorite. There are some beautiful scenes in that movie.

 

El Topo was the first-midnight movie, after that, they became regular around the country. Odd films that strayed from the norm such as The Rocky Horror Picture show, Freaks, Night Of The Living Dead, Eraserhead (another personal favorite, David Lynch was one of the first directors who sparked my interest in not even movies but art, big lynch admirer here), Pink Flamingos and many others. Midnight movies appealed to the outsiders, often the films had themes of anti-establishment, radical ideas, violent and graphic depictions of sex, immorality. This was appealing as many people were feeling anxiety over the violence erupting across the country at the time. By the 80s VCRs were becoming more popular and fewer people were attending midnight movie screenings. The fad died down but has had special exception revivals like with the 2001 film Donnie Darko (I’ve been to a midnight screening of that in Buffalo before myself). Many films shown at midnight screenings were “Cult Films” meaning films that gained a strong loyal following, the audience decided what movie became a cult film you couldn’t just make one.

In class we watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show, probably the most popular of the cult genre, this film became a cult movie staple, crowd interaction was essential  with this film, often people dressed as the actors and played the film out live as the original one played behind them, people knew how to respond when things were said, it was a whole production. After class on Wenesday, I watched the other cult classic Pink Flamingos and let me say, everything on the cover is valid, it was at points hard to sit through but ultimately I thought it was incredibly hilarious  and just bizarre, I gathered a group of like 10 friends not knowing what was going to come on the screen and I was genuinely shocked, but in the end most of us enjoyed it very much, I can see how it reached cult status, it has this really alternative, sick, nihilistic humor that makes it so funny. It also was oddly delightful and I noticed a lot of weird film references in it. Overall I enjoyed it and will watch it again, it made me laugh a lot.

 

New Wave

Posted late with permission

 

The 70s were an important time for American film, sometimes called “The American New Wave” or “New Hollywood”. But before that, there was the French new wave, which inspired many of the films to come out in America in the late 60s- early 80s.

The French New Wave is credited as one of the most important and influential movements to come out of the film, the directors of this era were known for their experimental and straying from traditional ways of making a film in editing, narrative, visual style, as well as themes from the time. New Wave resembles a documentary type style, often being made on the run, on location, they’re very expressive in the way they’re edited and filmed, jump cuts, repetition, existential themes, questions that arise to never be answered, long takes, these are all common occurrences in the movement. This movement was so experimental and new, bringing a fresh look at how you can make a film. Some of the most notable directors from this movement were Godard of course, arguably the most influential at the time making masterpieces like Breathless, A Woman Is A Woman, Alphaville, and many others, my personal favorite by him is Pierrot Le Fou, This was the first french new wave film i had ever seen and I fell in love, I wanted to be Anna Karina so bad growing up because of that film, it was so beautiful and exciting. Other notable Directors are Agnes Varda, who made Cleo from 5 to 7, (Another favorite), François Truffaut, who did The 400 blows. Alain Resnais, making Last Year at Marienbad, an absolutely beautiful surreal film, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and many others. These filmmakers would go on to influence the likes of many “New Hollywood” Filmmakers in the 70s.

So onto the American New wave, what was it? In new Hollywood the film was made more with emphasis on the director taking control rather than the studio, they also often broke classic film norms straying away from the syle of filmmaking prior to this period. Bonnie and Clyde as mentioned before, was the film that kicked all of this off. New Hollywood directors were often young, going for a more artistic way of showing a film rather than a huge produced glorified studio film of the years before. The stories changed, the characters changed, the way of filming changed. Often the characters were more of the everyday man type, narratives were less whimsical and more realistic, rather than using film as a form of escapism the new Hollywood filmmakers set to make films that people could relate to, could see themselves in. The visual style could be a mix of old Hollywood and the likes of European art film such as films from the French new wave. These films were often shot on location, giving it a more realistic feel, editing was used to portray moods, emotion, tension rather than a continuous way to keep the film moving. There were so many new things coming out of this era. My personal favorite films to come out of this era were Taxi Driver by Martin Scorsese, following a lonely misanthropy through the late night streets of New York, its one of my favorite films of all time and I honestly listen to the Soundtrack by Bernard Herman (This was his last score before he died) multiple times a day, its such a moody jazzy wonderful score, id say its also my favorite film score as of today. The other film from this era which you could categorize more in the German New Wave category is Paris, Texas a film by German director Wim Wenders, starring one of my film favorites Harry Dean Stanton. This film is so deeply emotional, it always hits me hard, the end scene when she realizes who she is talking to on the other side of the mirror as he tells their love story makes me burst into tears every time. It is such not only visually beautiful but emotionally and artistically beautiful as well.

 

Musicals, Outlaws & Agnes Varda

This week I have a presentation on the 1952 musical Singin in the rain starring gene kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor. The musical follows don Lockwood, a famous silent film actor and shows the struggles of transitioning from silent films to “talkies”. self-reflective film, the film is about the transition of sound into films, shows difficulties, early stages, all aspects, the film itself being made, it opens with a shot of people in a theater then shows a mob attacking the celebrity’s, very reflective of the current culture at the time which was changing a lot, films were all the rage, people were using film as a form of escapism of the post-war traumas. Overall I had a BALL doing this presentation, I loved the movie a lot, it put me in a good mood for days and it was so goofy and funny I couldn’t stop laughing. I never watched musicals much before but I for sure will be watching more after this film.

Bonnie and Clyde is the film we watched this week, coming out in 1968 it was a staple of the “new Hollywood” era. This film follows the story of outlaws Bonnie and Clyde, they move across the south with their other members of the “Barron gang” robbing banks and killing anyone who tries to stop them. In the end, once we finally see Bonnie and Clyde solidify their love, they’re killed shortly after in a bloody attack from the police leaving hundreds of bullet holes in their car. It’s a great film, not only is it beautiful but it is action packed and the music is so fun with heavy banjos stringing the film along. This was and still is an extremely important film, even said to be the most influential film of the 60s. It has themes of sex and violence, sticking it to the man, and it was a commercial success. It helped break the production code of making films. The ending scene when they get killed by the police was shocking and had never been seen in commercial films before, seeing 2 young pretty people so violently killed on screen was unheard of and it stuck out. Although the film took place in the 30s, when Bonnie and Clyde actually were rampaging through the south, it represents a lot of the discontent the youth were feeling in the 60s, I think this is particularly highlighted in the scene where the gang member CW was in the kitchen and his father got mad over him “marking himself” up with his new tattoo which displayed the word “love” another theme of the 60s, also the way the father is so against and eventually turns in Bonnie and Clyde really just highlighted the tension between youth and elder in that era in an amazing and interesting way. Another scene which highlights the “sticking it to the man” theme is when they’re out shooting by the old house and a man and his family come by, they sympathize with the common men and together they give a little “f you” to the bank by shooting at the bankruptcy sign and house. Or when they’re robbing the bank but let the poor man keep his money, there is a sympathy this makes you feel, to the point where I almost felt like crying at the end when they’re killed.

 

One more thing Id like to talk about which retains to the reading this week a bit is an amazing filmmaker and one of my personal inspirations passed away, Agnes Varda, she was part of the French new wave, often called “the mother of French new wave” one of the only female filmmakers of that trend and was even doing things before the staple big new wave men at the time such as Godard and Truffaut, and often is overlooked. She created many great films such as Cleo from 5 to 7, Happiness, Faces Places, Le Bonheur and made many other great films, working to the end of her life, She was a revolutionary and feminist inspiration.

Exploitation Films

In 1938 the justice department sued the major studios for “block-booking” films, being too monopolistic in the distribution of films, the justice department won in 1948 and the studios were forced into a new way of doing things, which lost them a lot of money. A large portion of the money earned was due to distribution, which was no longer being made, the golden age of Hollywood was ending. After the paramount decision was made, the film industry suffered, and a new type of film began being made, the exploitation film.

Exploitation films, B movies, Nudies, were all the rage at this time. Production Companies like American International Pictures were creating films that appealed to the teenage audience, noticing young adults were coming to the movies more than adults, these companies took advantage of that. Prior to this era in film, movies were very adult oriented, they often focused on more adult themes as we saw in Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, and much other European cinema at the time which was also influencing and expanding in its own ways. Teenagers were never really considered while making a film, that is until these type of movies began being made. Realizing that by appealing to the teen audience as a way to make money. These films were made with a low budget, niche, very quickly and focused on themes such as sex, violence, teenage rebellion, mayhem, and drug use, often screened in drive-ins this new type of film was taking off with the help of relaxation of censorship laws. When it comes to defining an exploitive film, it is hard to. Really, it has to do with what the viewer takes from it and sees as exploitive.

This week we watched a documentary about these type of films called Schlock! (2001) In this documentary we looked at exploitation and sexploitation films as well as companies and directors such as Roger Corman, one of the most notable directors from this era, discovering the talents of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson and many others, in a way he shaped the upcoming years of Hollywood by launching these stars careers. One film mentioned quickly in the documentary that id, like to point, is Carnival Of Souls (1962). Quickly mentioned, it is one of my favorite movies ever. It follows a woman who seemingly got into a fatal car accident but she appears out of the water, surviving. The rest of the film follows her as she looks to get away to another town. She is an organ player but something is off. She constantly sees this ghostly man following her and gets glimpses of dancing carnival souls. There are even moments where she seemingly does not exist around others. The film is full of creepy carnival organ music and a mystic storyline. A very surreal film, it is said it did not get the recognition it deserved because the title was remanence of exploitation films, it is said if it was a European film it would have been considered an art house film at the time. It was later re-looked at and is now considered a masterpiece which I agree with. Very surreal and unsettling, it feels almost like a dream.

Ingmar Bergman and Italian Neorealism

World War 2 changed so many things in the film, themes were drastically different, many new things came out of them during and after effects of the war, one of which was Italian Neorealism. This movement started in Italy in the early 1940s, The films were often shot on location and focused on darker subjects such as injustice, poverty, working class, the destruction and changes that the war left. Many of these films were not happy, filmed in post-war, run down cities, the actors generally were not extremely well known although occasionally a big name would show up in an Italian neorealist film. A reason why I particularly enjoy films of this kind is because of the mundanity of them, something about the boring and the blandness of everyday life and seeing how a director can capture that and make it an interesting story really intrigues me. One of the most notable films of this movement, which could even be called the “masterpiece” of Italian Neorealism is Bicycle Theives (1948), A father is offered a job that requires a bike, without the bicycle, he cannot take a job which he will be able to take care of his family with, his family manages to scrape what they have to buy back his already pawned bike, on the first day though his bicycle is quick snatched which sends him wandering around war-torn Rome in order to retrieve this stolen bike. The film ends with him never retrieving the bike and almost being arrested for attempting to steal one himself. This film is dark, it is heavy, devastating, and I feel the decision to not cave and give the film a happy ending was a good one. It really showed and made you feel the hopelessness of these people and the situations going on after the war which in my opinion is extremely important.

Now for our screening, this week we watched a film by one of my personal favorite directors/creators Ingmar Bergman. I have seen many of his films some of which include Persona, The Seventh Seal, Through A Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Hour Of The Wolf, Summer With Monika, Scenes From A Marriage and a few others. Ingmar Bergman is a sweetish film director known for his rigor and excellent films, there was a large point in time where he was creating at least one film a year and good ones at that. He was one of the most significant filmmakers, his films were often black and white, seemingly very personal films dealing with themes of doubt, religion, existentialism. He takes all of the plagues and troubles of the human mind and puts them in front of you so beautifully in his films. His characters often tortured and depressed, questioning life, dealing with mortality, the absurdity of the world around them. In one of his films The Seventh Seal (1957) he quite literally shows us a man at odds with death, his time has come but he is not ready to go, so he challenges a personification of death to a chess match and if he wins, he gets to live. (This is a widely recognized scene, often parodied )

The film then follows the man trying to outsmart death but surprise surprise he cannot, no one can and the film ends with the knight and others doing the dance of death. I think this is an important film to mention when talking about Bergman because it is his most known next to Persona (1966) And it also deals with a lot of the themes he explores in many of his films. This week we watched Wild Strawberries (1957). This film follows an aging man confronting his life and how he acted, which was not very pleasant. He reflects on old age and reminisces about his past, childhood, lost loves, and all of the ways he could have done things differently. Along the way, of a trip he takes with his daughter in law he meets others which join him on his expedition to retrieve an award, these others could be representations of his past, they’re manic, lively and honestly quite fun, I found myself laughing much more than I would have expected to with a Bergman film. There was, of course, many dark scenes, particularly the one where she is telling the story of why she is leaving Isaks son was one that kind of punched me in the gut. Overall though it was much more optimistic than I had expected but refreshing.

Film After World War 2

During and after World War 2 tensions were very high. Many countries at the time were using film as a medium to spread propaganda to gain support for the war going on, the United States was no exception. With the U.S. declaration of war, Hollywood was handed over to the Office Of War Information as well as the Bureau Of Motion Picture Affairs being created which helped coordinate the creation of patriotic, “American” pride type films, highlighting the appeal of “American Life”. Through these agency’s films, newspapers, posters, radio broadcasts and other forms of mediums were used to launch a pro-American propaganda operation. Frank Capra, John Ford, and John Huston were among some of the producer-directors chosen to create combat films for this effort. In these films, Germans and Japanese soldiers were often stereotyped by directors as sadistic, cold, merciless killers, animalistic. In 1945 though, Germany surrendered and World War 2 came to an end, but after that war,  there were plenty more. Another war that used a lot of film propaganda was the Cold War. The United States was now in a “cold” war with the then Soviet Union, nuclear weapons were ready to be used at any moment, this time around America feared communists, the red scare. In 1947 Congress created a subcommittee on Un-American Activities to keep an eye on possible communists within the motion picture industry. Under this scope, the lifestyles and beliefs of leading actors, directors, producers, screenwriters ect.. were all looked into. Some films, like the film Mission To Moscow by Jack Warner and Louis B Mayer, were seen as anti-American pro communist films, even when explained by the director and were taken to court, questioned and interrogated, because of this many anti-communist films began to come out such as The Iron Curtain (1948) and The Red Menace (1949).

During these anxious times, another type of film started being made, Film Noir movies. Often dark and dramatic film noir movie plots usually had to do with a typical, average working class man caught in tough situations, often created by themselves. This type of movie emerged from crime films made and produced by Warner Brothers. Visually the films are commonly in black and white, almost dreamy how in a way, they’re very dramatic and eerie, sleazy, nightmarish, underworldly. We see this in the film we watched this week, Casablanca (1942). The main protagonist is a man named Rick, he has found himself in Casablanca during ww2 due to not being able to return to America, he is miserable and bitter in the beginning, most of these problems though are created by himself. Very dramatic sets, high contrast lighting, intense scenes between characters. An impending sense of doom as people begin to get into trouble while these German Soldiers Linger around the area. The film ends with Rick, showing his true kindness and resolves all of the problems, a typical ending for a film of its kind. Overall I enjoyed it very much, probably my favorite film we watched this semester. I thought the airport scene was excellent, intense and bittersweet which I liked a lot.

Surrealism and Alfred Hitchcock

While in the 1930s Hollywood was booming, there were other artists and filmmakers straying away from that. Rather than creating films with a clear idea, narrative and imagery the surrealists delve into their subconscious to find inspiration. Straying away from Hollywood-Esq and mainstream film because of its “materialistic taste of the bourgeoisie” the surrealistic believed that cinema was an art, one that bourgeois culture was misusing and contaminating. Starting within other art forms such as painting and photography surrealism is the movement in which artists juxtapose dreams and reality to create strange images, dreamscapes existing in “reality”. Some of the artists working in this movement were Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Francis Picabia. Through their art, they liberated objects from their position in the world.

One of the first time we see these ideas in a film is in the work of George Melies who created dreamscapes in his films. He creates mystical environments to tell his stories which play with surrealist themes. Other art movements at the time such as Dadaism, Cubism, and futurists were also inspiring filmmakers to break away from traditional storytelling. Surrealism was an important movement in a film because it gave filmmakers a new way of working, of thinking, to dispose of the old way we see a film, it gave it the opportunity to not only entertain people but to be used as a medium in the art world as well, it brought a new layer of depth.  Salvidor Dali and Luis Buñuel were among the most known surrealist filmmakers of the time.

I really enjoyed the reading this week as I am a fan of surreal and/or experimental work, my favorite being Maya Deren, a filmmaker who was influenced by the surrealists, she worked with other artists of that type such as Duchamp, she was very creative and helped pushed the film into the art movement. In one of her most known works, Meshes Of The Afternoon (1943)  she experiments with repeated sequences of time from multiple viewpoints. Deren and this film also tie into the other chapter we read this week. Meshes Of The Afternoon resembles Jean Cocteau’s film Blood Of a Poet (1930). Jean Cocteau was a writer, artist, and filmmaker from France, he was influenced by the surrealist movement. Below are stills from Maya Deren’s film.

Along with the readings we watched a film this week in class called The 39 Steps By Auteure filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. The film followed a man as he tried to escape a conflict brought on by two spies. He ends up proving himself innocent as well as woo his love interest. I have seen many other Hitchcock films but surprisingly never this one, I enjoyed it a lot, it was plot heavy, the story twists and spins. Hitchcock does a great job at making it suspenseful while keeping it funny and light-hearted at times, its a nice contrast. My personal favorite is Vertigo (1958), a very surreal film (ties into the reading). I’m always a fan of dramatic color in film. Overall I enjoyed a lot of the content this week.