Lola is Gonna Pull a Muscle With All That Running; Saying Goodbye to a Great Semester

This week we watched Run Lola Run and learned about new German Cinema.  We also had a reading to do about Run Lola Run which cleared the air about a few of the questions I had.  First I’ll talk about how I felt about the movie.  This movie was actually really good (and another one that I hadn’t seen too!) and I loved the late 90’s to turn of the century style of editing.  You know how movies were really into that weird blurry flash cut?  Well this movie has plenty of that, but it is so tastefully done.  I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed looking for all of the changes that happened in the redoes, and that opening line about how a soccer game is broken up is perfect for a three act movie.  Now we’re really getting to what I liked about the movie.  I can’t wrap my head around how a movie that follows a formulaic three act structure can be so rule breaking at the same time.  There were jump cuts everywhere, small flashes of color and faces, and plenty of nods to location and other cinema.  Overall, the movie was beautiful in it’s simplicity, and that’s what really carried me through it.  If you think about it, the plot isn’t really all that original or even new, it’s been used countless times before.  But the execution of it was phenomenal.  Some really smart cinematography was used in this film.  And I obviously can’t talk about what I liked about it without mentioning the amazing score.  That German House music that hadn’t quite caught on fully yet over here at the time really gives a strong feeling of running, like a pulsing beat that everyone needs to move at.

Moving on to the reading for the week, there is so much more to unpack from this film than I thought.  I wrote the first paragraph of my blog post before I read the article and I plan on leaving it unchanged because it’s a much more pure reaction to the film.  Learning about how Germany desperately wanted to get away from the two World Wars it had been part of made sense, and the feeling of starting over, much like Lola and Manni got the chance to do instead of dying.  The will to live is obviously very powerful in these two, and I really like how that can tie into how Germany felt after these wars, this sort of feeling that they won’t let their culture die, especially after the cultural genocide that was sort of occurring with the Allied Powers occupation.  Also I loved the nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo with the painting and all of the spirals that you see in the movie, that is so clever and subtle.  The part where it’s mentioned the primary colors that pop out from the phone booth represents the cartoon style for the rest of the scene is really interesting to me and a really cool blend of what is real and what is fantasy.  Lastly, I didn’t even realize that the scream Lola does throughout the movie is representative of a rebellious culture that was brewing in Germany.

Now I’ve come to the hard part.  Saying goodbye to a class that really is so passionate about the movies we’ve watched is tough.  I’ve found myself analyzing movies that I watch with my friends and most of the time when I point out a shot or scene I think looks great my friends give me a weird look.  It’s gonna be hard going back to watching movies just for the sake of watching them and not appreciating them with a group of people.  I think we can all agree that we at the very least got a great experience out of this class.  I used to really hate old movies because I hadn’t really seen any of the good ones, then we watched movies like the Grand Hotel and The Best Years of Our Lives.  Before that, the only movie that was old that I could watch over and over again was It’s a Wonderful Life.  Now I feel so much more informed and can really enjoy older films.  Even though I know I’ll be taking more film based classes in the future, Dr. Schlegel really is right in saying that a class like this isn’t common.  I found that I didn’t even mind commenting on other people’s blog posts because everybody had something new to say about the movies we watched.  It was so refreshing.  Beyond that though, I think I should talk about my favorite movie we watched and leave you guys with one of my favorite movies I hope you all check out.

Out of all the movies we watched, I can confidently say that Diva was my favorite.  I was so into it.  I had no expectations going in, and it blew my mind.  It was amazing, I loved every second of it.  You know it’s a really good movie when you get to the end and you feel like no time has passed at all.  Time flies and all.  I really want to pick up a Bluray for it, but it’s looking like it might be a region locked Bluray which is a bummer.  Something about the way the French language flowed with the style of the movie really spoke to me, and the neo noir vibe is my kryptonite!  I love that so much.

Well that’s pretty much it for me.  Thanks for all being awesome classmates and having really interesting posts to read each week!  I loved being able to see how excited some people were when they experienced a new film for the first time.  Anyway, I know I’ve left you guys with the first Blade Runner trailer before, but it’s actually the sequel movie that I like more.  Blade Runner 2049 is one of my all time favorite movies, and I encourage everyone to give it a watch!  You don’t even need to watch the first one, it stands pretty well as a stand alone movie.  If you like neo noir, this movie is for you.  You guys should leave recommendations for your favorite movies too, either in your blogs or comments.  I’d love to see what everyone likes!

ILM and Diva

This week we covered both Cinema du Look and the importance of a once small company by the name of ILM, or Industrial Lights and Magic.  I absolutely loved watching Diva this week, and I’ll get to why later.  First let’s talk about some movie magic.  This documentary is one that I may have already seen, but come on, it’s awesome!  Even if you don’t find the technical aspect of CGI to be incredibly interesting (you’re just wrong by the way!) the history of ILM is one that has touched nearly every single blockbuster hit that we all watched as kids.  I particularly enjoyed watching the model making scenes in this documentary.  I have next to no idea how someone can ever come up with something as iconic as a Star Destroyer.  First of all, awesome name for a type of ship, but most importantly I can’t even imagine how the model designers got from what looked like a flying pizza slice on storyboards to this extremely sleek and menacing design that represents the fist of the Empire.  Seeing Robin Williams was a nice touch as well, and really makes you think about what actors have to deal with when acting alongside CGI characters.  Then hearing Jon Favreau’s story about how he accidentally picked the real life shot as the unrealistic one really got to me.  When CGI is to the point that not only can you no longer tell but it’s actually even better than the real thing, what will it look like 10 years from now?

Now I want to talk about Diva, because I feel like I could talk forever about ILM and my personal love for Star Wars and George Lucas.  We also studied Cinema du Look this week.  And wow was I blown away by Diva.  Okay, quick side note here.  Hollywood seriously needs to get their shit together.  Diva came out in 1981 and the cinematography was so tight and strong.  There are so many movies today that don’t even come close to the level that this movie did, and they did it almost forty years ago!  While the plot is a little all over the place (the actual diva in the movie really doesn’t serve a massive purpose to the overall action and plot) I think that it was still good enough that by the end I understood everything that had happened.  I wasn’t too worried anyway.  The rest of the film was a trip.  The stylistic choices and the random symbolism that was thrown in really made the film feel alive, like this was our reality but just slightly off.  I loved every second of it.  The characters outside of Jules were pretty one dimensional which is actually really cool.  The gangsters that stalk Jules throughout the film both have really interesting personalities that don’t really change throughout the film.  The one with the stupid glasses kept saying that he didn’t like anything, and yet he really enjoyed music as that was what was playing out of his headphones when he died.  Similarly, the other gangster seemed to enjoy killing much more than his partner and nearly every murder he committed was elaborate, showing that he was a professional.  So much about this movie was highly stylized, and it was just really enjoyable.  I found that I lost track of time in the viewing and just got wrapped up in the scenes.

Jeff Goldblum is Pretty Fly For a Fly Guy

This week in class we discussed the 1980’s, the decade where so many beloved franchises bagan.  I love this decade, but after learning the history behind it, I can definitely see how it caused problems in a big way.  These problems still persist today, and all of them are based on money before quality.  This makes little room for art, and even less for a director to have freedom when making a new film.  The idea of “front-loading” comes about in this era, and it is the process by which a movie has all of it’s merchandising and products and toys released before the movie to not only generate maximum hype but to also ensure the movie is an instant success.  The problem would occur however if all that money was spent and then there was a flop made out of the movie all the products are based on.  That’s why studios started to take away creative freedoms from all of their directors and really started to craft the movies themselves.  They would stick with tried and true ideas that really made guarenteed hits but were at the same time all too safe.  George Lucas and Steven Spielberg really paved the way for the types of safe movies for the 80’s.  They figured out that male fantasy was a relatively untapped well but that movies in that genre worked really spectacularily.  This led to the beginning of the end.  Movies started to fit three main genres; horror, sci-fi fantasy, and action.  These were the tried and true money makers, and not much has changed today.  It looks to me like Hollywood is going to continue on that path for as long as it takes in order to milk the cash cows those great pioneers gave us in the late 70’s to early 80’s.

That isn’t to say that there weren’t any good movies in those genres though.  There were plenty, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones, one of the greatest sequels of all time came from one of those dreaded cash cows in the form of The Empire Strikes Back.  This week, we watched one of those “good ones”, The Fly.  I missed class unfortunately due to a stomach bug, but I’ve seen The Fly a few times already, so I know what it’s all about.  As far as casting, almost nobody does mad scientist as well as Jeff Goldblum.  The man knows how to act weird and strange already, it’s part of his everyday life.  The body horror that occurs in the movie is also a really good parallel to the Aids crisis in the 80’s, showing that your body could really betray you.  It didn’t focus on jump scares, but rather a slow, methodical burn that really gets under your skin as Jeff Goldblum loses his.  David Cronenberg does a fantastic job spinning a tale that is equal parts horror and a statement on where society stood when faced with these new challenges.  Overall, I think The Fly is something that everybody should experience at some point in their life, if not for the ride, then at least for the make up effects which are just outstandingly grotesque.

Cult Movies

This week, we learned about the midnight movie culture.  While many of these “cult” movies exist today, there are only a few real midnight movies that everyone can agree on.  Learning about them from the documentary we watched on Monday was incredible and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.  It wasn’t until we got to Jon Water’s interview about Pink Flamingos that I realized what it was.  Everyone was genuinely having fun writing these movies.  Nothing about them was tedious or a waste of their time, they genuinely wanted to do something weird and different.  They certainly accomplished it.  El Topo is considered to be the first midnight movie, and its rise in success is really interesting.  The fact that it was too weird to not watch high and that it was a bit of a trip of an experience probably helped its value out a ton.  I’m a little sad we didn’t watch El Topo or Pink Flamingos, but on Wednesday the class elected to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I couldn’t believe that so many people in the class hadn’t seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and it is undeniably the king of midnight movies, so it was definitely what we needed to watch.  Personally, I’ve probably seen it a dozen or so times throughout my life, with some audience participation as well.  While the audience participation is a huge part of why all of these cult movies got popular, the movies are sometimes just as good without the participation at all.  There was hardly any when we watched it, yet people loved it.  I know several people are still singing the songs today and it’s already been two days.  The magic of the movie is in its pull and simple choruses.  Everybody still wanted to see how the wacky Dr. Frankenfurter would keep up his shenanigans.  The whole movie was just as weird as the first time I saw it, but it didn’t matter because that was part of the appeal.

The movie really worms its way into your heart and I totally forgot that Eddie was played by Meatloaf.  That was such a nice little touch because he’s perfect for that character.  I think that the only thing left that I need to do is see The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a play now.  It’s the only form of the source material I haven’t see yet.  This was one of my favorite weeks in the class.  Learning about the midnight movies and what they meant was so exciting.  I could tell that everyone else was really interested in it too, especially when we all grilled Dr. Schlegel on some of our favorite movies and whether or not they were cult movies.  It was a ton of fun and I hope things stay that way as we move on.  I’m personally really interested in how the industry became the way it is today and we are moving into that territory now so on to the 80’s!

A Decade Under the Influence, My Dude

This week was our focus on the 70’s, specifically the blockbuster era.  It looked to me that the 70’s were one of the best times for movies period.  Even with the later part of the decade sort of falling into the blockbuster pattern, what was accomplished through pure art was amazing.  Studio heads were handing over the golden keys to the kingdom to these young directors who were all trying to make the best movie they wanted to with these huge budgets they’d been given.  They constantly went out of their way to make pictures that actually had meaning in art.  This was all inspired by the French New Wave, where many young directors wanted to rebel against the old way of making movies with very traditional  stories and camera techniques.  They wanted to make a style that was all their own, with interesting scripts that had more to do with the youth of their generation than anything else.  The old style directors were out of touch and refused to change their camera techniques.  The new young directors saw this opportunity to incorporate what was known as a sin in the industry; jump cuts.  Once they started to see that it was possible to show the passage of time without actually having to follow the actor around or use a dissolve and could just jump to the relevant part, a whole new style of film making opened up to them.  This certainly carried over to the American directors of the time, who were still all watching art house films that could show them exactly what new styles were being used.

The industry in America however started to really shift when blockbusters started to be made in the modern sense.  This also wouldn’t have really happened without the major flops that started to pop up from directors that had previously been making smash hits.  Then came Jaws.  Jaws was such a hit, things changed forever.  It still affects the media landscape when it comes to film, and rightfully so.  Industry leaders saw that a certain type of film would be the type to dominate the future, a type of film that they didn’t need young creative directors to make all the decisions on.  The studios now knew how to print money essentially, and this squashed out the creative talent that these directors had.  Movies like Star Wars almost made more money of off the toys and products that were licensed for the movie than the movie itself.  It was the beginning of the end for creative Hollywood.  On Wednesday, we watched Poseidon Adventure.  I missed class regrettably, but I really wanted to see it.  I’ll probably watch it this weekend, but I looked up a bunch of reviews and articles about the impact it had on film culture today.  It’s so amazing to me that the first disaster film had such a basic concept, yet went on to spawn a full genre.  A genre which continues to produce films today, some of the most popular films of our day and age.

The 60’s

This week we had group 2 present their movie.  They chose Singing in the Rain, an excellent choice to portray silent film’s transition into sound.  They did a really good job with describing why they went with Singing in the Rain, and definitely filled their presentation with interesting little facts that I didn’t know about the movie at all.  Watching the dancing segments and seeing the skill pulled off in them really made me happy and put a smile on my face, and I think the class overall got a much better impression of musicals as a whole genre.  We talked a little bit more about the collapse of the studio era and how big studios just refused to get with the times, banking everything on happy go lucky films that nobody cared about anymore.  This paved the way for a really good time in movie history, the blockbuster age.  This was also before Hollywood had run out of ideas so the movies were, generally speaking, pretty original.  Movies were finally showing blood, and terrible consequences actually happened for once.  Before, movies would have somebody get shot but there would be no bullet hole, which just didn’t make sense.  In the late sixties, film makers decided to amp up the sex, blood, and violence for audiences.  It was a huge hit, and critics everywhere were either singing praises about these movies from the top of a mountain or they truly hated it.  It perfectly mirrored the sixties as a whole as a divisive decade.

Later in the week, we watched the classic movie Bonnie and Clyde.  This movie was so important to the time period that it came out in because it really had a lot of firsts.  The whole movie had masterful editing, especially the last scene of the movie.  When Clyde looks at Bonnie with fear in his eyes and it cuts back to her and she smiles knowing it was all over, I got chills.  That was such a great moment, almost an entire conversation, told just through editing skills and emotions.  That was so cool to me.  The movie also was wildly successful, and paved the way for more movies like it that people wanted to see.  It was really interesting to me to see how there were a bunch of subplots running through Bonnie and Clyde.  Everything with how CW’s dad acted and treated CW to the revenge subplot that the Texas ranger had was all secondary to the real story, but it also complimented the story perfectly by not getting too in the way of the real story but still adding a little variety to it.  The pacing was excellent too.  You didn’t need to see every bank robbery, because that was all just talked about in order to show the passage of time.  This was really clever screen writing and definitely kept the pace going at a fast clip.  Bonnie and Clyde was a hit back then, but it is looked at as a cinematic masterpiece now, and with good reason.

Exploitation Films

This week was definitely an interesting one.  We focused on the period where Hollywood went a little wild, and started to make exploitation films.  It was all thanks to the Paramount decision.  The decision essentially broke the hold the Big Five had over Hollywood and theaters to make room for more indy studios to have their time to shine.  However, even though they knew that was going to happen, nobody expected exploitation films.  Films that were light on plot and focused on totally cheap thrills and drive in culture.  These films wouldn’t have been able to change Hollywood without the help of a small studio by the name of American International Pictures, or AIP for short.  The studio was run by Samuel Arkoff and James Nicholson.  These two didn’t even have two pennies to rub together, much less actors that were recognizable or scripts that were coherent.  But they did have one edge, an edge that the rest of Hollywood was completely ignoring.  Teenagers.  That’s right, these guys made films that nobody else would.  Teenagers were misunderstood age group in this time period.  Their parents didn’t get them, and nobody was representing them the way they actually were in media.  More often than not, you would see a teenager dealing with problems in a good, clean way that was very family friendly for the time.  When the first of AIP’s exploitation films came out, it was a breath of fresh air for the teen scene.  These movies portrayed kids the way they knew themselves, and they loved it.  It didn’t matter that the movies were usually all terrible, in fact that was part of the fun of it.  But Hollywood was none too happy about the success that American International Pictures was getting.  When you have too much of a good thing, copycats will come around.

AIP movie were mostly cheap monster movies.  It turns out that movies don’t need to be good if they’re date night movies, they just have to have good scares and fun acting.  Everybody started to see these movies at the drive ins, and it popularized the double feature.  Sometimes, a movie would come out that needed to be followed by a monster movie.  A romance movie to get the teenagers sappy, and then a monster movie to scare them close to each other.  It was a smart ploy, and since AIP was making movies extremely fast, sometimes finishing shooting in as little as 5 days, Hollywood wouldn’t be able to keep up.  It was a smart strategy, and one that paid off in the end.  AIP also went on to make movies that featured African-American actors in what has become known as Blacksploitation films.  AIP was the little studio that could.

Wild Strawberries

This week we spent some time reviewing for the exam, learning about the way movies were made post WW2 in other countries, and watching Wild Strawberries.  I missed the first day of class this week so I missed watching the Bicycle Thieves movie, but I’ve seen it before.  The ending is truly frustrating, but after learning in this class that these movies were made as a direct response to post WW2 feelings around the world, it makes way more sense.  I’m glad that cinema was a good outlet for these feelings to occur and it let many people recover from the horrors of the war.  While Hollywood has endings that were almost always happy, European cinema didn’t always have a happy ending.  It’s refreshing to have movies that end with things unanswered and just capture a moment in time.  A movie doesn’t always have to have a full character arc or a lesson learned by the protaganist by the end.  In Bicycle Thieves, that much is clear.  Having to resort to the same underhanded and criminal tactics that the people who wronged him did must have been humiliating, and being publicly shamed proved it.  Other than Bicycle Thieves, we watched Wild Strawberries as well.

I’m not sure if an official dubbing in english exists, but I’m incredibly pleased that we watched it in its original language.  I knew the Criterion Collection wouldn’t dream of ruining a film such as this in that way, but I did have my doubts when it first started.  For me, I find that watching a movie in its intended language is always more enjoyable.  Anyway, Wild Strawberries is a film by Ingmar Bergman about an old man who is on his way to receive a medical award.  The cinematography was incredible, and I absolutely loved how the locations all felt so intimate.  Normally location shooting is to show off the grand majesty of the countryside and to show how beatiful and vast it is, but in this movie none of the locations felt like they were really larger than life.  Seeing the characters climb trees or pick flowers or even go sailing made it all feel personal and real.  The locations never overshadowed the actors themselves.  Speaking of the actors, lets talk about them.  We had an incredible lead, who was very mild mannered and reserved in his role, which fit his character perfectly.  I loved how all of the children thought of him as the wise old man who knows everything there is to know while the slightly older characters even went as far as to have problems with him.  He himself had many problems, and they all manifested in his dreams.  His first dream was clearly feelings of loneliness that lead to a sad and alone death.  Not to mention that he was getting older, as symbolized by the clock.  The rest of his dreams also showed feelings of anger towards a failed marriage and inadequecy for his life accomplishments.  Overall, I thought this movie was really good and showed a unique perspective into the march of time as a whole.

Film in a War-Torn World

This week was probably the most emotionally taxing of the weeks we’ve had so far.  We started the week by talking about the effect WW2 had on cinema as a whole, and how Hollywood really mobilized during the war.  All of the films we watched were emotionally powerful, and though I’ve seen “The Thin Red Line” before, it was still just as powerful on the second viewing.  We also watched “WWII In Color”, a profound documentary that absolutely does not pull any punches when it comes to showing the gritty and often disturbing side to the biggest and costliest war to ever occur.  I could tell that the whole class was actively glued to the screen, partially out of interest and partially out of disgust.  The scenes from the death camps were impossible to look away from, but you really wanted to.  Something about seeing it all in color really made it seem even more profound.  It’s easy to see some tragedy in black and white and shrug it off because it happened a long time ago, but when it’s in color, it’s like being there.

We then went on to talk about Film Noir and “Casablanca”.  I’ll talk about “Casablanca” first.  This has to be my third or maybe fourth viewing just in the past few years (it’s my mom’s favorite drama!) so it wasn’t as enjoyable for me as it was for most other people I’m sure.  I might have seen it one too many times in recent memory, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good film when I see one, and “Casablanca” is nothing short of a masterpiece.  Even with the repeated viewings, I notice small details that I didn’t before.  A great example of this is the searchlight that is seen throughout the movie.  What seems like a really clever way of lighting the seedy city of Casablanca is actually a light searching for refugees committing crimes, but the really interesting attention to detail is on full display here as the light never finds anything in the crime ridden city, mirroring the corruption of the police force.  The tone of the film is dark and mysterious, with just a hint of humor.  By all rights, it should be a Noir film, but it isn’t.  That’s what we talked about as well this week, Film Noir.

Film Noir was a reaction to the aftermath of WW2.  The world would never be the same, and many men saw horrors that couldn’t simply be put in the past, leading to a response from Hollywood in the form of the Noir flick.  These movies were very different from what audiences had seen before.  They usually involved some sort of a crime, a poor sucker who’s down on his luck, and a femme fatale.  There was mystery, and a distinctly hard edge to the films of this era, most of which didn’t have a happy ending.  Noir sort of died out in the late 50’s to early 60’s, but it lives on in the form of Neo Noir.  It kicked back off in the 80’s and is still seen in films today.

This shot is from one of my favorite scenes in “Blade Runner”, a Neo Noir Sci-Fi picture.

Also here’s a shameless plug for my favorite movie ever! Maybe you guys will watch it if you haven’t seen it.

Group Presentation and The 39 Steps

This week our group presented on the movie “The Best Years of Our Lives”.  The movie had a really profound effect on me.  I was in tears throughout a bunch of scenes, including when Al forced Fred to tell his daughter Peggy that they couldn’t see each other anymore.  The cinematogrophy in that scene alone was amazing, as you can see everyone in focus, even though Fred is in the background, Al is in the middleground, and Homer is in the foreground.  So much of this movie hits great emotional notes, like when Al is the only person at the bank who truly understands what these veterans have gone through and so he is willing to give loans to veterans who can’t make a down payment or have any collatoreal.  Even though he gets in trouble for it, he still sticks to his guns on it when he’s confronted about it.

Homer’s tale was both tragic and touching, a story of true love and self pity.  What I found most interesting however was the fact that Homer wanted everyone to treat him like anyone else, yet he was the one who was the most self conscious of everyone.   Overall, I found the movie to be really enjoyable, and I’m glad that our group got to present on it.  I can’t wait to see what the other groups have to present in the coming weeks.

We also watched “The 39 Steps”, an Alfred Hitchcock movie.  This was personally my third time screening this film, so I was able to really focus on what the cast was actually saying.  I love how this film goes from a really serious subject matter to a ridiculously fun time.  The romantic interactions between the two unfortunate souls who become handcuffed together are extremely believable, and I especially like how our protaganist goes from terrified to a total charmer while he’s on the run for his life.  I especially liked the joke he made about comparing the sheep blocking the road to the detectives.  Of course, the film was also very well shot, with clever transitions and cuts all over to really give you a feeling of suspense and terror.  I especially liked when he turned a woman’s scream into the train whistle, a technique that is still used in films today, the most recent example being Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban.  There were some really great uses of scenery, particularily the scene where they break away from the detectives in their car.  They stumble around in the fog for a little and climb country fences and finally hide behind a small waterfall.  Another example is when the man who is missing part of his pinky was showing our hero what the police were doing right outside the window.  You can still see the window in the foreground, the police in the middle ground, and the mountains in the background.

I had a ton of fun with the group project and can’t wait to see what the next group can bring.  All in all, this was a pretty fun and informative week.