Mega Blog

This week in class, we watched a few films. The screening we had for this week was Run Lola Run. Run Lola Run is a 1998 German thriller film. It was written and directed by Tom Tykwer. The budget was $1.75 million and box office was $22.9 million.This film was about a woman who needs to find 100,000 Deutsche Mark in  twenty minutes to save her boyfriend’s life. Run Lola Run was screened at the Venice Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Lion. It was nominated as Best film at the Seattle International Film Festival and seven awards at the German Film Awards. Run Lola Run was also selected as the German entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 71st Academy Awards, even though it was not nominated.

The movie starts off with a call made by Lola’s boyfriend, Manny. He was responsible for delivering 100,000 Deutsche Mark. While Manni was on the subway to drop off the bag with money, he panicked when he saw the ticket inspectors and left the money bag on the train while he got off. The last thing he saw was a homeless man examining the money bag as the train departed. Manni told Lola that he will be killed if he doesn’t get that money in twenty minutes and he was talking about robbing a nearby supermarket to secure the funds. Lola told Manni to wait for her. She will find a way to get the money to him within 20 minutes. Lola hangs up the phone and ran all the way to her bank manager father for help. When she gets to the bank, she interrupted a conversation her father was having with his mistress, who informs him that she is pregnant. Her father kicked her out and told her she wasn’t his daughter and he did not help her.  Lola ran to meet Manni, and it was too late. She saw him enter the supermarket with a gun. She helped him rob the market. After leaving the supermarket, they got caught by the cops, Manni throws the money bag in the air, which startles a police officer who shoots Lola in the chest.

I thought the movie ended at that point, but then they showed a flashback and then the events of the film restarted from the moment Lola leaves her house. This time it had a different turn out. Manni had gotten ran over by a speeding ambulance. The film restarted one more time. This time, Lola wanders into a casino where she acquires a 100-mark chip she successfully bets on a game of roulette. She bets all of her earnings on the same number and wins the game, getting well over 100,000 marks. Manni then spots the homeless man passing with the money bag, and was able to retrieve it. Lola arrives on time and witnesses Manni handing over the money. Manni joins Lola, and asks her what is in the bag. I was happy that he film had a happy ending.

Also for the reading this week in the World Cinema book,  Chapter 22 speaks on New German Cinema. The New German Cinema is a collective term used to describe a group of young film-makers who, under the leadership of Alexander Kluge, signed the Oberhausen Manifesto in 1962. In the manifesto they declared that the conventional German film industry was dead, and that a new German film was about to be born. The decline of the old film industry was in part brought about by the rapid rise of television during the 1960’s in West Germany and the loss of film distribution in Germany to American companies during the 1950s. With the loss of audiences to television and American films, the hope of the young filmmakers was to set out to emulate the French New Wave directors and find new methods of financing, producing and exhibiting their films.

I can honestly say that I really enjoyed this class. It’s a bittersweet moment that this has came to an end. I have learned a lot from this course. I do not watch old films on a regular. The only film that I knew that we watched was Bonnie and Clyde. I’ve heard  people talking about this a lot and one day I decided to watch it on my own. I wanted to see for myself what this was about. It tells a story about a couple who was down for each other since the day that they met. Even though Clyde was a criminal, Bonnie followed him and turned into one. They did everything together after they met. Down to the day that they died together. I loved this movie because this is the kind of relationship that I would like to be in, excluding the criminal activities. I also love that we have screenings every Wednesday. This gave us a chance to see the kinds of things regarding film industry has been doing.  We started watching films from the 1920s , such as A Trip To The Moon to Sunrise. Then to the 1930s where we watched Grand Hotel. When we got to the 1970s, we watched a movie called, The Poseidon Adventure. That was also another good film that I enjoyed. The class had took a vote on that one. The professor told us to choose the film that we haven’t yet watched. I wanted to vote for Jaws because I have seen it and I love Shark movies but I said The Poseidon Adventure. We picked a good choice because we all loved it at the end. Even though there were events that happened that we did not want to happen. We went through all the 90s up to the 21st century, which we will get to next week.  

I am happy that I had the chance to take this class. It has opened my eyes to watched things that I’m not really used to watching. I am more caught up with current movies that are showing. I see the previews on television ahead of time and I would think to myself, “I want to see that.”

DIVA

This week in class, we watched a film called Diva. Diva is a 1981 French thriller film directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix. It is one of the first French films to let go of the realist mood of 1970s French cinema and return to a colorful, melodic style, later described as cinema du look. The film made a successful debut in France in 1981 with over two million admissions, and had success in the US the next year with a gross over two million. Diva became a cult classic and was internationally acclaimed. The budget for this film was $1.5 million and box office was $19.8 million

This film was based on a young postman, Jules, who is obsessed with classical music. He is more obsessed with the soprano opera singer name, Cynthia Hawkins, who has never allowed her singing to be recorded.  Jules attended a recital at a theatre, where Hawkins sings. He made a high-quality bootleg recording of her performance using a Nagra professional tape-recorder. At the end, he steals the gown she was wearing from her dress room. Later, Jules came across an audio cassette that had a recorded testimony of a prostitute name Nadia. She speaks of a senior police officer as being the boss of a drug trafficking and prostitution racket. Nadia dropped the cassette in the postman’s bag, Jules. Two officers are now looking for Jules to get the cassette, although they only know that it incriminates a prominent gangster and not that the gangster is actually their superior. Jules is also being followed by  Saporta’s two murderous henchman. A third party seeking him are two Taiwanese men,who are after his unique and valuable recording of Cynthia Hawkins. Jules was save when he met a young vietnamese- French muse, Alba. Jules was feeling guilty and returns Hawkin’ dress. She was angry but eventually forgives him.

1980s and The Fly

Even though I was not in class this week , the movie The Fly was shown. I am not a fan of horror films. The Fly is a 1986 American science-fiction horror film directed and written by David Cronenberg. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox. Grossed $60.6 million at the box office against its nine-million-dollar budget, and became the largest commercial success of Cronenberg’s career. A scientist, Seth, meets Veronica, a science journalist, at a press event. Seth took Veronica “Ronnie” to his warehouse  at his lab to show her his invention. Seth persuade Ronnie to keep his invention a secret in exchange for exclusive rights to the story. She began to document his work. His invention was a set of telepods. This invention allows teleportation from one pod to another.

Seth and Ronnie started a romantic relationship, and after their first sexual activity, Seth was inspired to reprogram his invention to cope with living tissue, and he successfully teleported a second baboon. One day, Seth decided to teleport himself, and a housefly slipped inside the pod with him.Seth  was fine when he emerged, but later on, he began to exhibit increased strength, stamina, and sexual potency, which was believed to be the teleportation “purifying” his body. He had crazy cravings and Ronnie was concerned about him, especially that he was growing a lot of hair on his back. He then began to change, becoming violent and arrogant. After many things were happening, and he was back in his lab, he checked his computer records.  He discovered that the telepod computer, confused by the presence of two lifeforms in the sending pod, fused him with the fly at the “molecular-genetic” level. Seth stated to become less of a human, losing body parts and deteriorating. At the end, Seth wanted Ronnie to end his suffering by shooting him and she did it inn tears. No one should ever have to do that.

For the reading this week, in Introduction to World Cinema, it talks about revisiting genre films in the 1980s and 1990s. In the late 1970s,  the major studios were taken over by larger corporations that began to produce a handful of big-budgeted, mass appeal feature films. The success of these blockbuster films, like Jaws, generated new economic growth in the film industry. The films moved from the pessimistic anti-genre films of the early 1970s to the popular myths and cultural values later endorsed by the Reagan administration. These films contained strong discourses promoting “family values,” a democracy able to ward off any “evil” empire, and a reestablishment of moral order. In film history, Jaws was one movie that anticipated the new cultural attitudes arising after the Vietnam War. The new film industry had never enjoyed a bigger box office smash, as audiences returned to the movies houses to cheer its fighting heroes again. The rebels in this film were not misfits, alienated characters who dominated American films in the 1970s from Bonnie and Clyde to Taxi Driver. I loved the movie Bonnie and Clyde.

The 1970s, Cinema Culture and Midnight Movies

This week in class we talked about midnight movies. We also watch a film called “Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream”. This was a 2005 documentary film written and directed by Stuart Samuels based on his book. It was distributed by Starz Encore Entertainment. The film chronicles the period  in which six low-budget films shown at midnight transformed the ways films are made and watched. Each sections of the documentary went into details about all those films. Some I thought were interesting but others, I didn’t. I did not like any of the gruesome things that were being shown. Things like that, I can not look at.  This documentary also shown films that gained notoriety and a huge cult following thanks to midnight showings. The film was screened out of competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

I was not in class to watch the screening this week but the class voted on watching Rocky Horror Picture. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 musical horror comedy film by 20th Century Fox. The screenplay was written by someone who was a member of the cast. The production is a parody tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the 1930s through to the early 1960’s. The budget was  $1.4 million and $140.2 million. The story is about a young engaged couple whose car broke down in the rain near a castle where they found a telephone for help. The castle was occupied by strangers wearing costumes of some sort celebrating an annual convention. They found out the person that owns the house was a mad scientist who was actually an alien transvestite who creates a living muscle man in is laboratory. The couple was seduced separately by the mad scientist and was eventually released by the servants who take control.

From the chapter that we were assigned to read this week, from “An Introduction to World Cinema”, it talks about the American Auteurs: Allen, Altman and Coppola. Auteur is a filmmaker whose personal influence and artistic control over a movie are so great that the filmmaker is regarded as the author of the movie. The film industry is a production of more than just history or a story. Many people come together to create a masterpiece film.  A key person in this process is the director. The director is said to input their own auteur style through their pieces and hard work. Many agree that films are actually more of a “director’s autobiography” than anything else.  Filmmakers like Woody Allen, Ernst Lubitsch, John Ford, and Alfred Hitchcock are said to be high examples of this. For example, Woody Allen puts a little bit of his own comedic personality in each artwork he creates. A personal vendetta he said to struggle with is romantic setbacks which he likes to portray in many of his films as well. Film making takes an army of people to make, but ideas and mind of the background story comes from the heart of the director.

The Post-Studio Era

This week in class, we took a  vote to watch either The Poseidon Adventure or Jaws. Everyone said that they have watched Jaws before so we decided to watch The Poseidon Adventure. The Poseidon Adventure is a 1972 American disaster film directed by Ronald Neame and produced by Irwin Allen. Within this movie, there are 5 Academy Award winners.  The budget for this movie was $4.7 million and box office was $93.3 million. The Poseidon was on her way to Athens for retirement. While everyone was having fun celebrating the new year, the ship was taken by a tsunami and was turned upside. Many people died when this happened. One of the reverend, Scott, thought everyone would live if they moved upwards toward the engine room. Some of the passengers listened and followed him but others didn’t want to leave. After everyone who decided to go with Scott left, he tried to convinced everyone else to go with him but no one was listening. Once Scott left them, that entire area was under water and that’s when they all wanted to listen and move upwards but it was too late for them. This seems to happen a lot, someone says something but the others never listen until something actually happens to them. Scott was very upset that he couldn’t save everyone but it was not his fault. Scott did the best he could to save the people that was with him. I was heartbroken when he fell into the fire and die. I thought that he was going to live until the end of the movie. After he did what he could, someone else took over and lead them to victory. The survivors started to hear people and that’s when they all thought..”Scott was right the entire time”. They started hitting the pipes until they were heard and they waited until they cut upon the area and let them free. Overall, I thought this was a good movie, even though I did not like some of the things that happened.  I almost cried a few times.

In the reading this week, we learned about the rise and fall of the classical Hollywood studio system. During this era, from the 1920s to the 40s, the “studio system” referred to a factory based mode of film production and the vertical integration of production, distribution, and exhibition. The studio system flourished during the Depression era and World War II. These 2 major events induced the government to sanction the studios’ monopolistic control of the film industry. This allowed the studios to maintain their factory operations and also a contract system that kept filmmaking talent at all levels. The 40s proved to be a watershed era for Hollywood with a boom due to war conditions early in the decade followed by an industry decline and an end to the studios’ hegemony. After the boom, it was the studios  best years ever in terms of revenues and profits but then a year or 2 later the industry was in a free fall due to a succession of devastating blows.

1960’s American Cinema

I was excited for this week’s class. On Monday, there was a presentation by group two on a film called “Singing in the Rain” which was very good. Then I saw on the syllabus that we were watching  a film called “Bonnie and Clyde”. This film was distributed by Warner Bros.- Seven Arts. It was released in 1967. The budget was $2.5 million. I was excited for this because this is the first film that I actually knew that we were going to watch. I’ve heard a lot about this movie and one day I decided to watch it. It didn’t hurt to watch it again in class. This film was about a small time crook name Clyde that tried to steal a car but then got caught by the owner’s daughter and they ended being together since then. The daughter was Bonnie. With both of them being together, their crime rates went up majorly from petty theft to bank robbery. Tensions came in when other members came into their gangs, which could have destroyed them all. Their was the driver, C.W., Clyde’s older brother Buck and his wife Blanche.

Bonnie and Clyde is considered a landmark film and was known as the first films of the New hollywood era, since it broke various cinematic taboos and was popular with the younger generation. After the success of this film, it prompted other filmmakers to be more open to show sex and violence in their films. The ending of the film became iconic as “one of the bloodiest death scenes in cinematic history”. This film received awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best Cinematography. It was the first 100 films selected for preservation in the United States.

I always thought of Bonnie and Clyde as relationship goals; except the crime part. They fell in love the very first time they saw each other and they been together ever since. Even though Clyde said he was no lover boy, Bonnie never left his side. I new when Blanche came around, things were going to get out of hands. I didn’t like her since the start. She was messing up everything up starting problems and all, especially with Bonnie.  The part that got me was when Blanche was asking for her share when Clyde was splitting up the money, when she didn’t do anything. I don’t blame Bonnie for getting upset, I would too.

Also for this week, we had to read a chapter from the Introduction to World Cinema book. From chapter 20, it talks about Hollywood Revival and Anti-Myth Era: 1964-1976. This chapter was also talking about Bonnie and Clyde. “New cinematic trends from Europe helped Hollywood reemerged as a production center for commercial filmmaking”. These new films took another turn from the traditional genre films of Hollywood and started to explore the sexual and psychological conflicts of offbeat heroes. Another trend capitalized on the success of the New Independent Cinema and the experimental films of Andy Warhol and Stan Brakhage in New York. Their new films showed us new cinematic forms of elliptical construction and controversial depictions of sex,drugs and violence.

1950s and 1960s International Cinema Rise of the Independents/Exploitation

In this week’s class, we watch a film titled Schlock! The Secret History of American Movies. (Greene, 2001) This film was distributed by Pathfinder Entertainment and directed by Ray Greene. Schlock is a well made documentary on the history of Exploitation cinema from the early mid 20’s to the mid 20th century. Each chapter of the film shows the variety of genres and filmmakers of that time. Greene did an excellent job bringing us through Exploitation Cinemas main roots. The film started off with the meaning of what Exploitation is.Then the next chapter, we met someone who hosted her own TV show in the 50’s. Later on moved to films of American International Pictures. Greene used a lot of Exploitation movie art in the film which I thought was good.

For the sexploitation lovers part, there were plenty of nudity in the film. The girls in the film seem like they were having a lot of fun with making these films and being apart of it. Also, the men recording these females were having a lot more fun with it; zooming in on the females naked body and all.

An exploitation film is a film that attempts to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. These films are generally low-quality “B movies”.  Films like these includes a lot of suggestive or explicit sex, sensational violence,, drug use, nudity, destruction, rebellion and a whole lot more. These films were first seen in the 1920s but  was popularized in the 60s and 70s with some censorship and cinematic taboos in the United States and Europe. Exploitation is very loosely defined, and has more to do with the viewers perception of the film than with the films actual content.

In the reading for this week from the introduction to world cinema book, chapter 14 talks about Hollywood in Transition and Decline: 1955-1962. According to the chapter, “Three of the postwar factors changed the power structure and practices of Hollywood filmmaking”. One of the factor was the Supreme Court ruling in the United States v. Paramount case was found that vertical control was monopolistic and in restraint of trade. The second factor had to do with halting the steady decline in movie attendance by introducing new technical innovations. The final factor involved a competition of European “art” films for the postwar market.

In 1952 film historians claim that , that year was a turning point for the American film industry as it struggled to halt the decline of the movie audiences in the postwar years. The court ruling of 1947 ended the vertical integration of productions, distribution and exhibition in the studio system. There was no guarantee income so companies had market their films separately to independent exhibitors. With this happening , the major studios stopped producing pictures, let their contract players go, and set-aside independent producers and directors who, in turn, had to raise their ow capital and consent to rent Hollywood studios in exchange for distribution rights to their film. When these producers undertake the risks of film production, exhibitors knew that some technological changes had to be made to reverse the loss of box-office revenues and bring audiences back in the theatres.

Sources

An introduction to world cinema

https://www.grindhousedatabase.com/index.php/Schlock!_The_Secret_History_of_American_Movies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_film

Post WWII

After living a life marked by coldness, an aging professor is forced to confront the emptiness of his existence. Wild Strawberries is  a 1957 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The original name was Smultronstallet, which means “The wild strawberry patch” in Swedish. The screenplay was wrote while Bergman was being hospitalized. This film is considered to be one of Bergman’s greatest and most moving films. This film was distributed by AB Svensk Filmindustri.

In the film, the professor is traveling to accept an honorary degree and is forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and make peace with his approaching death. Throughout the film, the professor had a variety of dreams and nightmares that was shown as flashbacks that dramatizes his remarkable voyages of self- discovery. I thought that this film was a really sad one and no one should ever live that way.

In class we discussed topics on Italian Neorealism. Italian Neorealism,also known as the Golden Age, is a national film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class, filmed on location, frequently using non-professional actors. Italian neorealism films are most about the difficult economic and moral conditions of post-World War II in Italy. These films represents the changes in the Italian psyche and conditions of everyday life which includes poverty, oppression, injustice, and desperation. “Neorealism was a blend of traditional and new techniques, largely shaped by the war and its aftermath”.

One thing that Neorealist film makers wanted to show was the reality of life in Italy after World War II, and that it was harsh for many reasons. Majority had to do with the war itself. North of Italy was occupied by foreign troops and most of Italian territory was bombed throughout the conflict. Rome gained some of the bombings on a number of occasions, and in 1943 was occupied by the Nazis. After the war ended the entire country were in shambles physically and economically. Poverty, unemployment, and anger were part of everyday life. You would think after a war has ended, everything would be alright, but that was not the case. It was a really hard time for majority of people at this time.

From “An Introduction to World Cinema”, chapter 11 speaks more about Italian Neorealist Cinema. It says Roberto Rossellini was one of a handful of Italian documentary filmmakers in Rome, with Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti, who decided to use power of narrative films to influence postwar Italians against the return of the Facists after the collaps of the German army”. Each films that were directed by these two focused on a neorealist style that portrays fictional events as if they were actually happening without calling attention to the role of the main character in the story. A common theme within these films is a documentation of the horrible effects war and poverty had on the moral growth and development of kids who survived the war despite the severe hardships in postwar Italy.

Sources

An introduction to world cinema

https://www.lifeinitaly.com/cinema-italiano/italian-neorealism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_neorealism

https://www.criterion.com/films/175-wild-strawberries

1940s/50s American Cinema, Aftermath of WWII- Film Noir

The 1942 American romantic drama film, Casablanca, was directed by Michael Curtiz based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison’s unproduced stage play Everybody Comes to Rick’s.  Casablanca was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers. Casablanca won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Curtiz was selected as Best Director. The budget for this film was originally $878,000 and actual $1,039,000. The box office was $3.7 million. Casablanca was distributed by Warner Bros.-First National Pictures. It had its world premiere on November 26 in New York City and was released nationally in the United States in January. “The film was a solid if unspectacular success in its initial run”. This film’s reputation been gradually improving to the point that the lead characters memorable lines, and theme songs have all became famous and it consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films in history.

Casablanca was about a cynical nightclub owner who tried to protect an old flame and her husband from Nazis in Morocco. Despite the pressure he was on from the local authorities, Rick’s cafe became a kind of haven for refugees seeking to obtain illicit letters that will help them escape to America. But when Ilsa, a former lover of Rick’s, and her husband, show up to his cafe one day, Rick faces a tough challenge which brought up unforeseen complications, heartbreak and ultimately an excruciating decision to make.

From the book an introduction to World cinema, chapter 10 speaks about the Hollywood Golden years 1930 to 1945. “The emergence of the sound era in Hollywood at the end of the 1920s and the consolidation of the major studios was instrumental in shaping American cultural life during the Depression and the Second World War.” This was also an era of great movie stars. When sound came around, it brought excitement to motion pictures. Not only through spoken words but also as actual sound effects of violence to scare people watching these films.

From chapter 12, it speaks about Hollywood at War and Postwar Paranoia: 1940-1954. At the time of the war, variety of genre films were produced by Hollywood directors to support the war effort for the government. Hollywood was also changed into a powerful propaganda agency, by the major studios, that made new combat films to wage a psychological war against the known enemies of the United States. After the war, a huge number of films were made finding a new awareness of the social and political conditions within the U.S.

In class, we watched portions of a film called Film Noir, Bringing Darkness to Light.  Film Noir is a term used to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Film noir is French for “black film” or dark film”. Film noir has a variety of plots.From one source, it states that “Hollywood’s classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1920s to the late 1950s.”

Sources:

An introduction to World Cinema by aristides Gazetas

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film)

Censorship, 1930s European Cinema

The 39 steps is a 1935 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. It is about a civilian in London who got caught up in preventing an organization of spies called the 39 Steps from stealing British military secrets. After being mistakenly accused of the murder of a counter-espionage agent, the man goes on the run to Scotland and becomes tangled up with an attractive woman in the hopes of stopping the spy ring and clearing his name.

Sources stated “The British Film Institute ranked this film the fourth best British film of the 20th century. In 2004, Total Film named it the 21st greatest British movie ever made, and in 2011 ranked it the second-best book-to-film adaptation of all time.” Later on around 2017, it was ranked the 13tg best British Film. As you can see, with these rankings, you can see how good of a film The 39 Steps is.

I didn’t like this movie that much. It wasn’t bad, but it really did not interest me like the other movies shown in class. I also  did not like the fact that it was all black and white. I know it’s a really old film, but still. While watching this film, I was thinking about some of the scenes. Some parts did not make sense to me.

For the presentation presented in class, I thought that it was good. It seems like all the students knew what they were talking about and really enjoyed the film. I also thought that it was really long. I thought the movie itself was really interesting, the way they described it but also very sad. Father comes home and don’t know who his family are.

The summary of this film is…. “Fred, Al and Homer are three World War II veterans facing difficulties as they re-enter civilian life. Fred (Dana Andrews) is a war hero who, unable to compete with more highly skilled workers, has to return to his low-wage soda jerk job. Bank executive Al (Fredric March) gets into trouble for offering favorable loans to veterans. After losing both hands in the war, Homer (Harold Russell) returns to his loving fiancée, but must struggle to adjust.”

Sources

https://www.google.com/search?ei=lKtwXKmfPPKa_QaZ0IHQDQ&q=best+days+of+our+lives+film&oq=best+days+of+our+lives+film&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0.21889.35144..35437…4.0..0.193.2224.11j11….2..0….1..gws-wiz…….0i71j0i131j0i67j0i10j0i10i67j0i22i30.Wg14TAvjvmU

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_39_Steps_(1935_film)