Cinema Du Look and the Films that Came Before

Within this week of History of Film we focused mainly on the French film movement Cinema Du Look which spans most of the 1980s. From my past film class we covered a lot of topics under various french film movements. What I have come to notice is that most french films have a focus on cinematography which is clearly evident in Cinema Du Look considering the state of the French government at the time which was heavily weighted in socialism. This did not leave french filmmakers with much financial room, therefore influencing more creative ways in which to make a film.

With this week’s film Diva, it is clear that though the story itself is immersed in drama and spectacle and “the plot is both preposterous and delightful, put together out of elements that seem chosen for their audacity” as Roger Ebert put it-  the focus is on the cinematography (Ebert, 1). To me the story of Diva is rooted in the course of french film making at the core. If we were to name drop- the films The 400 Blows (Truffaut) and Breathless (Godard) from the era of French New Wave is where it all begins. Both of these films have strange stories with a certain vagueness and dream like quality. What they all truly have in common with Diva is the attention to detail and artistry. All three films strive for new ways of utilizing cinematography as a tool to hook the audience.

Overall the underlying theme of French film is wrought with spectacle and the unexpected or untapped creative. Many film directors of the time thought of themselves almost as rebels that challenged the traditional norm of making movies. They sought to bring light to artistry in entertainment. This sentiment though sometimes viewed as overworked from a modern lens carries through to films today. French film would go on to change American and international cinemas for decades and still carrying on today. What we may see as something original now is almost certainly derived from other places and contexts obviously not only limited to the film movements in France.

As one last note, I would implore anyone with an interest in film to further explore french new wave and cinema du look. These films may not be traditionally the most “exciting” or “heart wrenching” as the movies we see today but they are influential and very much responsible for what we see now at the theater. Les Enfants Terrible is overlooked most times, but this is definitely a film I hold close to my heart as one of my favorites of the french new wave era.

Cinema Du Look

This week we learned about a French film movement of the 80’s known as Cinema Du Look. The 80’s proved to be a rough time for French cinema. Television and economic hardships were starting to take a toll on the film industry. The new socialist government also enforced spending restraints. Cinema Du Look was able to provide a makeover for multiple genres. Under this government, support for new films was stronger than ever, which was crucial for a declining industry. Cinema Du Look was lead by three directors: Luc Besson, Jean-Jacques Beineix, and Leos Carax. The leaders of this era were well known for favoring style over substance, spectacle over narrative, and all shared and perfected this “look”. Films of this period had a slick visual style and focused on the marginalized youth of France. They also didn’t care so much about the context or substance of the film, but rather the visuals and style. As technology advanced as well, filmmakers got to use these new inventions in their films. These films were majorly influenced by pop culture. Some main themes used in films of this decade included doomed love affairs, alienated youth, lives of young people and their friends, lacks family aspects, dark perspective of police, fetishism to create artistic, political, or psychological substance, and even the Paris Metro being a symbol of an alternative underground society.

I have seen another Jean-Jacques Beineix’s film,Betty Blue. The movie follows two star-crossed lovers who run into trouble around every corner. The movie starts light but just continuously goes in a downward spiral. But there are a lot of beautiful scenes in this movie, especially the first setting with the beach houses. I feel there is also an essence of Godard’s new wave film À Bout de Souffle within this film as well. The film became an international success and is still a notable cult film in France.

For our screening this week, we watched a film directed by one of the filmmakers from this era, Jean-Jacques Beineix, called Diva. I really enjoyed this film. While watching I just thought how could something be so lovely but so absurd at the same time. There were many beautiful scenes that really caught my attention and had me fully engaged with film to the end. It’s a love story and a crime story in one. Ofcourse, as a movie from an era that didn’t care much about storylines at all, I can see how one might find it difficult to follow. I felt there was a lot of randomness that could steer you away from what is going on, but that’s the point. The story isn’t so much as important as the overall visual look. The film covered some of the common themes of this era like the fetish (Jules obsession with opera music, making him fall in love with the singer Cynthia), corrupt police officers, and the Paris Metro. Overall, the combination of action, romance, corruption and crime, and whatever else I must’ve missed, truly made the movie unique and true to the era of Cinema Du Look.

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.

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.

CGI & Cinema Du Look in the 1980’s

While Hollywood in the 1980’s was focused on cashing in on Blockbuster hits with merchandise and sequels, French studios were entering a brief but important film era—Cinema Du Look. This new genre was led by three directors. Jean-Jacques Beineix, Luc Besson, and Leos Carax who each had their hand in stylizing Cinema Du Look. Many of the themes found in this new genre were similar to American Film Noir and the new wave of teen films headed by John Hughes. However, while American movies during the 80’s focused on using new CGI techniques and engaging story lines, Cinema Du Look was a genre centered in visual brilliance and style.

While the storytelling of Cinema Du Look films can be nonsensical at times, what really makes this genre stand out are the shots and edits. The reflection of a character in the sunglasses of a suspicious man, a wide shot capturing the silhouette of two people under a brilliant archway, or the high energy chase scenes in the subway. These are what make movies like Diva enjoyable. Many Cinema Du Look films had common themes of doomed love affairs, trust in friends over family, an oddball hero and scenes placed in the Underground train station. Diva, a French film by Jean-Jacques Beineix in 1981 became an instant cult classic over in the States, just as loved by American audiences as by the French. While French film critics ripped Diva apart for its weird cast of characters, relationships, and overall use of style to cover up the films questionable plot, many American critics loved the film. They praised Beineix for Diva’s originality, and urged audiences to see the film in theaters as soon as possible.

Now, I won’t lie—Diva is by no means my favorite film. But it doesn’t have to be for me to acknowledge its uniqueness in style. While I had no love for the plot (or characters to be honest) I loved the music in this film. Hell, after that opening number I automatically started clapping with the audience on screen. Another thing that struck me was how little dialogue was used throughout the film. There had to be a solid fifteen minutes before Jules said a word. And yes, while I could give an entire paper questioning Diva’s plot, what I really enjoyed in this movie was the visuals. My personal favorites were the moped chase scene with the cop, and the lighthouse shots. What can I say? It looks great.

My favorite take away from this week’s lessons was the documentary on CGI. Having grown up with Pixar, Marvel, and films like Forest Gump, it was fascinating learning how CGI evolved over time. I’d never heard of Young Sherlock Holmes having the first CGI character, or that Star Wars basically started CGI. Now you can’t throw a rock in Hollywood without hitting an actor who either played a CGI character or worked with one. The biggest shock I got from the documentary was the use of CGI in Forest Gump. I had no idea CGI could be used so quietly in scenes such as Forest excelling at pin-pong. It’s fascinating learning how something so common in today’s films evolved over time, and seeing just how much it has improved.

My favorite movie trilogy is How to Train Your Dragon. While the first movie came out in 2010, it’s incredible to see just how much the CGI has changed in nine years alone between the first and third movies.

Cinema du Look and Diva

This week we dove into the French cinema category of Cinema du Look. That is exactly as it sounds. It the using not only words to tell a story, but the world around us. It takes a large focus on the world around and using that to work into our tale. Cinema du Look is the idea of how it is built or constructed. We learned about some of the key directors during this period like Luc Besson and Leos Carax. In class we watched Jean-Jacques Beineix film, Diva, and it was wonderful. The ideas were simple for a film in this category. They had a youthful influence with doomed love affairs and an anti-establishment ideal. This were a common theme with any film of the youth of the 80s who wanted to break away and be free from the hand of the authorities.

The movie Diva had a lot of extras that can go unnoticed if you are not looking for them. Professor even stated that a second view can do well and that is always true to really understand a film. A film is just the vision of the director he attempts to portray to you. It is hard to fully understand the things in the background with out another viewing, but these are a few of the things I took away.

When we are talking about the looks from a film, this photo does it best. You can sit and stare at this for a long time and ponder upon it

Cinema du Look is all about how it is constructed and put together. This idea from the film dint hit me until after we finished, and we were discussing. In the movie, it opens on the main character on his scooter that he has attached the “Spirit of Ecstasy” to the

The Spirit of Ecstasy off the hood of a Rolls Royce

front. This comes off a very expensive and high-class car, a Rolls Royce. At first, I just laughed because it was funny to see it on something like a moped. Very surprising that the whole film was based on getting a recording because that hood ornament is worth a nice penny. Later, we see him receive a Rolex from the girl as a gift after they were looking at the crushed Rolls Royce. The Rolls Royce and Rolex both represent what I think Cinema du look stands for. These products are all about using the best materials and being put

A Rolex submariner to show the build and quality.

together perfectly. People go out and purchase these items because of their build quality and how they look. It is all about their construction and built. This was what I thought was a way to relate the idea of Cinema du Look to the audience

I think one of the greatest parts was to listen to this wonderful voice. I am not an Opera fan in the slightest, but it was very relaxing to sit and listen. It felt like her music was a representation of drugs because every time the characters would listen, they would become entranced and lose themselves when it played. The music was there to stand for something much more and showed the power it can have. Like past films like Rocky Horror Picture, I had to go back and listen again because it was so great. I think the music was my favorite part of the whole movie. It just had a way of bringing you in and making you sit deeper into your seat as it goes on. Over all the film was very pleasurable.

80’s American Cinema

The 1980’s was an iconic period for cinema. The trend of sequels became a legit movie making approach. The movie industry decided to look into what worked and stuck with that. Seems like just the easy thing to do, however, with the repetition in film sequels and series they needed stories that the audience would still enjoy. Very popular series and franchises were created including Star Wars, Star Trek, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman, etc. The 80’s also produced many teen films. Since AIP first started targeting teen audiences, movies in the 80’s did the same but with a slightly different approach. These films portrayed teen life and influenced a generation of teens with films made about them for them. Some of the films are still greatly appreciated as teen classics such as The Breakfast Club, 16 candles, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Heathers, The Karate Kid etc. Genres like sci-fi, horror, and fantasy were also really popular in the 80’s. Films like Back to the Future, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Fly, Alien, Beetlejuice (one of my favs since I was little) were released in the 80’s.

Money was the main focus of movie making in the 80’s and surpassed quality and art. The idea of front loading emerged in the 70’s but solidified itself in the 80’s. Front loading is a process where merchandising and major advertising are released before the initial release of the actual film. Toys, clothes, souvenirs, and other merchandise were released to create hype and to assure the film will become successful. However, in order to ensure no movies would end up unsuccessful after spending money on front loading, studios basically began creating the movies themselves and took away freedoms from directors. The main goal was to create the next major blockbuster film.

The 80’s is argued to be the last decade where there is a clear divide between the mainstream and counterculture in cinema. Since the rise in technology and introduction of the internet, essential subcultures slowly blurred. But would reappear in the 90’s with independent artist who emerged from the 80’s like Jim Jarmusch and Spike Lee.

However, other themes were also explored in the 80’s like everyday “mainstream” life represented as something to stay away from. Like in the movie Something Wild (1986), where a man (played by Jeff Daniels) is saved from his dead end, white-collar career after a closer look and experience of life on the open road after meeting free-spirited character (played by Melanie Griffith). Or the film Lost in America (1985), when a married couple just drop everything, including their jobs, and go on a cross-country roadtrip. There were also darker themed movies representing teens of this era like in Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue (1980), where a 15 year old girl in an abusive family has trouble fitting in but finds comfort through music and the punk scene. Similar to the teens in Penelope Spheeris’ Suburbia (1983), a coming of age drama of suburban punks who run away from home.

80’s film

I read the book this week and recognized many of the films. Back to the Future, Goodfellas, Fargo, and Twin Peaks were some of the ones I recognized. This decade was a prosperous one for cinema, one that served to become an emblem of American culture. It is noteworthy though, how the 80’s was also a time of fear. People were afraid of their health status, as the outbreak of AIDS had occurred in the 80’s. The AIDS epidemic was gathering attention from attention from the public after actor Rock Hudson was diagnosed with the disease. An actor being diagnosed with AIDS brought to light the humanity of celebrities, as well as providing a sharp reminder that mankind is vulnerable no matter the status or level of fame. 

The 80’s was also a decade a time that appealed highly to fantasy. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were two of the most iconic directors of the 80’s, as they were known for the legendary works of Star Wars and Jaws. Hollywood would see a sudden increase in profit after the release of these movies. The genre of fantasy was most prominent during this decade, and it served to cultivate the most profit for Hollywood during this time. Modern-day works such as The Avengers are just one of the works that have capitalized from the fantasy genre. The younger generation was captivated by portrayals of the good against evil archetype with movies such as Deer Hunter and Coming Home, which also faced the aspect of realistic danger and conflict. They focused on the effects of the Vietnam War. The 80’s was a decade that provided fantasy entertainment as well as a dose of realistic confrontation. 

The movie Deer Hunter was directed by Michael Cimino, and it centers on a group of three men from Pennsylvania who experience the atrocities of the Vietnam War firsthand. This film received critical acclaim and won five Oscars in 1978. People were taken aback and shocked by the levels of violence and torture that was shown in the film. It was unprecedented and impacting how this movie managed to capture the horrors of the war and show the effects it had on people. This was an anti-war film that went against the norms of the time. People wanted peace back then and war was pretty much the only way to secure peace. This was a film that elucidated the exact brutality of the gritty nature of war. People wanted to try and ignore the AIDS epidemic as well as the effects of Vietnam, that is until a popular actor was afflicted by the disease. 

When Rock Hudson died from AIDS in 1985, it caused a major panic in Hollywood as his death gained much coverage. Directors such as Adrian Lyne then created films that delivered the message to fear unprotected sex so that one does not contract AIDS like beloved Hudson. The film Fatal Attractions also gained fame for the switching of gender roles. The film had the lead male display more meek and sensitive qualities, while the female lead would show more masculine qualities. The film was also groundbreaking in the sense that it went against the social norms in the ways that they depicted masculinity and femininity.

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 Fly

The time of the 1980s would in general merge the increases made in the seventies as opposed to start any new patterns equivalent to the extensive number of disaster movies. buddy movies, or “rogue cop” movies that characterized the previous decade. Planned and bundled for mass gathering of people offer, couple of 80s movies progressed toward becoming what could be called ‘works of art’. The time was described by the presentation of ‘high-concept’ films with true to life plots that could be effectively portrayed by a couple of sentences and hence effectively attractive and justifiable.

Film History of the 1980s, http://www.filmsite.org/80sintro.html.

David Cronenberg redefined what we think of as creepy with this brilliant film. A revamp of a schlocky 1950s science fiction beast flick where a researcher/designer constructs a teleportation machine with unintended results when a trial on himself turns out badly. But this version stars Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis in their primes, and is made by David Cronenberg. Goldblum’s character Seth Brundle offers so many insightful and sad sometimes very funny thoughts during his transformation. We see the war between the natural powers in Seth, spoke to both in odd anatomical changes and in unobtrusive movements of thought and conduct that are considerably all the more aggravating. The mass of his encounters are not on the grounds that they’re unnatural, but since of how absolutely regular they are. This is nature, and it is shocking. Life battling to endure, apprehensive and alone. The film centers around the connection between Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis at the top and once it goes ahead towards frightfulness it truly satisfies. It’s not simply startling, it’s a catastrophe as well. Jeff Goldblum is marvelous. He is entrancing as he conveys incredible exchange and once he’s scarcely unmistakable despite everything he gets through the cosmetics and you can feel the human inside. I can’t trust he didn’t get an Oscar for this present, it’s effectively his best execution. The cosmetics enhancements and gross outs are first rate, yet what is most astonishing about The Fly is that it ends up being an all around acted and enthusiastic romantic tale. Jeff Goldblum gradually transforms into a colossal fly. The change is gross in specific spots, and unquestionably terrible to observe. It isn’t gore for comedy’s sake it is quite shocking and very gory. The genuine violence is kept for 2 or 3 key minutes and is all the all the more stunning for its limited idea go through till at that point. The end itself demonstrates that it isn’t only an outright loathsomeness and that it has a heart and a head to coordinate it’s solid stomach. You can simply feel his girlfriends’s anguish and awfulness as she observes Goldblums’ staggering physical and mental change. Geena Davis gives a persuading act in that jobs as “Veronica Quiafe.” But among all that, it’s still entertaining and unpredictable as suspense/horror, and both leads are great to see. Not many people dislike Jeff Goldblum or Geena Davis, and this is at the very root of their careers where that charisma is raw and obvious.

Valero, Gerardo. “David Cronenberg’s.” RogerEbert.com, http://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-correspondents/the-fly.