Les Miserables

Les Miserables

Director: Tom Hooper

Song: I Dreamed a Dream

Composer: Claude-Michel Schonberg

Song Writer: Alain Boublil

Performer: Anne Hathaway

{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzNVmZfNoa8}

Les Miserables is my favorite soundtrack and musical of all time.  It is based on a novel by Victor Hugo and is set in the French Revolution time period.  Although the story has many different elements, such as a revolution, a man seeking redemption from his sin, another man seeking justice and a love triangle, the scene where Fantine has sold her body to support her “sick” daughter has to be one of the best scenes of the story.  You feel her sadness in the song, not the lyrics themselves, but the music stirs emotions that all have felt.  Whether it be a heart ache that is ripping our heart to shreds, or a loss of a loved one, or maybe a piece of your dignity. 

Let us go deeper into Fantine’s story.  Fantine had a daughter out of wed-lock after falling in love with a boy who leaves her after a summer fling.  She works in a factory, so that she can pay for some inn-keepers to take care of her daughter.  They tell her they need more money for “medicine” and Fantine works night and day to earn some.  Then she is the target of some jealous women at the factory she works in and is fired from her job.  She must still give the inn-keeper money, so she had sold her hair, her teeth, and in the end she sells her body.  This is the scene where the sound track starts and Fantine sings of her loss and sadness. 

You feel her despair, even without the lyrics.  It starts so soft and beautiful as she reminisces about her summer love then gets more intense as she tells the story about his departure and the shame she had to face alone.  The rest of the film is as heart renching and relatable as this scene.  Scenes about a man who is trying to redeem his sins and live a better life, but can not run from his past or a the scene where a  girl dies fulfilling the wish of the man she loves, as she delivers a letter from him to another woman.  The soundtrack is beautiful and is one that is able to be recognized from just the beginning score. 

Tim Burton Interviewed on the Treatment

Elvis Mitchell interviews Tim Burton, on the Directing both movies, The Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the same time, in a KCRW interview aired on 2-15-2006.  He directed some other films, such as Beetle Juice and Batman. Tim Burton is an artist who went to Cal Art for animation and also worked at the Disney Factory in animation with many famous and great people. 

            It was a wonderful interview where Tim Burton talks about animation, and specifically stop motion.  He talks about working at the Disney Factory and also the people that he worked with, such as the animators of The Fox and the Hound and other films, but also about attending Cal Arts and having teachers who also worked at the Disney Factory.  He goes over art and creations and how people need to create.  He also goes over how people are always against the villians and the monsters, but he was on the flip side and felt for them.  How they had emotions and feelings and he believed that were the victims. 

            “… hand-made artistry that went into it, I think that there is something important about that medium.  Like Pinnocio, bringing the inanimate object to life…”  He is talking about stop motion and how it is a medium that is made to show emotion and all the hand-made work that went into it.    He is speaking of the animation medium of stop motion.  This is when a camera is used and each scene is a combination of thousands of still films.  In this medium each movement is done slightly and a picture is taken until the movement is achieved on film.  This is a slow and intensive craft that most companies have abandoned, like Pixar.

            “Everyone needs an outlet, whether it is music or writing… that helps us let go of some emotional or creative steam.”  Tim Burton is a big fan of art and creating things from one’s own mind and less for the masses.  His work has a dreamy side, artistic and creative, but an outlet for his expression.  Tim Burton has an exhibit at the LACMA a few years back and a lot of his early art work was displayed, such as his earlier animations, such as The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories” shows that he is very true to his artwork and his style is always very consistant. 

             The last quote that I have from Tim Burton on the interview is, “I think they were all different, some were really great at layouts…. You can see their passion, even after so many years, you can see their passion.”  This quote shows that the most important thing to Tim Burton is passion and being true to it.  He tells of working at The Disney Factory and being surrounded by brilliant people and still he could not do what they wanted him to do.  While drawing the fox for the movie The Fox and the Hound, he realized that he could not keep drawing the fox as a cute big eyed animal.   He knew that he was not being true to his art and his passions.

            I have always been a fan of Tim Burton and his art, not only is he a great director he is an artist and a passionate person. He speaks true and one can tell there is no lie in him.  He draws and makes what he loves.  He says that as a child he loved to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and then he makes it into a movie.  He can recreate a book into a film and he also has the ability to create original works.

Sacha Baron Cohen

Born:

October 13, 1971
Hammersmith, West London

Education: 

Cambridge University

Spouse: 

Isla Fisher (Actress)

Known for:

Comic Situations & Self-Ridicule & Controversial Characters

Early profession:

Model

Profession: 

Actor, Producer, and Writer

First Film: 

The Jolly Boy's Last Stand  - 2000

Awards:

British Comedy Award - The 11 O'Clock Show - 1999
BAFTA {2}- Da Ali G Show - 2001
Golden Globe - Borat - 2007
Comedian of the Year - GQ Magazine
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award - Borat - 2006
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award - Borat - 2006
Toronto Film Critics Association Award - Borat - 2006
Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical - Borat - 2007

Movies: 

Madagascar -  King Julian (Voice) - 2005
Talladega nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - Jean Girard - 2006
Borat - Borat Sagdiyev - 2006
Sweetney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - Signor Adolfo Pirelli - 2008
Hugo - Inspector Gustav - 2011
The Dictator - Admiral General Haffaz Aladeen - 2012
Les Miserables - Thenardier - 2012

Anchorman: The Legend Continues - 2013

Best Known For: Borat - Borat Sagdiyev

Musical Actor: Les Miserables - Thenardier

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in an Angle

OVERALL LOOK

The film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, had a lot of camera movement.  The camera angle moves from low to high angles and incorporates the Dutch angle to make the character's thoughts more visual and defined.  I think the cinematographer, Janusz Kamiński and the director Julian Schnabel, was very fond of using this angle to express the main character's, Jean-Dominique Bauby, sense of confusion and distress as he is learning the results of his stroke.  Julian Schnabel is a painter first and a film maker second.  He incorporates his artistic talents into the film.  Each mise en scene is an image in itself and each tells a story.

It shows the audience that Mr. Bauby is disoriented and seeing things at an off angle and not in the norm.  The framing of the film was also very significant.  It shows the loneliness of Mr. Bauby stuck in his own body.

He is in the middle of a vast ocean, on a platform with the emptiness around him.  This movie is mainly made so spectacular, not in the story itself only, but also in how it was expressed to us visually.  The lighting, shown below, shows the red light as a symbolism of adultery, for example the book The Scarlett Letter, and the erie lighting of the chapel, showing his feelings of distance from God and answered prayers.

 IMAGES

A lot of the images show the imagination and thoughts of Mr. Bauby.  As he is left alone waiting, in the chair, in the bed, on the physical therapy slab.  He is always living in his head and without his verbal usage we can see what he sees and thinks. Luckily he has an active imagination and can survive living in his body.

SHOT LENGTHS

Shot lengths are used sometimes to show long time periods for the characters in the movie, or also for times that seem to go faster.  It helps the audience know when the character is having a moment of thought.  Like the shots on the pictures of the wall in the movie, show the main character's long times of being alone and bored.

SHOT TYPES

As mentioned before there are many uses of different shots used in this film.  The long shot is used many times to show the distance that Mr. Bauby feels from other people.  Also close shots are used when he feels some sense of closeness or maybe sometimes an invasion of personal space.  The doctors coming in super close to examine his eye and sewing it up was an example of invasion of space.    

 CAMERA ANGLES

Most of the shots in the movie are POV shots because we are seeing how the main character sees.  The angles of his head show the angles that we see from.  The high angles show him seeing his life pass from a distance, like when he is remembering his past in a positive light.

COMPOSITION

The composition of the movie seems very unbalanced, but in the end it help to build the movie in a way where the audience is closer to the main character and his feelings.  The scenes with his ex-wife and his while she translates to his mistress what he is saying the frame is made where the audience focuses on her and the phone the mistress is on.  Then it pans over to all three of them in the frame.  It shows the focus on the relationship between the three of them.

CAMERA MOVEMENT

The scene where Mr. Bauby is in his wheel chair on the platform in the middle of the ocean shows him alone and far.  Then it uses a zolly to make the background further away, while at the same time making Mr. Bauby the main focus.  

CINEMATOGRAPHY STYLE

For the purposes of this movie the vast uses of the different cinematography style builds the sense of life and effect the stroke has on Mr. Bauby.  The extremeness from the the steady frames during his "normal" life and the disoriented frames of his life after.  The only times the camera is steady, other than the times where he is remembering his past, are the times where he is writing the book and when it becomes a norm to his everyday life.  Or when other characters are interacting with him where the camera is not in his point of view.  Janusz Kamiński is amazing in his use of the camera and Julian Schnabel is a master of his craft.

Film Noir Defined in Double Indemnity

"Knowing what you are doing is doomed and ... doing it." Was the first quote that I heard in the documentary named Film Noir .  Unfortunately it did not name the person who said it, but this is one of the quotes that are spot on to the explanation of the movie Double Indemnity.   In the movie the main character, Walter Neff, knows as an insurance agent that there is no way to get around his manager and "father figure", Barton Keyes, with insurance fraud.    Keyes has a sense for peoples trying to commit fraud.  Yet Mr. Neff is drawn in by the sexual anticts of  Phyllis Dietrichson.  

A couple of other quotes that reflect the "Film Noir-ishness" of Double Indemnity are one by Director Abraham Polonsky. He said about the main characters, "if they are reflecting The general sense of anxiety if life, which exsists in all film noir, then it is a correct representation of the anxiety caused by the system.  How circumstances become more and more unendurable but some how you must endure."  He is right in this explanation for in Double Indemnity, Neff's situation is unendurable more and more throughout the movie, but he must endure or he will get caught.  The second quote was by Director Errol Morris, he said in the documentary "films about fall guys, a person who is caught in the net, the more he struggles the deeper and deeper he becomes intwined in nightmare." Neff's nightmare does not end unitl his life ends.

In the documentary many Directors go over the definition of a femme fatale.  Director Janey Place says a femme fatale is "very Smart, very  powerful and she is extremely sexual.  She uses her sexuality to get what she is after, and what she is after is not the man in the picture, he is another tool what she is after is something for herself." Phyllis Dietrichson, the main woman character in the movie Double Indemnity.  She wants money and she will use Neff to get what she wants.  She uses her sexuality to get Neff to do commit an insurance fraud for her husband's money, because she knows that this is the only way to get money.  In his death all his money will go to his daughter and none to Phyllis and she must find a way to to get around this.  Another Director, Marie Windsor, says a femme fatale will "get a man into bed, then into trouble" and this is exactly what Phyllis does to Neff.

The world of Film Noir is dark and mysterious, hence the term Film Noir, which means Film Black.  There is extreme contrast in the setting and the lighting of the films.  Director John Bailey explained that in Film Noir the lighting is set "using the lights in a small dramatic frame."  Another Director, Katheryn Bigelow, said that Film Noir displays "the trapped character. there is no light, there is no escape."  Which means the character has no light and therefore reflects that there is no light at the end of the journey for them either.  Director John Bailey talks about the Film Noir characteristics in camera usage as a "deep focus, wide visual feel behind the actors to the see the background".  Director Andre de Toth said "Shooting on location is a must for Film Noir, because it is reality." This is true in that Film Noir is trying to show the reality in human life and thought.  The music in most Film Noir movies are dark and dramatic.  To reflect the world that the characters are living in.  A dark and doomed existence.  In the movie Double Indemnity, the music score was very on tact.  An example would be the scene with the death.  It starts out slow and quiet and builds up to the death.  To enhance the climatic scene, then it slows down as Neff and Phyllis pull the "con", but raises up again at the main part, the jump.  The music allows the audience to experience how dramatic the movements of the characters are.

In both Film Noir and also in Neo-noir the story is told in narration and therefore has narrators.  Whether it be in first person by the protagonist or in third person by an omniniscient voice.  Another similarity would be the use of mise-en-scene.  In both the films are set in a way for the audience to see the world of the characters. To know how they are feeling and to their actions.  The last would be the sound and music in both films are set in a way where it sets the story for the audience. It clues the audience on clues to the climax or other important scenes and story plots.

What makes or Breaks a movie

A movie is most compelling and rememberable to me mostly due to the how influential it is.  Mainly how the story is put together and set up for the audience in new and interesting ways.  The story of the movie or film sets the basis for the movie.  Such as the story line determines the setting of the storyline and scenery and those determine the costumes and characters in the movie.  Also the visual aspects of the movie make or break it.  Such as the settings and scenery, the costume design, and the characters themselves all make the movie come alive and entertain us.   A movie must have all these aspects to be a good movie.  One can not have the visual aspects of a film be wonderful, but the storyline be overdone and redundant, such as the movie Avatar.  Or have a wonderful storyline, but dire and drab visuals.  

The movies in the week 2 viewing were scratchy and visually not to wonderful, but that is mainly due to the lack of technology at the time.  Taking that out of the picture the storyline for The Voyage to the Moon, was new for the time and the costume design and setting was unique and influential, also the fact that is was all done without a moving camera makes it more special.  Its visual aspects are still used today, such as in the music video for The Smashing Pumpkins, Tonight Tonight.  I personally liked the costume for the aliens, the cave of mushrooms and how the moon had a human face.  George Melies created this film in a time where no one had gone to the moon, and he imagined how it would be and how the inhabitants would be.  The other movie The Great Train Robbery was on the other hand more slow and realistic.  It lacked the creative appeal of The Voyage to the Moon, but instead it had more scene changes and special effects, like the bomb on the train.  But the movie in itself was not as good compared to the other movie.  

As I mentioned before one of my favorite movies is Breakfast at Tiffany's.  Not only is it visually beautiful in setting and characters, but the storyline is interesting and has been used over and over again.  In similar movies such as Pretty Woman and other recent movies.  A bought woman who does not believe in love, who ends up finding true love in unexpected places.  Also it is a movie that I can watch over and over again.  Like this scene from the movie, which is a staple for every romantic movie.  The final kissing scene in the rain, which has been used afterwards in movies like Dear John and Spiderman.

Another favorite of mine is The Matrix.  It takes an idea and makes it so complex and unique.  Yet it stays in line so the audience can watch it without being lost or confused.  The story itself complex in it is an alternate universe run by the energy from harvesting humans, but also it keeps the human emotions in finding one's place in live and also in finding love real.  It also brings complexity and thought provoking ideas.

 It is very hard to make movies that are new and unique not a days.  To make the storyline new or the visual scenery and characters new, but when a movie does it is an amazing thing to view.