Notesale: Turn your study into money

Document Preview

Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above

---

The General

Clyde
Bruckman,
Buster
Keaton,
1926









Johnnie Gray (main guy) – Buster Keaton
Annabelle Lee (main girl) – Marion Mack
Captain Anderson – Glen Cavender
General Thatcher – Jim Farley
A Southern General – Frederick Vroom
Annabelle’s Father – Charles Henry Smith
Annabelle’s Brother – Frank Barnes

Late Spring

Ozu
Yasujiro,
1949








Shukichi Somiya - Chisû Ryû
Noriko Somiya - Setsuko Hara
Aya Kitagawa - Yumeji Tsukioka
M asa Taguchi - Haruko Sugimura
Katsuyoshi - Hohi Aoki
Shôichi Hattori - Jun Usami

Letter from An Unknown
Woman

Max
Ophüls,
1948











Lisa Berndle (main chick) - Joan Fontaine
Stefan Brand (sexy man) - Louis Jourdan
Frau Berndle - Mady Christians
Johann Stauffer - Marcel Journet
John - Art Smith
Marie - Carol Yorke
Herr Kastner - Howard Freeman
Lt
...
- Leo B
...
His life is
boring and predictable as he goes from place
to place looking for customers, ending his
day at the local bar and then back home to a
cooked meal from his wife Arletty
...

Idrissa escapes from the shipping yard with
the hopes of getting to London
...
With the
chief inspector (Darroussin) meticulously
observing his path, Marcel must do what he
believes is right and suffer every
consequence along the way if necessary
...
g
...

Background Light = almost natural light, lights up the space
...
also part of low-key lighting:
Frontal Lighting = lighting appears to be directly important
Side Lighting = one side thrown into shade
Back Lighting = from behind to give a character a silhouette
Under Lighting = from beneath to give a sinister look
Top Lighting = from above gives the impression of a sinister tone also
High Lighting = specific parts are lit to give emphesis






Camera angles/movement
Framing mise-en-scène
The long-take
Sound
Pitch/ Frequency = treble is high, base is low
Loudness/ Amplitude = to figure out the distance from the source
Timbre/ Harmonics
Acoustics/ Reverberations = time space to which the sound is received
No such thing as a silent film – can hear the people around you, your own breath etc
...

Slapstick humour
Yankees steal his train (The General) with Annabelle on board with plans to destroy
supply lines between Chattanooga, Tennessee, Atlanta and Georgia
...

Johnnie and the plotters switch uniforms/roles/levels of capability so fluidly that any
conventional notion of valour, heroism, or even rightness of purpose is undermined
...

Comedy derives from the placement of the camera e
...
when Johnny is about to blow
up his own train as the forepart of his train curves left and the cannon fires directly
ahead
...

Camera appears to sometimes ride along with the train
...
E
...
an emotionally complex
scene – Johnny is rejected by Annabelle and sits desolately on the cross bar of the
engine’s wheels as the train starts up
...
His body language is pitiful but also funny
as he is unmoved
...


Late Spring
(Woman doesn’t want to leave father and get married)





Framing: Frames within frames
...

Lighting: Strong lighting contrast
...


Letter from an Unknown Woman

(Crazy woman in love with man and follows him round)











Lots of handheld and tracking
...
This scene is also a long shot
which creates and makes the audience aware of the awkward space between five
people
...
Bad from the start
...
The camera follows the two
characters as they do a circle – we know this as they come back to the parents and get
a sense of how small the town is
...
This contrasts Stefan with his smooth skills!
Paralleling of scenes – she’s goes from Vienna to Lince glamour to less – Stefan
knows everyone and greets them all, he does the same but it is not as glamorous
...
Ironic anti-climax as the brass band reaches its
climax
...
She reverts back to her old self (9 years ago)
when she sees Stefan at the Opera
...


Russian Ark
(Long Take)
Peter the Great = tsar of Russia who wanted to make Russia a great nation by creating a
strong navy reorganised his army according to Western standards, greater control over the
Orthodox Church and new territorial divisions
...

96 minute film – based in a Russian museum in St
...

‘Judging by the clothes it must be the 1800s’ he does not appear to be within the
scene/or at all noticed by the others and he does not know why
...
Does not say too much at beginning – just
following, watching and listening to the other characters
...

The Hermitage is a reflection of Peter’s (The Great- tsar of Russia from 1682 to 1725)
desire to drag Russia out of the medieval stage into a more modern world
...
Back in
time to the days of the Tsars
...
























The 20th C
...

Russia has lost its soul – Marquis asks the protagonist whether modern Russia is a
republic or a monarchy the response is that he does not know
...
Sokurov is quick to condemn the Communist years – film seems filled
with nostalgia for a time when the Russian people were downtrodden and a revolution
seemed the only option
...

POV shot – but not immediately apparent, the camera often appears to float
...
We know what we are seeing due to
Sokurov’s running monologue- almost between just mumbling to himself and a
stream of thought
...
Sokurov is disorientated – does not even
know if he is alive
...

Spectator within his own movie
...
The more terrible the tyrant the more cherished is his
memory; Alexander the Great, Timur, and your Peter the Great
...

No plot – just continually broadens
...

He declares that ‘Russia is like a theatre’ – we are being reminded that film in just
images on a screen and theatre is people
...

First few minutes seem the most confused as Sokurov takes a few moments to get into
his character as most actors do – the thrill of not knowing what is intended
...
Petersburg, the 2ns
largest city in Russia, for its attempt to reinvent Russia as a European nation with
European values
...
French aristocrat who has little idea of what
he is doing either
...
He
judged Russia harshly by calling it a copy of European civilisation
...

Blind woman admiring art at the Hermitage - here for the aura
...
We now all stand in relation
to the painting as the blind woman does and as Sokurov stands in relation to the film
through which he wanders with the same blind eyes
...
This is
shown when he does a longing stare at the end of the film – looking through a
window at the limits of his ark – the only frame through which he stares in the whole
film, he realises he is but a pearl adrift on a vast ocean
...
Sukurov has broken a frame entirely showing that it is a home
for dead matter – his film holds no dead representations it is light and life so he and
the Marquis flee in horror
...
This man is a ghost and
sees other ghosts around him possibly
...

After coffin scene they walk into an imperial reception with palace
guards/audience/royalty etc
...
The
people often look into the camera suggesting that they see Sokurov – they are both
actors and real individuals now and I feel the need to look away as if been spotted
...
There is so much gazing in this film –
shows us how we spend most of our time looking at a screen
...
The era of
screens allows us to gaze at so much more and it loses its authority to command our
attention as we can quickly go from one spectacle to the next
...

The Marquis at one point refuses to continue with Sokurov into the future which is
filled with revolution and war but to rather stay in the Tsarist past
...
To do so we must assume roles we are ill-fit to play but that to do
otherwise would not be human
...

As the camera moves out and beyond the doors of the palace, the scene dissolves into
the dark, wintry waters of the Neva River, an ominous metaphor for the oblivion that
time brings
...
Perhaps a metaphor for the unknowability of the
future
...
This is the implication at work in the final words of the
Spy: ‘ we are surrounded by the sea
...

Longer shots near beginning, slightly track him through the town with sad music in
the background
...

Fewer cuts – camera tends to track the characters
...

A lot of the shots are mid to long shots, becomes a close mid shot when the characters
(husband and wife) are speaking to one another
...

The deadpan (expressionless) and drollery (curious/unusual) does not undermine the
emotional force but rather gives it its sweetness and an ingenuous (honest) simplicity
...
Long still shots with no sound of
intense eye contact between the two sides
...
Boy runs away but appears very slow movement and shots – not quick
like an action movie
...
When the husband goes to get his lunch
from the steps, when the two men leave the bar and the camera stays on the empty bar
for a few seconds, on the sandwich bag left for the young boy on the steps
...
In this way the audience
may receive more information about a character’s body language or facial expression
(eg
...
The door closing and
someone leaving the room – eg
...

Zooming in to the couple in the car as they drive to the hospital – they are in one
window and the other woman in the other window – brings them closer together
...

Slow tracking of the husband suggests that he is sad and solemn
...
No music, only diagetic sound – takes a
while for conversation to begin
...














Frames within frames – the camera is outside the kitchen walls in the hallway perhaps
as the tone turns different and the husband attempts to find out more detail about the
boy e
...
parents names
...

We never see ‘Mr
...

A lot of parts are unexplained e
...

Bar scene – one character kept in almost complete darkness – slight elements of his
face can be seen (such as his hair) keeps him in mystery – also audience do not know
how they know one another
...
When wife comes in romantic
music begins to play and an almost spot light hits the character that was in darkness
...

Very little possessions – stealing bread, opens wardrobe only one other shirt, wife has
two outfits also
...

Inspector allows for boy to be sent back via boat
...


La Grande Illusion













World War I, France, anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews), anti-war film but seems
to show us nothing of the war – most of the main cast are killed – die in circumstances
that have nothing to do with the horrors of the trenches
...

After its re-release in France in 1946 it was far less admired as (George Altman –
critic) could no longer accept the way in which Germany were portrayed and the
Franco-German relation and the representation of Jews
...

Pacifism in France during the 1920s and 1930s
Some say Renoir’s commitment to the political left promotes values such as equality –
others say it is nostalgic for the pre-war world
...

FILM STYLE: Long takes – longer than average (1930s French cinema had longer
average shot lengths compared with that of Hollywood cinema of the same period)
Deep staging and audience often need to look at the relationship between several
planes of action rather than being told where to look
...
This lateral (side to side) movement of the camera
allows audience to be aware of off-screen space
...
The French have a duty
to escape, and von Rauffenstein has a duty to kill them when they try
...
Camera work almost like a CCTV camera – but not quite
...
Slow zoom suggests that we are being led to
something
...
The scene cuts between different perspectives until we finally get
the spy team
...
Sound therefore occupies the totality of space
...

Harry’s apartment is large, industrial and closed off from people (has a cage locked
with all of his gear)
...

Sound: Starts off quite quiet – sound is slightly uncertain gets louder as we get closer
...
Scene continue from a distance –we realise the zoom in was due to the
sniper
...
We hear couple’s
conversation as we watch main detective guy go to the van
...
Follows main detective when he
leaves the van but it isn’t clear – he gets lost within crowd easily
...
The bits in between him talking to other characters show his body
language as being slightly lost, trudging along with his plastic raincoat trailing behind
...

Usually just makes sure you can hear the recording and doesn’t listen in to what they
are saying – except for this time and wants to know what consequences may befall
them if this recording is handed over
...

Harry moves out of camera whilst still being the ‘main focus’ but we still hear his
voice
...

Lift scene – lift sound also sounds like blood rushing to his head as it is very loud
...
Sounds like it could be underwater – state of confusion and muffled
...

















Sounds industrial as if there is a large amount of space but the lift is small and at
times claustrophobic due to the amount of people inside
...

Which conversation – the one he’s recording or the one between Harry and Bernie –
he hides behind screen as they talk
...
Bernie
wants to be partners
...

Client wants their actual voice recorded
...

Record continues as Meredith lays him to bed and undresses
...
But the camera then cuts to the tape stop rolling – so maybe
wasn’t just in his head
...
As they sleep the same white noise occurs and then
suddenly back in the scene – it is a dream and the scene is closer up and blurred
...
Underneath there is a
humming tone
...
Says he’s not afraid of death but he is afraid of murder
...
Meredith has taken
the tape
...

He replays ‘I love you’ from the tape in his head whilst he listens to their
conversation/argument in room 773 and he listens on the bathroom floor
...
Puts on TV very loud to help with the
screaming he hears
...
Room is spotless when he
enters – makes us wonder whether he has just imagined it
...
Music gets more intense
and louder – almost abstract screaming again and the sound of bells/striking of the
clock
...
Not how he first ‘explained’ it to us
...

Gets louder again as he begins to tear apart the house
...
when “He’d kill us if he got the chance” due
to sound mixing
...
This is why we hear the main characters more clearly – it is likely that the
filming crew used similar equipment to that of Harry to pick out the conversation of
the most important people
...




---