Finley Cairns A-Level Film Studies Blog
I Love Film. Tarantino mostly.
Component 1c looks at two films, Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996) and This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2006), with the specialist study areas ideology and narrative.
2021 Autumn exam questions:
To how useful has an ideological critical approach been in analysing the films you have studied? Refer in detail to one or more sequences from each film.
2022 Summer exam questions:
Discuss how one or more specific narrative devices enhance the dramatic qualities of the films you have studied.
A reading of No Country Old Men would benefit from an ideological approach of chance, as the film contains many underlying themes that require an active spectatorship to realise. The film focuses much on the role of chance in the fates of its characters, many of whom die or survive by sheer luck. Nothing is predetermined, many left up to random chance, seen in the use of the coin toss. Feminism would not be a good approach to take for this film, as there are few female protagonists, and the film does not pay much attention to gender roles, like Winter’s Bone.
For Winter’s Bone, a feminist ideological approach is valuable as the film strongly implies that to be the core of its message. The film follows female characters in a male-dominated community, and throughout the film overrides the patriarchal society through female characters taking initiative and control for themselves. An ideological approach of chance would not suit this film, as it does not focus on randomness or luck, etc.
No Country For Old Men (Jone Coen, Ethan Coen, 2007) follows Llewelyn Moss, a man who is out hunting one day when he stumbles upon a drug deal gone arry, and comes home with a satchel with $2 million in it. He is pursued by Anton Chigurgh, a sociopathic hitman who ruthlessly always every person who he encounters on the road to finding Moss, often leaving their fate to the decision of a coin toss. Finally, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell follows the chaotic trail of the crimes and tries to save Moss from his own ambition, contemplating the nature of the modern world and the ceaseless violence that permeates within it.
The film utilises moments of long, drawn out silence to build tension, alongside hard lighting to raise suspense and terror within the audience. It is brutal, using strong violence to convey the cruel nature of the world and the character Anton’s ideology. It ends nightly unconventionally, killing off the protagonist offscreen by an unknown group of people before the final showdown that the film has been building up to. It gives out with a whimper, not a bang, the antagonist getting away and the constantly tense film ending with a somber monologue from a character who remained on the sidelines throughout most of the film. This goes against everything that the film has been building up to, shocking the audience and stopping the films placing dead in its tracks. Despite the films violence, it also involves highly profound themes of ambition, evil, despair and human cruelty. This is exemplified through Anton, who, despite being an inhuman killer, has his won set of rules and even morales, often refraining from killing someone whom you expected him to, or killing someone’s for no reason other than he made a promise to do so.
I loved this film. It was gripping from start to (almost) finish, with a thought provoking story and some extremely memorable sequences. I rate No Country For Old Men ★★★★★!
Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, 2010) follows Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) who searches for her missing, drug making father who has put their house u for his bond and is not appearing at court. If she is to save her family from the bitter cold of the winter, she needs to find her father, dead or alive.
This is an independent American film, with a feminist ideology that resides in the undertone of the script, as the films takes place in a setting where the men often abuse their wives, who hold traditional roles in society. I liked many sequences, particularly Teardrop’s confrontation with the Sheriff, due to the tension of the moment and the subtext of the dialogue. I also liked the ending, which was suitably shocking for the buildup of the rest of the film. While there were only 2 characters that the audience can attach to, that and the general chilly atmosphere lent the film a cruel, isolated, hopeless tone.
I rate Winter’s Bone ★★★★!
For this component, we will be looking at a U.S mainstream film, No Country For Old Men (Coen Brothers, 2007) and an independent film, Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, 2010). The specialist study areas are ideology and spectatorship. Past exam questions suggest that these will be asked in relation to core study areas such as sound, etc.
After the Paramount v.s U.S case in 1948, the 8 major Hollywood studios lost the legal right to control all the aspects of a films financing, production and distribution. This led to the decline of the Hollywood studio system, as the studios could no longer hold a monopoly on the film industry and theatres could choose what films to show. This allowed for increased access to the market from independent filmmakers and foreign films, such as ones from France. This led to increased competition between the studios, which in turn forced them to seek out more competitive and new types of films to guarantee them being shown by the cinemas.
The competition was intensified by the rise of the middle-class in America in the 1950-60s and the subsequent increased spending money Fiordland luxury items like radios and the newly created TV. Therefore, the rise of TV’s increased rapidly after 1950, and the studios had to compete with them as most audiences would rather have stayed at home rather than to travel further from the suburbs and pay to watch a film at a cinema. Therefore, the cinemas began to produce wider and more impressive screens to attract audiences to travel and pay to see new films there.
The increased market created through the new found freedom of cinemas to choose what to show, allowed for independent filmmakers to create more interesting and unique films that did not follow typical film narrative or convention. This meant increased freedom amongst filmmakers to make what they wanted, such as the increased possibilities to create films inspired by those from France.
Therefore, while the studios were tying to produce bigger and more entertaining films to draw in bigger audiences and therefore larger profits, independent films were being made by independent directors to produce films for more niche audiences that would be big enough to support these lower-budget films.
Before the decline of the studio system, very few foreign films were shown in the U.S. After the decline, there was increased space for films from places like Europe to be shown in Americans cinemas. This allowed for the recently formed French New Wave movement that had been formed by young, enthusiastic filmmakers from France who wanted to create new, fun, “improperly” made films that defied traditional film conventions, such as all focus being placed on the story. The increased screenings of these films in America led to some American filmmakers taking inspiration from them, and the increased need for the studios to produce better, more competitive and new films, allowed for films like those in the French New Wave, films like Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967).
Arthur Penn, the film’s director, was active in the 1960s, making films that focused on the darker aspects of American society, particularly crime, following protagonists who were criminals on the run. He took heavy inspiration from the French New Wave movement and is largely associated with New Hollywood. He utilised radically different styles of filmmaking from the conventions established in the 1940s, shooting scenes in completely different ways, and deliberately editing, writing and shooting the films in a way that brought audience attention to the actual creation of the films, such as moment where sound randomly cuts out or a shot cuts to the same shot, just further on in time. This took heavily from the French New Wave, which focused on creating low-budget, fun and entertaining films.
Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) follows two young people, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who travel Texas and rob banks. The film follows their rampage across the county as they gain new members to their ‘Barrow Gang’, showing us their ethics, methods and relationships with each other, and are eventually cornered and shot down by the laws.
The film was made by Arthur Penn, who took inspiration from the French New Wave movement in Europe, where young and enthusiastic filmmakers were defying traditional forms of filmmaking by utilising low-budgets, cheap equipment and actors and going against traditional forms of filmmaking. Therefore, Bonnie and Clyde takes from many of the techniques popularised in France at the time, containing many (all deliberately) badly edited scenes, rough audio, bad acting and poor scriptwriting. Despite this, it is a completely linear narrative.
I found the film entertaining but confusing in it’s purposeful rough quality and almost ‘anti-film’ methods of conveying the story. There is no effort to immerse the audience in the story, and so the passage of time is hard to gauge and the plot feels fast and disjointed. I rate Bonnie and Clyde ★★!
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) is one of the most influential and popular films ever made. It was directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Warner Bros. Studios. It epitomises the glamour and style of filmmaking in the golden age of Hollywood, starring a powerful cast, extensive sets, romantic dialogue and an engaging story. Many of its lines have become cemented in film history. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”, “We’ll always have Paris.”, and “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Are all iconic lines from the film.
Synopsis:
Context for the story:
The story takes place in Casablanca, a city by in Morocco where European refugees seeking escape from the Nazis wait for transit to Lisbon, and from there, America. Corrupt police govern the city and attempt to impress the Nazi officers visiting by preventing important officials being pursued by the Nazis from gaining passage to America.
The story:
The protagonist is Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) who runs a cafe in the city after fleeing from Paris to escape Nazi persecution, which sports a diverse cast of characters from all corners of the world, most waiting a seemingly endless wait for passage to America. He is a pessimistic, selfish character who mostly keeps to himself. He claims to care for no one other than himself, but this is contested by some of his co-workers, who point out his past assisting revolutionary groups, and his tendency to turn a blind eye to the illegal activity in his cafe helping refugees flee to Lisbon. Later in the film, he even helps a man fleeing Nazi pursuit cheat at roulette so that he can gain enough money to gain a flight to Lisbon, which, much to his dismay, gains the admiration and respect of his employees.
His world is thrown into chaos when a highly elusive and important revolutionary leader Victor Lazlo (Paul Henried) arrives in Casablanca evading Nazi capture, with him his wife and Rick’s ex lover from Paris Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) who seek letters of transit which Rick has possession of. A flashback reveals that Rick and Ilsa were passionately in love in Paris, and planned to run away together as Rick was to be arrested by the Nazis. Ilsa agrees to this plan, but on the day it was to happen, she left a note for Rick to explain that she could not come. Rick then fled to Casablanca, where he opened a cafe and became a selfish, pessimistic and isolated man. Ilsa begs Rick for the letters, who refuses to aid them for abandoning him in Paris.
Ilsa reveals that she in fact believed Lazlo to be dead in a concentration camp and was lonely in Paris, and while she loves Lazlo she also dearly loves Rick, which changes his mind, and so he hands over the letters. Rick’s claim that he cares for no one other than himself and his facade of a bleak lack of morality are put into question when Ilsa begs him for the letters, and he eventually consents, pulling off a daring plan to get her and Lazlo to America. His corrupt friend and chief of police captain Louis (Claude Rains) at first is forced at gunpoint by Rick to help him, but betrays his friend by informing a Nazi official of the plot. However, when the official arrives, Rick shoots him, and Louis covers for him by telling his men to search elsewhere. This redemption of character is also seen in how Louis throws a bottle from Vichy France into a bin, symbolising his detachment from being a corrupt, nazi puppet official. By giving the letters of transit to Lazlo and Ilsa, Rick makes a noble sacrifice to help the couple escape, leaving himself in danger of arrest in Casablanca. He and Louis escape Casablanca and Nazi pursuit together, walking off into the horizon, a happy, if bittersweet ending, as Rick will likely never see Isla again. However, he has redeemed himself, as now he has openly and actively done a good deed for someone in need of help, without being embarrassed of it.
Techniques:
The film has a linear narrative, only once using a flashback to explain how significant and important Ilsa’s love was to Rick, back when they both lived in Paris. The film uses a composed, non-diegetic score, the most notable track being As Time Goes By, sang by a character in the film, which is used to create romantic moments between Rick and Ilsa, who share fond memories over the song, adding emotion to those scenes, and the the track itself is romantic, making these moments more romantic. The editing is mostly made up of hard-cuts with occasional fade-cuts. The film is also in black and white, so the lighting and composition are focused on heavily. Characters are often framed alone in close-ups, and encompassing wide-shots are used to display environments, such as Rick’s cafe, to the audience, and characters of significance are placed in the centre and forefront of frame to bring our attention to them.
Personally, I enjoyed the scenes in the cafe most. The lighting gave a clean, cosy atmosphere to the building, and the bustling, multicultural atmosphere made the area feel alive and bursting with character, in contrast with Rick’s personality. I also enjoyed the flashback sequences showing the relationship between Rick and Ilsa in Paris, which felt genuine and real, making the audience more attached to them and their relationship.
Overall, I rate Casablanca ★★★★★!
Component 1a covers the period of 1930-1990, focusing on Hollywood and it’s “Golden Age”, and how this evolved throughout the century. We will be looking at a film made in the height of Hollywood success, Casablanca (Michael Curtis, 1942) and Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967). The specialist study areas are auteur theory and contexts.
Component 2d contains the corse study areas of context, representation, key elements and aesthetics, and the specialist study areas of autership and narrative. We cover the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction, which has been chosen for it’s unique and experimental plot structure. Tarantino is also considered an auteur director with a signature style who creates his own, individual works.
Past questions have focused on the directors approach to filmmaking and the experimental use of editing and sound in the film, how narrative reinforces themes and how far Pulp Fiction is an auteur film. The unit focuses on the unique aspects of the film and the director who made it, and we are required to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of elements of film and it to an analysis of how to construct and communicate meaning in a film.
This was the first day of our A level film studies coursework project. We were introduced to the project that we will be undertaking, specifically the first of 6 elements of the production process, research. The others are pre-production, production, post-production, evaluative analysis, and submission.
As part of this stage, we will watch 18 short films chosen by the exam board and write a blog post for each one to analyse it. This will contribute to choosing a group of films that add up to at leat 80 minutes, which we will be using certain elements from to inform the production of our own film. We are encouraged to keep notes on narrative, characters, visuals and other key elects of film form and screenplay techniques. This will also help us practise evaluating our film, which will gain us marks in the alongside the actual end product we will have made by the end of the production process. We will analyse the narrative structure, cinematic influences(key elements of film form, genre, contexts of film), and the creation of meaning and effect through aesthetics and representation in short film.
We were also introduced to the production deadlines and the production brief, which outline what options of techniques our film must include one of, a narrative with a distinctive genre, a narrative with parallel stories, a non-linear narrative or a narrator, and by what dates certain tasks must be completed by. The actual production process, element 3 begins in mid-September. Until then we are researching for the pre-prodiction process, element 2, which begins in early July. I will blog the films that we watch in class and outline elements that I may consider taking inspiration from for my own film, and I will be coming up with initial ideas for my film and what option the exam board has provided to include in it also. Research for the coursework is essentially preparing for how to approach the production process and introducing us to some important concepts that will need to be included in our film and ideas to keep in mind when we come to evaluate them. As the coursework requires specific reference to films where we have taken ideas, we will need to take notes of things that stand out and keep them in mind approaching the production process. “Learners will also be exploring examples of key elements of film form and screenplay techniques during their course of study, which they can apply to their production.” We will be prepared to actually start filing our short films by the beginning of the summer holidays, and up to that point we will be exploring the short film form and what elements they may contain, which ones we may wish to include in our own work, and how to plan, prepare, produce and polish the focus of the coursework.
While film was viewed more as an art form in Europe, it became a commercial enterprise in America. In the backdrop of the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the film industry was propelled forwards by aspiring businessmen and audiences who desired some form of escapism. The introduction of audio to films also brought more people to theatres and made more possibility’s for musicals, comedies, romance and western genres, which became the most successful and popular in the 1930’s. Entrepreneurs viewed it as a business opportunity, so film studios were formed and began to buy up the rights to actors and competed against others, and had moved there in the first place to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits by Tomas Edison. They wanted to make a large a profit as possible so that they could invest it into their next film project, making that bigger and more enticing to audiences, to make more profit, and so on.
They aimed to attract as many people to the theatres, which they owned, as possible, and they did this by hiring notable stars, directors, etc, and exercising complete control over the production process so as to keep the final product exactly as they wanted it. Genre films like comedies and romances emerged and became more popular as audiences flocked to the theatres to see the stars, not the plots. Similarly to how slapstick comedies were so popular during the era of silent cinema. Names like Gary Fonda and Marilyn Monroe became known by viewers everywhere, and studios hired these actors and actresses through contracts that prevented them from working for other studios. Audiences came for the glamour of the stories, fantasy and actors, and studios took advantage of this by owning every step of the production process, from production to distribution and exhibition.
The commercialisation of film as an industry led to it being dominated by 5 main studios (Paramount, RKO, MGM, Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox), and the production of films becoming an efficient, assembly line process, where actors and directors were viewed as assets by the studios, who were at the top of the creative process, instead of the filmmaker or government, such as in Russia or Germany at the time. This meant that films were much more focused on entertainment and attraction than artistic expression or experimentation. While patriotic films did emerge during WW2, there was little experimentation with new techniques, as people made films for money and fame. “Screwball comedy” became the most significant comedy genre in the 1930’s, characterised by fast paced, witty dialogue and containing elements of romance and adult humour. This was essentially the first form romantic comedy, and it attracted large audiences who looked for escapism from the economic climate of the 1930’s. The amount of money that the industry made was used to invest in films with bigger stars, sets, equipment and locations etc. Traditional American values like optimism and courage were celebrated and displayed in these films, taking people away from the Depression at the time and being immersed in the motion pictures they saw.
For this part of the course we will be looking at silent cinema from the 1920’s. We will be watching One Week(Buster Keaton, 1920), The Scarecrow(Buster Keaton, 1921), and Cops(Buster Keaton, 1922) and The High Sign(Buster Keaton 1921). We will be assessed on Aesthetics and key elements of film form, and I have looked through past exam questions to see what sort of things will be asked in an exam and what I should be thinking about as we work through this component.
Expository documentaries:
The traditional form, using a voice-over/presenter to directly address viewers and discuss a particular subject matter. Also known as ‘the voice of god’. How we most often think of a documentary. Emphasises verbal commentary and argumentative logic, usually through a narrator. It follows a logical argument and it offers a right or ‘proper answer. David Attenborough nature documentaries is what Nichols would call expository, as facts are presented to us, the audience.
Observational documentaries:
Aims to show every-day life, un-obstructed by the filmmaker. Also known as ‘window on the world’. Cinema Verity emerged in the late 1950s-early 1960’s. This attempted to capture objective reality. So the filmmaker is a neutral observer of real life. They remain hidden behind the camera and is ignored, neither changing or influencing the events being captured. Since nothing is staged for the camera, it rushes to keep up with the action, often resulting in rough, shaky footage. Sometimes known as ‘fly on the wall’ documentary. This would be something like ‘police interceptors’.
Participatory documentaries:
Unlike observational, participatory mode has direct engagement between the filmmaker and the subjects, so the filmmaker becomes parts of the events being recorded. Their impacts on the events being recorded is acknowledged, and that could even be the point of it. Where the person making the documentary is pat of the documentary. Reggie Yates is a participatory filmmaker, where their personality is a part of the film.
Performative documentaries:
Emphasises the subject nature of the documentarian as-well as acknowledging the subjective reading of the audience. In a performative documentary, the documentary filmmaker is kind of the point. Such as Louis Theroux. The result is because he is interviewing them, provoking reactions, making the interview go a certain way. Emphasises the emotional impact on the audience.
Poetic documentaries:
Poetic mode is where moves away from objective reality to tray and grasp at “an inner truth”. It favours mood, tone and texture over accurate representations. It is literally poetic or metaphorical in its representation of something.
Reflexive documentary:
Reflexive mode is where Acknowledges the constructed nature of documentary and sort of flaunts it, in a way. A reflexive documentary offers a truth rather then the truth. Sometimes used for when the absolute truth of a situation can’t be known, e.g the last hours of Hitler’s life. The location could be exactly correct, but the dialogue could only be an approximation.
The dictionary definition of documentary is “Consisting of or based on official documents” and “Using pictures or interviews with people involved in real events to provide a factual report on a subject”.
Realism is presented in documentary films to show the audience real events that have happened and serve as an educational piece of media. Fiction films can portray real events, but can stray from realism if it suits their purposes, which are more so for entertainment than education .
Bill Nichols describes all films as documentaries, some are ‘wish fulfilment’ in the sense that they create fiction, and others are ‘social representation’, which are usual documentaries intended to serve as a documentation of real events.
The difficulty in differentiating between fiction and documentary films is something that Nichols also described. He explained that all films, whether fiction or not, were documentaries in the sense that they showed the climate, environment and culture in which they were produced.
There are fiction and pure documentary on a conceptual scale. At one end, there is fiction film made purely for entertainment, and on the other, pure documentary made to discuss and educate audiences on a particular topic. In between, there is a grey area. This is because it can be, according to Bill Nichols’s teachings, difficult to differentiate between fiction and documentary film, as all films are technically documentaries, so there is no clear distinction between them which creates a grey area on the scale.
Wild tales was directed by Damien Szifron in 2014, and tells multiple unique stories of violence, love and revenge. The film holds an important place in the portmanteau/anthology genre because it is a relatively recent and low budget($3.3-4.5 million) film that made substantial success in the box office($30.6-44.1 million) and includes many differing and un-flinching stories that do not stray from the genre to make it more accessible to audiences.
The film switches at unexpected intervals to new stories that follow different characters in usually intense dilemmas that involve themes of morality and violence, revenge and conflict with other people or inner-conflict. The narrative is structured in a unique way, following an anthology of stories that are connected in no ways. The characters it follows have somewhat small amounts of time to play out their arch’s, but the film uses it as time effectively to create audience investment in the characters and their story plots, and also raise suspense and get across the themes and messages intended by each story.
The film is important as it is one of the most famous Argentinian films outside of the country, proving that the film is respected on a global scale, and also that the anthology genre can be executed in a successful way that can be entertaining and engaging for international audiences.
I personally loved Wild Tales! I felt that the method of storytelling was pulled of perfectly and the transitions were done seamlessly. The characters and plots were memorable and the film had some deeper meanings that were portrayed in otherwise entertaining and exiting sequences. I personally found the broken down car sequence the most exiting due to its unrelenting intensity and horror aspects, but the dynamite story was my favourite for its genius character development and fascinating portrayal of morality and revenge on society. My only critique is that the last two stories in the film were rather confusing and less entertains, also containing less meaningful and understandable themes, and uncomfortable scenes that made it hard to get invested in the plot or characters. Other than that, the film proves that a seemingly complicated genre/form of film can be made to work in a way that makes it more entertaining than many other films. I respect it for its success in gaining audience engagement in its short stories, and the memorable moments in the film.
I rate Wild Tales (Damian Szifron, 2014) ★★★★!
Pans Labyrinth was made in 2006 by director Guillermo Del Toro, and follows the story of Ofelia (Ivan’s Baquero) who moves, with her mother, to a remote area in the Spanish woods to meet her father, the brutal fascist Captain Vidal (Sergei Lopez). Whilst there, she begins to discover there is a labyrinth in the woods, and is involved in more and more dangerous tasks by a mysterious faun humanoid, who claims that she is the princess of a powerful, hidden kingdom.
Del Toro uses different filters throughout the film. It is never specified when the filter changes, but I think that there was one used for the daytime, one for nighttime, and one for the other world in the film. These filters are all very different, for example the one used during the day is bright, rosy and brings out the natural beauty of the woods. Meanwhile the one used at night is dull and gloomy, and increases the darkness of the shadows to add to the mystery and supernatural element of the movie.
Pans Labyrinth holds a special place in film history since it is most likely Guillermo Del Toro’s most famous film. The unique and disgusting monsters are instantly recognisable, and the magical yet horrific aspects of the plot make the story interesting ands captivating.
I personally really admired the film! The terrifying and fascinating mythology that Del Toro invented for the movie is constantly keeping the audience interested, and leads to some extremely memorable sequences, such as the “pale man” sequence. The movie is also extremely suspenseful. The characters are all memorable for their arc’s, and usually violent deaths. The gore factor in the film is a perfect example of how Toro pictures how brutal real-life scenarios would be affected by the more supernatural and fairy-tale scenarios. This same scenario is explored in Guillermo’s other film The Devils Backbone (Guillermo Del Toro, 2001) which imagines how a ghost/haunting would effect people taking refuge during the Spanish Civil War. Pans Labyrinth explores how Fascist and guerrilla soldiers would be affected by the magical and often terrifying creatures that exist in the woods.
One thing that I liked about the film was how the soldiers of either side of the war are never actually influenced by the monsters. The combat taking place between Vidal and the rebels in the woods runs as a parallel story to Ofelia’s adventure with the faun and the labyrinth. The movie will often cut to the war crimes that Vidal is committing, to the repulsive monsters that live in the labyrinth. This shows how humans can be monsters too, but Vidal’s evil is slowly revealed to be more than initially suspected throughout the film, whilst the monsters are instantly disgusting and obviously evil. This comparison, the excellent performance from Sergei Lopez and the complex inner-thought and violence committed by him all make a compelling villain out of Captain Vidal.
The film is also surprisingly emotional. The struggle and hardships that the rebel’s must go through, and the hidden motivations of Captain Vidal all make up a shockingly human aspect of a film that on the surface is about hideous monsters and faeries. The ending is emotional, and the brutality of the relatable and sympathetic characters’ deaths makes it all the more crushing and impactful to watch.
That is why I respect and admire the undoubtedly masterful filmmaking of Pans Labyrinth. The characters are very realistic and likeable , the violence perpetuates the gruesome and dark undertone of the film, and the way that the real scenario of the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and a magical but dangerous underworld collide make a fascinating and compelling film. So I rate Pans Labyrinth 4 and a half stars!
For this area in the course we will be looking at the films Pan’s labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006) and Wild Tales (Damien Szifron, 2014). These films have been chosen since one was made in Europe,, and the other was made outside of Europe. Our assessment objectives are to demonstrate an understanding of elements of film, and to apply knowledge and understanding of elects of film to analyse films.
We must write about both of these films but we do not have to make any comparisons. We will spend 30 minutes writing about each film. We will be focusing on key sequences in these films, and write relevant paragraphs about the key elements of film form in said sequences. We need to use technical terminology correctly and as much as possible, and make frequent reference to the director and their intention/ affect of film on the audience.
We will spend 60 minutes on four different areas of the films, key elements, contexts, aesthetics and representation. We will also do a 40 mark question for each film, and we get to choose the one we do as well. We discuss visual style or representation for each film.
The core study areas that will be assessed are key elements, contexts and aesthetics and representation. There are no additional study areas for component 2a.
The Grand Budapest Hotel was released in 2014 and is directed by Wes Anderson. The film chronicles the history of how the famous and extravagant Budapest Hotel came to be the quiet and forgotten establishment that it is in modern day. the majority of the film follows the hotels monsieur, M.Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and the new lobby boy, Zero (Tony Revolori), and the various events that occur after the death of one of the hotels most wealthy clients, Madame D. (Gilda Swindon).
The story is told to us, the audience, by the author of the book(played at this point by Tom Wilkinson), The Grand Budapest Hotel, who recounts when he was younger (and played by Jude law) and visited the hotel only to meet its owner, Zero (F. Murray Abraham) who tells him the history of the hotel, and how he came to own it. Even after these mixed perspectives, the whole film seems to be from the view of a woman in modern day, who is simply reading the book that holds the story of the hotels rich history, which we see in the film.
Wes Anderson is known as a very stylistic director, which is completely apparent in the Gand Budapest Hotel. He seems to refrain from cutting as much as possible, which leads to most of the shots in the film being quite long and drawn out, often long-shots moving to keep up with the characters, or wide-shots done to encompass as much of a set, such as the hotel lobby, or characters, such as the scene in the red elevator, as possible.
The movie is also split into parts, such as part 5 “the second copy of the second will”. These occasional breaks in the story give the audience a split second to recollect. The reveal shot of what the new part is called also creates the sense of a grand play, which could of been what Wes Anderson was trying to replicate, or, and most likely, a book, since that is what we see at the beginning, that the story is a book in modern day.
I believe that The Grand Budapest Hotel holds an important place in film history. It is instantly recognisable, and goes to show that in-conventional means of direction, narrative and sequencing in a film can add style and charm to it, setting it apart from other movies. The film is only 7 years old, but is still regarded as a cult classic for its witty and funny dialogue, lovable characters, and compelling story.
I personally loved this movie to bits! I thought that it was hilarious, and excellent from a subjective filmmaking perspective, despite its initially odd and even comical style. The shots are immersive and beautiful, the cinematography and editing is masterful, the performances are all outstanding and even the mise-en-scen is detailed and adds to the distinct atmosphere of the movie. I believe that perhaps Wes Anderson was trying to convey a message about how ethnic minorities were treated in early 20th century Eastern Europe, and how fascist governments effected the ordinary people there, as seen in the prison sequence and tragic ending to the story.
I rate The grand Budapest Hotel ★★★★★!
The City Of God was released in 2002 and directed by F. Mierelles and K. Lund. It tells the real story of young boy Rocket(Alexandra Rodriguez) who lives in Rio, known by everyone who lives there as the city of god. The course of the film shows how the various characters in the city operate in the city’s drug and weapon trading, gang violence, and other crimes that run the city.
The story is told through multiple flashbacks and foreshadowing to events that happen in the future. The film begins by showing part of the ending sequence, capturing the viewers attention immediately by showing,briefly, how the events climax at the end. This makes the audience want to know what events lead up to this, and who the characters are. Throughout the rest of the movie, usually when characters are fist introduced, the scene flashbacks to their backstory, introducing them and giving the viewer a general idea of what they are like.
The City Of God is a very atmospheric film. The set design is perfectly made to picture a poverty stricken, crime ridden environment. The buildings are cramped close together, everyone’s clothes are dirty, there is trash and stray animals everywhere, and by doing this you are constantly drawn into the film. You are made to feel a part of it, like you are there, and that is why the film can be so distressing at times.
The movie also has some great characters. Particulars like Knockout Ned(Seu Jorge) are introduced later in the movie, but still have fascinating arcs and can get the viewer to relate to them, sympathise with them, and keep invested in them and how they change throughout the film. Even the main villain, Lil Ze(Leandro Firmino), who is completely despicable and unforgivable because of his actions in the film, is interesting and enjoyable to watch. He also represents a lot of the themes in the film. How crime can corrupt young people, someone can become obsessed with something, and lose compassion for others.
Whilst on the subject of themes, it is worth explaining a few of the movies’. The city of God is a sad and ironic name for the one depicted in the film. The statue of Christ The Redeemer stands looking out upon the city of Rio, but all that we infer from the film is that, if anything, he is not there. Also, the film starts off showing all of the characters as children. As the movie progresses, we see them grow up into adults, but at the same time we see how they become more and more corrupt and lose their innocence. Characters like Lil Dice, who start off as a small kid with dreams of becoming the king of the city of God. Later on in the film, Lil Ze is an adult who has murdered and raped, sold weapons and cocaine to children. He is the perfect example of the effect gang mentality has on children, and his corruption and abuse of the children in the film is what makes his fate all the more fitting, symbolic, and satisfying. His corrupting of the kids in the city is what came back to bite him.
The City Of God perfectly summarises its main theme of the loss of innocence in the pursuit of revenge in Knockout Ned’s story. He starts off as an innocent man whose life is completely ruined by Lil Ze. In his pursuit for revenge, he begins to kill more and more innocent people, until he almost becomes a second Lil Ze. And when he comes the closest he ever did to getting revenge on him, Ned is killed by a young boy who’s own father he had previously killed in a bank heist. This and the ending of the film subtly emphasise how crime leads to death which leads to revenge, and then to crime, restarting the cycle.
The theme of death is also prevalent in the movie. There is a lot of death in the movie, usually depicted through extreme violence and brutality. It is also portrayed through the way that characters are killed off. The people in the film are introduced to us, the audience, and usually after we establish a connection with them, they are killed off, and in an extremely horrible or disrespectful way too. It goes to show that no matter how good of a person you are, you will end up in the dust with everyone else, killed by the hand of one psychopath, who was made by another, and another, and so forth. Most characters we see grow up, develop, grow, and then we see them shot and left to die in the streets, like an animal. It shows off the true brutality pop gang violence, and how there is no God in The City Of God.
The film is also extremely difficult to watch! There a few scenes involving child abuse and rape that are incredibly shocking and disturbing. They are made this way, I imagine, to imprint the sight of violence and cruelty on the viewer, making more of an impact on them and getting across the film’s message too. The message being to not seek revenge, and remain innocent, even when everyone around you, no matter how good of a person they are, eventually succumbs to evil. Whether they are killed by it, or become it themselves.
I personally loved watching The City Of God. Despite how tough some of the scenes were to watch, I still feel like I’ve learned an important lesson of how some people are forced to live. It was an uncomfortable story to witness, but one that I will never forget, for that reason. The film was also very enjoyable most of the time. The characters were interesting, the film was engrossing, and it was all weaved together seamlessly. I rate The City Of God ★★★★★!
Finley Cairns A-Level Film Studies Blog 
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