French newwave is an example of European art cinema.
It is "La Nouvelle Vague" in french. It was a blanket term from film critics for a group film makers of the late 1950s-60s.
They normally reject films from literary period pieces made in France and written by novelist.
Their works are more often documentary types. Shooting local situations and less editing. Their films contain direct sounds from the scene that requires less light. Its techniques are fragmented, long takes and most of the time, discontinuous editing.
Breathless (French: À bout de souffle; literally "at breath's end") is directed by Jean-Luc Godard in 1960, it's his first feature-length movie and one of the earliest, most influential film in the French New Wave. It became a big hit for its bold visual style and their innovative use of jump cuts.
It all started when the first moving picture in the country was introduced in January 1, 1897 at the Salón de Pertierra in Manila.The next year, ordinary scenes in the area were shot on film for the first time by a Spaniard, Antonio Ramos, using the Lumiere Cinematograph.
On September 12, 1919, a silent feature film broke the grounds for Filipino filmmakers.
Dalagang Bukid (Country Maiden), a movie based on a popular musical play, was the first movie made and shown by Filipino filmmaker José Nepomuceno. Dubbed as the "Father of Philippine Cinema", his work marked the start of cinema as an art form in the Philippines.
And as of now, even though we're facing a lot of challenges and trials in our country, still Movies are well-appreciated by us, Filipinos. It is one of the most popular source of our entertainment. Employing 260, 000 filipino people and earning P2 Billion revenues annually.
Surrealism is a modern approach to film theory, criticism, and production. Originated from Paris in the 1920s. The surrealist cinema is characterized as the rejection of drama and an often use of shocking imagery.
One of the Surrealist films is Un Chien Andalou by Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Deli. It was Buñuel's first movie and was released in 1929 with a limited showing at movie houses but later became widely popular and ran for eight months.
This type of film has no plots, it starts in "once upon a time" then will jump to an "eight years later" scene without much progress. It uses dream logic in narrative flow.
In the late 60s and early 80s a group of freshly graduated young men entered the industry of film making and started a new and exciting changes in Hollywood which is slowly going down. They are bunch of young graduates from different film schools in U.S.A. that will inject fresher ideas and energetic approach of films to viewers that is vanishing at one point. Their young minds will be the tools to create a new hits in the Hollywood, blockbuster films that will be popular not in just one generation but to another.
These are some of the remarkable creations of the Film School Generation:
Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. The prototypical summer blockbuster, its release is regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. In the story, a giant man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers on Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, prompting the local police chief to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter.
Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise centered on a film series created by George Lucas. The film series has spawned an extensive media franchise called the Expanded Universe including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books.
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American vigilante film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The film is set in New York City, soon after the end of the Vietnam War.
Often known as the "black film". The french-term "Film noir" is a film genre about violence, grudges, hatreds, crimes. And it can't come without seduction. This genre was inspired by German Expressionism. The debate about what the film genre provokes and what is its category is still unresolved. "We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric,
strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel": this set of attributes
constitutes the first of many attempts to define film noir made by
French critics Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953 (A Panorama of American Film Noir), the original and seminal extended treatment of the subject.They emphasize that these five definitions aren't always equal and present in film noir. Sometimes, it's focused on violence, some dreamlike. There's no accurate category for it.
Film Noirs are always taken during night time, because it contributes more mystery and more impact to a film. The shadows and smokey effects of every scene makes it more dramatic.
The Studio System is the practice of large motion picture studios in the early 20s to 60s of producing movies mainly through their own film making together with creative staffs which is under a long term contract to work with one motion picture studio at a time and to dominate exhibition by the use of vertical integration.
Motion picture studios back then up to now:
Through this system, they focus on producing their own films and releasing it to their respective movie houses. This is the dominant system and is still used up to now.
While, on the other hand, the Star System is more on building new personalities. They build talents and put up screen names and changes their background history in life to be loved by the public.
On this system, it emphasizes the image of an actor rather than it's acting. They have to keep a good image to the people because morality clauses were a common part of actors' studio contracts. Women are expected to be simple yet elegant and respective and men are always gentlemen
Example of stars who went through the Star System:
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alexander Leach; January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986)
Joan Crawford (March 23, ca. 1904 – May 10, 1977), born Lucille Fay LeSueur
Rock Hudson (born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr.; November 17, 1925 – October 2, 1985)
Contempt or "Le Mepris" in French is a 1963 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard which based it on an Italian novel called, Il Disprezzo (A Ghost at Noon) by Alberto Moravia.
Setting film aside, Contempt is a secondary emotion with a mix of anger and disgust.
It is its title because on the later part of the movie the wife, Camille Javal of the newly hired novelist and playwright of Prokosch will feel a sudden aloofness with her husband Paul Javal.
It all started with an off-camera type of scene, there's a camera rolling, an actor portraying her role and they're busy doing their business. It simply introduce the plot of the movie, that there's a story inside the story that's being told.
And the film has a huge twist and turns.
At the earlier part of the movie, there's this sweet loving couple that can't get rid of each other. The wife is naked lying in bed while his husband is just abusing the moment and caressing her and telling her things she wanted to hear. She's asking on how much her husband love her, asking him in details.
But then, after the talk with Mr. Prokosch there's a sudden estrangement between the married couple. Camille, the wife begin to fall out of love with Paul.
According to Fritz Lang, the director of Homer's Odyssey in the film it is about different kinds of people facing their own realities. Le Mépris itself is an examination of the position of the filmmaker in the commercial cinema.
This is one of the many breath-taking shots from the film, it showcase the beauty hiddenin the different corners of our world.
This is my favorite part in the film:
The one where Camille is talking to Paul while she is peacefully swimming in the damn beautiful body of water with her beautiful body. Pure perfection in one scene.
It is entitled "The Fourth Man" because it is referring to the lead characters Christine Halslag, who is presumably dispatched her first three husbands and Gerard Reve, who will be her next victim. Or is he?
Directed by Paul Verhoeven, it is a Dutch suspense film made in 1983 based on the novel "De Vierde Man" written by Gerard Reve which is the name of the main character. The film contains explicit sexual scenes, violence and gore which is the director, Paul Verhoeven's expertise. It is the most rated movie of all time in Rotten Tomatoes, a site where you rate movies from past to present. It was rated 100% and 78% liked it. The beginning scene is with Gerard waking up with a severe hung over in an apartment with his homosexual partner. That is the same day that he had to leave for his out-of-town business engagement as a writer, on his way he had a series of visions coming in and out on him that is kind of telling him something about his future. I love how the lead actor, Jeroen Aart Krabbé can act so flexible. He can make love to a man and a woman in one good movie. He has natural talent. He portrays a great bisexual writer.
The love scene between two men is disturbing but I think that is one of the goals of the movie, to be remembered long enough. The Fourth Man left a huge mark in the film industry. It was a great movie, all in all.
Film noir is a French term for "black film". It is a Hollywood crime drama type of film. Involving grudges, hatred, angst and such.
If we're talking about film noir, Body Heat is the perfect fit. It is the best example of Film Noir.
Body Heat was produced 1981, written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan inspired by Double Indemnity and Out of the Past. Kasdan wanted this film to have the intricate structure of a dream, the
density of a good novel, and the texture of recognizable people in
extraordinary circumstances.
These kind
of films does not contain any "...And they live happily ever after.".
This is not the kind of film, this gives more mystery.
The film focuses on the leading character, Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) how she dominates two decent men all at the same time. It shows how she uses her power as a woman to command Ned Racine to kill his husband for all she wants is the money.
A term called "Femme Fatale" or a mysterious and seducing woman who uses her looks to deceive men and use them as a tool to get their desire.
Most of the scenes were taken during night time because the ambiance contributes to the situation. The darkness during the evening gives mystery and thrill. It makes us feel a bit afraid of what might suddenly appear from the dark. And that's what some scenes needed.
The love scenes in the film were fantastic, they were well-delivered, the actors gave their 100% in acting those kind of scene, there's no awkwardness and tensions. Just pure tenderness and warmth, that will make you convince they are really in love with each other. There are no flashbacks in the story, just one linear way of conveying it. And a surprising twist in the end. The movie was a big hit and it gave Kathleen Turner a big break.
Some people want to be lost sometimes. Some want to escape reality and be somewhere free.
It is originally a novel, written by Irvin Welsh in 1993 which plays as the drug dealer Mikey Forrester in the film produced after 3 years. Directed by Danny Boyle, the film Trainspotting received a lot of comments critics and/or praise. It shocked a lot of audience for introducing a new genre in film which is focuses more on violence and immorality which is, for some, an eye openerfor the next generation, for others they think the film is promoting drug addiction.
Trainspotting is about a group of Scottish men trying to solve their own personal problems by using heroine.
The film started with the main character Mark Renton running with his friends and then they are introduced one by one through the use of establishing shots on the scene where they're playing soccer. I love how it clearly gave us the idea of whom to focus on the whole movie right from the start.
It made us feel that somehow we're also in heroin while we're watching it because most of the time, it uses POVS (Point of View Shots) that made us like one of the characters. We are seeing what they're seeing and experiencing it at the same time.
The movie uses realistic locations and direct to the point lines where you don't have to think what it meant, it is what it is which is a good strategy for a film with that kind of topic.
For me, it's mis-en-scene is when he is hallucinating in his bedroom. All of the highlights in the film was tied up in to one scene, the baby, the drug dealer, his parents, a TV show. It was well-delivered and McGregor's acting was great. It helps us feel what he's feeling on that scene.
The music used in the film were irony. It opposes what's the actual scene which conveys us the message that being in heroine you can't think correctly, everything you do is heavenly even if you're diving a toilet full of shit.
In the end, Mark Renton decided to be normal. He chose life in spite of what he have said in the introduction of the movie. Heroine helped him realize to choose life, always.
To sum it up, the movie is great, the story is well-delivered, the actors portrayed their roles as if they're not acting it and it was one hell of a movie.
And here is Mark Renton's perspective in life before everything happened...
As early as 1880's, filming is starting its industry through the invention of the first movie camera. Back then, movies were the most popular source of entertainment because it's cheaper than any kind. So, motion pictures became the most important tools in communication, entertainment and mass media. Movies glued all three together.
Different kinds of techniques are appearing since the movies came. And so, The Classic Hollywood Style became the most dominant of all.
It is the most effective of all because it is simple, in a way that, it slowly affects you through out the movie without realizing it. And even after you've watched it, you're stuck with it. That's what makes the people hooked in to movies. This style fools viewer's with their own will. An invisible style of telling a story. It makes people think what they want it to be. For example, we all know it's just prosthetics but we really want to think that it is a real wound. That's how the style works. Classical Hollywood Narrative Films has these plots that goes through the whole movie in a linear position that focuses on one main character. It uses the Three-act Narrative, orientation, complication and resolution. A situation will be introduced, a problem will complicate things till they find the answer to these complications that will tie everything up and give a remarkable closure.
There are different kinds of shots used in film making.
POV (Point of View) is my favorite, it is the kind of shot where it makes you see what the main character in the movie sees. It gives you the chance to feel what the character feels, it's like you're in the movie. You can easily understand the feelings being delivered from the movie.
In our time, it is easier to make a movie because of the wide spread use of technology but the style used is still the Classic Hollywood Style that for us, viewers, will never get old.
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