In Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, one of the most recurrent themes within the film is the prospect of the psychological phenomenon of repressed memories. One of the possible reasons that this theme fits so well within the film is due to the plot and setting of where it all occurs. Memory repression is the widely believed yet scientifically unproven theory that traumatic events are intentionally hidden within the depths of a person’s unconscious memory and are blocked because of the pain and angst that they’ve caused to the effected individual. This theme occurs frequently with the film’s main character Edward Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio), a U.S Marshall who is sent with his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) to Ashecliffe Hospital to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando, one of the facility’s most unstable psychiatric patients. The efforts that Daniels and Aule make to find Rachel are next to hopeless due to the lack of evidence, rules and uncooperativeness of the staff. As the film progresses, the search effort and overall environment of the hospital get more distorted, causing Daniels to feel more uncomfortable. Eventually he experiences head and body pains parts of his begins to have painful recollections of his time in the army during World War II despite the fact that he hadn’t given those events much thought before. He specifically relives the events he saw at a concentration camp. Eventually, Daniels starts dreaming about his dead wife Dolores (Michelle Williams) who was murdered. These dreams and visions that Daniels experiences involving his wife get more pronounced as the film progresses and it is eventually revealed that Daniels was actually the one who killed his wife and that he was not a U.S. Marshall but actually the hospital’s most dangerous patient and everyone in the hospital, from patients to the staff were playing along to get Daniels’ confession to the murder. Upon hearing this revelation, Scorsese reveals to the audience how much of Daniel’s memory was being repressed in his subconscious by his own mind which shows how this psychological factor was a main part of the theme.

            In order to add emphasis to the moods and emotions of the film, Scorsese implements a multitude of shot types. He uses a close up shot between Daniels and Dolores during one of their last conversations when Daniels asks where the children are and what does she mean when she says they are at school on a Saturday. Scorsese also uses the shot reverse shot method to show Daniels’ confusion and Dolores’ deranged facial appearance. Another shot type that seems to be used is the tracking shot which can be seen when Daniels and Aule first visit Ashecliffe. This is done to show what the facility looks like and also to show the mental state of the patients who live there.

Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds implements an extremely unique form of comic relief to the theme of the movie by bending historical content to fit his own cinematic parameters. In a way, this is the exact opposite of what Michael Haneke did in his theme, who arguably based his plot on the historical events in Parisian history and used it as his cinematic foundation. My changing historical events to his liking, Tarantino is able to morph violence and comedic grandeur into a topic that people generally view with remorse or contempt. Inglourious Basterds has a second World War setting and focuses on a handpicked squad of Jewish-American soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) for the primary purpose of killing as many German soldiers as possible throughout the duration of the war. Raine and his squad commit themselves to this task in brutal fashion as sort of payback for the treatment of Jews in Europe. The squad members’ Jewish heritage provides motivational grounds for the feelings of personal vendetta. However, the way Tarantino formulates the dialogue and sets up the behaviors of specific characters makes their gruesome actions seem to have an amusing twist. This can be seen in the film when Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz (Eli Roth) beats a German soldier to death with a baseball bat. His hyped-up expressions of killing the soldier with his bat are complemented by the rest of the squad laughing and also his funny name nick name. This makes the scene to be not as serious as it would be with other cinematic situations. Another example of comic relief blended in violence in the same scene is the introducing of Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger). During this scene Stiglitz’s background is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and it has its own rock soundtrack at the beginning. This makes the scene kind have a tinge of comical amusement, despite the fact that it shows him mutilating German officers with his knife.

            There are several cinematic strategies and shot types that Tarantino uses throughout the film in order to symbolize certain moments and their emotional impact to the film. He does this by implementing both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. Important non-diegetic sounds can be heard when Shoshana (Melanie Laurent) runs for dear life after her family is murdered by Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Important diegetic sounds can be heard in the theater and café within Germany to add realty to the ambience of the environment in order to represent World War Two upper-class city life. Tarantino also uses a variety of shot angle types in order to symbolize power and other emotions within the characters. This can be seen with a low angle shot when Donnie shoots Adolf Hitler in the theater. Another important low angle shot is used when Lt. Aldo and Utivich (B.J. Novak) stand over Landa after cutting a Swastika into his forehead. In a way the angle also adds to the feeling that the comical form of vengeance that the remaining characters are looking for that has finally been delivered.

Michael Haneke’s 2005 Film Cache, also known as Hidden, implements an extremely unique fusion of French historical events and implements them in his personal transition theme within the movie. This self-created transition that Haneke based the plot of his film on, revolves around the main issue which seems to focus on socio-economic related factors but as the film progresses, it takes a turn and begins to focus more on deep-rooted racial issues and events within Parisian societal formats. The film focuses on the careers of Anne (Juliette Binoche) and Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) and how it might be Georges’ profession, being that he is a television host, that disturbing videos come to their doorstep. Because of his platform and affluent lifestyle, it seems to be implied during some of the beginning parts of the film that whoever is making these video tapes and sending them to the Laurent’s might posses a degree of animosity towards Georges’ and Anne’s career-related actions and lifestyles. However, as the film progresses Haneke begins to implement scenes that offer a new perspective for the audience. As more of these videos begin to appear, Georges is remined of a person from his childhood named Majid, an Algerian whose parents worked for Georges family. Here is where Haneke begins to implement a historical context and a racial transition into the film which fuses it uniquely with Parisian socioeconomic standards and viewpoints. Majid’s parents vanished in the 1961 massacre of Paris. Majid was nearly going to be Georges stepbrother, but the adoption formalities never came to fruition. Believing that Majid was the perpetrator of the video tapes and was trying to enact his own personal vendetta, Georges confronts him and accuses Majid of sending the videos. Later when Majid invites Georges to his house, Majid commits suicide in front of him after denying that the letters were his doings. After his death, Georges then accuses Majid’s son of sending the videos when the confront each other. By implementing this scene, Haneke reveals the racial divisions that have historically coexisted with the social class divisions of Parisian society.

            Haneke uses a multitude of shot types in order to symbolize the moods, emotions and settings taking place within Cache. One of the most notable ones is seen at the beginning of the film which shows a rotating long shot that reveals the urban setting of where the Laurent’s had lived. Along with revealing their social standings, this scene also shows a comparison that many critics and film scholars highlighted between it and the beginning scene of the film Rear Window. As it happens that film’s director Alfred Hitchcock was a fan of French New Wave Films which Cache arguably follows the guidance set forth by those cinematographic standards.

One of the most notable formalities observed in Arthur Penn’s 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde are the aspects of character relatability in accordance with the time period of both when the film was made and the era it was set in. Penn portrays Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) as an outlaw with a moral compass that drives him to kill and steal but at the same time commit what can be seen as acts of selflessness due to his empathetic feelings. This can be observed in the scene where he and his gang rob a bank and he asks a somewhat exhausted and disheveled man if the money on the table was his. When the man says yes, he allows him to keep it and proceeds to rob everybody else. While it can be initially thought of as just an act of good will by a controversial hero, this scene and many others like it within the film have a direct relation to both the time period it was filmed in and the era the story takes place. Bonnie (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde were depression era criminals. Because of the vast amounts of economic instability and its effects on the country, many of those who felt the brunt of the Great Depression grew feelings of animosity towards the federal banks and government for letting these predicaments occur. As it happens the film was produced in the late sixties, when the United States had begun to experience of a somewhat societal rift due to changes in cultural norms and the feelings and expenses of the Vietnam War. The resulting economic hardships that occurred during the late 1960s caused many people to develop a level of hatred towards the political system of governance which the movie, by formulating the character in a sort of Robin Hood format, taps into in order to develop some relatability between the audience and Clyde, a homicidal bank robber.

There are several notable editing and cinematographic strategies that are incorporated in order to express the levels of emotion that are present within the characters’ situation. Penn, the film’s editor Dede Allen and cinematographer Burnett Guffey use a multitude of different shot types to express the characters’ feelings. An example of this is seen in the film with a close up shot at Bonnie’s mother after hearing how Clyde say that Bonnie wants to live close to her. Knowing that would be a foolish and near-suicidal idea, Bonnie’s mother has a look of depressed-resignation, knowing that she will never see her daughter again. The camera’s zooming in on her face shows her sad look, as well as her old wrinkled face which illustrates how her life must have been harsh and the events taking place in the great depression weren’t making them any easier. Another example of a shot in the film is at the beginning with Bonnie and shows an extreme close up of her lower face and her applying lipstick. This is to show that despite her financial situation and the men she deals with regularly at her job, she still cares greatly about her appearance.

In François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, one of the most notable aspects within the film that makes it unique is the alterations of stereotypical gender identities that generally take place within films that contain this sort of familial set up. Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is a troubled schoolboy who doesn’t receive the kindness or guidance from either his parents that he needs and as a result he continues to cut school and find himself in undesirable situations. However, one aspect of the film that Truffaut puts a twist on is the roles of Antoine’s parents within the household. Typically, in films that contain an unstable family that affects the main character, it is usually the father figure or dominant hyper masculine male that creates the bulk of the turbulence within the plot that the main and supporting characters have to contend with throughout the story. In this case, it is Antoine’s mother Gilberte (Claire Maurier) is the parent that causes a large amount of his mental instability and rebelliousness. Throughout the film, Gilberte is shown to be extremely selfish, unkind, doesn’t help the family from a financial perspective as much as she could, and is very discontent with her husband and son. She also commits numerous acts of infidelity with little regard for what her husband or son’s reaction might be if either of them found out. The discovery of this does have a negative emotional impact on Antoine which can be observed in the scene when he and his friend René (Patrick Auffay) are cutting school and they see his mother making out with another man. The same facial emotions appear on Antoine’s face when his father tells him that his mother is working late even though she is likely cheating which shows how his mother causes Antoine a considerably large amount of hardship which is unusual for motherly characters in films with this sort of set up. A third scene within the film that shows Gilberte’s negative impact on Antoine’s well-being is when she talks to him shortly after hearing about him frequently cutting class. Despite being in a visibly sad state Gilberte simply lectures Antoine and tries to sway him from remembering what he saw her do which shows the callousness she exhibits.

            There are several notable strategies that Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte, the films editor implicates that help add emotion to scenes within the film. One of the more frequent ones is the shot/ reverse shot editing method where the camera focuses exclusively on each character while they are in a conversation with one another. This is seen when the teacher scolds Antoine for plagiarizing a paper by reading it out loud to the entire class and then accusing him of cheating. The camera then focuses on Antoine to hear his response. By doing this the film illustrates the intensity of the moment between the two characters. This method is also present in the scene Antoine discovers his mother is cheating on his stepfather. The camera takes turns viewing them separately in order to enhance their dialogue and by doing so, reveals the severity of the situation.

In Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Rear Window, a proverb that arguably symbolizes one of the major emotions within the film is “Misery Loves Company”. Jeff (James Stewart) is a photographer who can’t work for the time being due to a broken leg he received that put him out of work for seven weeks. Being chair-ridden Jeff spends the bulk of his time observing his fellow neighbors in the open apartment block. As time progress Jeff becomes an expert at memorizing his neighbors’ routines and patterns and eventually he begin to read their emotions and feel a sense of bliss when he realizes that he was not the only person who was unhappy with the situation that he is in. An example of this can be seen with Jeffs reaction to seeing the lonely woman at the bottom floor across from his apartment. Despite being alone she prepares a candle lit dinner and wine for two people. As she prepares the table, she happily sits down and holds her wine glass up in cheers to an imaginary person and then bursts into tears. Jeff, seeing all this from his window bids her cheers with his cup despite that she can’t see him. In a way, Jeff’s emotional expression represent his attitude of “I know how you feel” and it arguably seems to give him degree of comfort someone else is suffering in a way that is similar to his. Another example of Jeff expressing emotions that show he’s glad others are as discontent with their lives as himself is on the same night when he stares at the young woman across from him and sees that she is entertaining three men at the same time. When Lisa (Grace Kelly) looks on as well, she tells him that the woman doesn’t love any of the men that she has over. Hearing this realization seems to give Jeff a bit of conciliation because, like him, the young woman is also quite lonely which is why she invites as many people over as she does. This shows how the proverb “Misery Loves Company” can arguably describe one of the major recurring feelings that Jeff and sometimes Lisa and Stella (Thelma Ritter) express throughout the film.

            There are several noticeable aspects of Mis-En-Scene that occur throughout the film. One of the most noticeable ones is the use of a prosthetic cast on Jeff’s leg. The cast reveals Jeff’s incapacitation and, in a way, it fuels his lonesome emotions because it is the primary reason that he can’t resume his work of being a photographer. Another aspect of Mis-En-Scene that is quite noticeable in the film is the props like the wheelchair, Jeff’s binoculars and the dog lever. They all show how the neighborhood is in a sort of synchronized pattern. A third aspect of Mis-En-Scene is Lisa’s makeup and dresses which show her tastes and expectations for the life she intends to live. Her appearance is almost the exact opposite of Jeff’s who is usually wearing night clothes all the time and has a much more haggard look. The difference between their attire reflects feelings of optimism and pessimism and shows how the are somewhat drawn to each other’s differences in both tastes and attitudes regarding life.

In Billy Wilder’s 1950 film, Sunset Boulevard, there are a multitude of ideological themes that certain characters share despite being in completely different situations from each other. One of these themes that Wilder illustrates in the film is devotion, specifically in terms of the willingness to sacrifice one’s ambitions and a more logical choice in order to care for a person in a different, less fortunate predicament. This theme of devotedness is viewed similarly between the characters, Max (Erich von Stroheim) and Betty (Nancy Olson). Max had a very promising directing career during the silent film era but gave it up in order to disguisedly care for his former wife Norma (Gloria Swanson), whose own career in film had faded into obscurity. Despite Norma’s crippled mental state and the loss of his own prominence, Max loyally stays by her side which shows Wilder’s implication of sacrificial devotion. In Betty’s case, she has a fruitful career as a script reviewer and is making a successful transition to writing. She is also engaged to Artie (Jack Webb) a successful man in the film industry. Despite her career being on the rise she is willing to give some of those advantages up in order to be with Joe (William Holden), who hasn’t had much success regarding his own career as a writer. By showing how both Betty and Max are devoted to dysfunctional people, Wilder forms a connection between two characters who are in completely different situations and different phases in their lives and have very little screen time with one-another.

Another theme that Wilder implicates to compliment feelings of devotion is the responding theme of betrayal which is demonstrated in behaviors Norma and Joe. Despite Betty’s devotedness to Joe and her explicit intention to leave aspects of her life that could bring her more success, Joe doesn’t care the way she does, and would rather stay with Norma due to the financial stability she provides him with. In Max’s case, no matter how much he tries to accommodate Norma’s delusional mental state, there seems to be of sign of her grasping reality and recognizing Max for who he truly is and the efforts and situations that he is committing himself too, thus leaving him in a hopeless situation.

 By implementing various aspects of sound in different scenes of the film, Wilder and Franz Waxman give Sunset Boulevard an enhanced sense of realism and suspense. One of the forms of sound application that they use is internal sound in some scenes and external sound in others. Internal sound usage can be heard when Joe tours Norma’s mansion for the first time and hears an ominous whistling. While it initially sounds like it’s part of the film’s external soundtrack, the reality is that it’s noise from a very loud organ that is being influenced by the wind, as Max explains. Another example of internal sound can be heard at the New Years Eve party that Joe attends through the piano. External sound can be heard in the scene where Joe is fatally shot by Norma. The music suddenly becomes very loud and intensified after being at a lower volume when Norma says, “No one ever leaves a star, that’s what makes one a star”. By rapidly changing the volume and tone of the music, Wilder and Waxman add even more intensity to a scene that arguably symbolizes the film’s climactic ending for the two troubled characters.

David Degady                                                                                                             12/26/20

Dr. Toth

English-255

                                                            Casablanca Blog Post

            In Michael Curtiz’s 1942 film Casablanca, there are several noticeable trends, behaviors and symbolizations that reflect common ideological values that were present in the time-period when the film was created. One of the most common symbols in the film that reflect the era is the representation of American nationalism. The film’s story, just like the time period it was created in, takes place in the early years of the second World War. This allows for the portrayal of America as a last bastion of hope for refugees as Europe is undergoing the Nazi occupation. This is heavily incorporated within specific scenes of the film. One example is when Richard Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) makes concessions and schemes for a Bulgarian couple (Joy Page and Helmut Dantine) to leave Casablanca for the United States. The way that the refugees describe America as a haven in this particular scene illustrates how the film portrays American-based freedom as unique compared to the rest of the world which is why many refugees in Casablanca desire to emigrate there as it is the only place that seems to be a worthy place to go.

As the film progresses, certain aspects of characterization begin to reveal themselves as a way to explain to the audience what each character’s role is and what their background is a representation of. In order to do this, Curtiz associates very stereotypical portrayals of characters regarding their ethnic origin. Blaine’s character is portrayed as the strong man with a moral compass who is battling confliction. This isn’t an uncommon portrayal of protagonists in American films. The German officers in the film such as Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) are shown as ruthless Nazi occupiers who don’t care for logical negotiating and express blind loyalty to their cause. Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) is shown to be a loyal wife to Lazlo who often presents herself with the stylishness and composure of Parisian women in film. There is also a scene at the beginning of the film where military officers from various European countries are introducing themselves to the arriving Germans and when the Italian officer tries to present himself, he is quickly pushed aside and overshadowed. By including this in the scene, Curtiz highlights the stereotype that all Italians are militarily inept to the point where it can be used for comic relief.

One of the reasons that the film is able to successfully illustrate a large degree of internal character depth while at the same time, also symbolizing the greater picture of the events taking place during the Second World War is due to the shots and cinematographic measures that the film takes. One of the most noticeable ways Curtiz shows character depth and important emotional moments is by using eye-level shots (Barsam, Monohan, 209). A scene where this tactic was specifically incorporated was when Lund tried to get the passport documents from Blaine. When he refuses and her threat with a gun doesn’t work, she gets emotional and talks about their past relation. As she tears up the eye-level shot takes place in order to show the audience how important their past connection is to the current ongoing plot.

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