Bonnie and Clyde. Another film I liked.
I saw this film some time ago and I enjoyed it highly. Seeing it again was a treat. In the film there is the influence of the French New Wave, but it is mixed with typical Western storytelling. It makes for great film. You actually care for the characters in this film, despite their flaws, they’re likeable. Almost loveable.
Its kinda hard to image seeing this movie back in the 60s where the violence was over-the-top for the time. Yet, at the same time the violence is very striking. I can’t put my finger on why though. I think it may be the build up. Take the final scene for instance. We know whats going to happen before Bonnie and Clyde do, then they figure it out. We’re on the edge of our seats and hope that they can get out of the mess the same way they did for the entire film.
But they don’t. They get gunned down. Maybe that’s why (the final scene at least) is so striking for me.
On the subject of the final scene, I loved the shots going back and forth from Bonnie and Clyde when they realize they’ve been set up. You feel their shock and anxiety, their sense of panic! And the way that the camera pans over once their dead; so cool. You get that feeling of dread, and that you feel sorry for the two. Yet, unlike the other films we’ve seen, it doesn’t make it seem like all life is misery and woe. Actually, the way all the officers stand there silent seem to imply a joyless victory. It seems like they regretted doing it. It was very humanizing.
This was a good movie to end the class with.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
The weekend that wouldn't.
I ended up writing my essay on Weekend, another over-the-top and pretentious Godard film, since it was so fresh in my mind.
I think I was pretty nice in the essay though. A hell lot nicer than I was in since blog recently.
You know what? I’m sorry about that. I’ve just become so disenchanted with Godard and his pretentious crap (and most of the French New Wave for that matter). I mean really, what’s so wrong with movies being like books? Really? I don’t get why that is so bad. I think it’s a great story telling medium! The whole semester has been extremely rough on me, and Godard films were NOT what I needed to see. I like the philosophy that art is supposed to be something that “lifts you up” to a higher place. Not drag you down.
There are many scenes in Week End that one will not be able to forget. Most of these scenes are the long shots such as the traffic jam scene. During this scene, Roland and Connie try to bypass traffic by driving on the wrong side of the road in order to get further up in the line. This scene takes up approximately ten minutes. For those ten minutes the audience is stuck watching Roland selfishly and slowly drive up the road passing by minor accidents, other cars, people having picnics, school children walking in a line, people playing ball or chess, as well as a number of other random things. This scene is humorous at first; as the camera slowly moves on ones sees all the people patiently waiting and then there is a car flipped over or crashed into another. Yet the camera keeps going, the last accident was not the source of the traffic! This continues for the entire scene. With the obnoxious noise of the cars beeping their horns, the humor in the scene slowly fades away and the audience feels like they too are stuck in a traffic jam that won’t end. When Roland eventually passes by the real accident, it is extremely graphic with bodies strewn about the road. However, Godard does not give the audience the satisfaction of seeing it for very long; before one realizes it, the scene cuts to another unrelated one.
Godard has a thing for alienating his audience as previously stated. However, there is more than one way to do it. In another scene, instead of a long tracking shot, Godard violates a conventional rule of film making, the three-quarters rule. This rule states that actors should never look directly into the camera, but slightly to the side. This is due to the direct eye contact that makes the viewer feel uneasy. The scene with the garbage men is an example of this. What happens in the scene is that after two garbage men-one Arab and one black-pick up the couple, they stop for a break. After a small ordeal where Connie is forced to kiss one man for a piece of bread, the Arab man decides to have a speech. However, instead of him saying anything, his “black brother” speaks for him. What is strange is that the camera gives a close up shot of the Arab man, while the black man off screen talks. The Arab man looks directly into the camera without saying a word, while eating his bread. The look is filled with anger and malice; there is no doubt that anyone would feel uncomfortable at this scene. Yet, after the long speech, the camera moves over to a close up of the black man, who does the same thing and his look is filled with even more anger and hatred. To drive the audience into an even bigger state of discomfort, the speech of the black man, as told by the Arab man, is more or less about fighting against the white people. He talks of using violence and bombing malls and other places the bourgeois typically hang out. It is a message of destruction.
I think I was pretty nice in the essay though. A hell lot nicer than I was in since blog recently.
You know what? I’m sorry about that. I’ve just become so disenchanted with Godard and his pretentious crap (and most of the French New Wave for that matter). I mean really, what’s so wrong with movies being like books? Really? I don’t get why that is so bad. I think it’s a great story telling medium! The whole semester has been extremely rough on me, and Godard films were NOT what I needed to see. I like the philosophy that art is supposed to be something that “lifts you up” to a higher place. Not drag you down.
There are many scenes in Week End that one will not be able to forget. Most of these scenes are the long shots such as the traffic jam scene. During this scene, Roland and Connie try to bypass traffic by driving on the wrong side of the road in order to get further up in the line. This scene takes up approximately ten minutes. For those ten minutes the audience is stuck watching Roland selfishly and slowly drive up the road passing by minor accidents, other cars, people having picnics, school children walking in a line, people playing ball or chess, as well as a number of other random things. This scene is humorous at first; as the camera slowly moves on ones sees all the people patiently waiting and then there is a car flipped over or crashed into another. Yet the camera keeps going, the last accident was not the source of the traffic! This continues for the entire scene. With the obnoxious noise of the cars beeping their horns, the humor in the scene slowly fades away and the audience feels like they too are stuck in a traffic jam that won’t end. When Roland eventually passes by the real accident, it is extremely graphic with bodies strewn about the road. However, Godard does not give the audience the satisfaction of seeing it for very long; before one realizes it, the scene cuts to another unrelated one.
Godard has a thing for alienating his audience as previously stated. However, there is more than one way to do it. In another scene, instead of a long tracking shot, Godard violates a conventional rule of film making, the three-quarters rule. This rule states that actors should never look directly into the camera, but slightly to the side. This is due to the direct eye contact that makes the viewer feel uneasy. The scene with the garbage men is an example of this. What happens in the scene is that after two garbage men-one Arab and one black-pick up the couple, they stop for a break. After a small ordeal where Connie is forced to kiss one man for a piece of bread, the Arab man decides to have a speech. However, instead of him saying anything, his “black brother” speaks for him. What is strange is that the camera gives a close up shot of the Arab man, while the black man off screen talks. The Arab man looks directly into the camera without saying a word, while eating his bread. The look is filled with anger and malice; there is no doubt that anyone would feel uncomfortable at this scene. Yet, after the long speech, the camera moves over to a close up of the black man, who does the same thing and his look is filled with even more anger and hatred. To drive the audience into an even bigger state of discomfort, the speech of the black man, as told by the Arab man, is more or less about fighting against the white people. He talks of using violence and bombing malls and other places the bourgeois typically hang out. It is a message of destruction.
coke and marx babies
Again with the Godard films; same weird pacing, pointless and irrelevant plot, and characters that have no life in them.
Okay, okay, I get it. But I’m sick of him. So sick of his films that remembering them become painful.
Sure, he does a lot of cool editing tricks, but for what? It’s not entertaining, it’s painful to watch. Which seems to be what he wants. While refreshing my memory over this movie, I watched a trailer for it. What caught my eye more than anything was the flashing words shouting “A MOVIE ABOUT PARIS, SEX AND THE PEPSI GENERATION.” It seemed like SEX was flashing for a lot longer than any of the other words and it made me think. (And I totally realize that it’s just a trailer and I can’t base my opinion on the movie for it.) It seems like Godard is provocative only to be provocative. Everyone says that he does these things to show us something. Honestly, I don’t think any of this was intentional. Mainly because there are extremely few, if any, points of reference to show us what is ideal.
Masculin, Féminin rubs me the wrong way for the same reasons I’ve been complaining about for the entire semester. The character Paul comes off as creepy and annoying, not to mention irrational, and his girlfriend Madeleine is just a bitch. One of the roommates wasn’t so terrible, but she only gets a small amount of screen time.
Oh, the erotic film they all watch. I thought that was just plain stupid. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the sort. But let’s face it, what was the point? To provoke us? To make us feel uncomfortable? Eh, you know what, the actress was good at doing her job, which was acting like she was getting raped. So I’ll give her that.
Actually, you know what. I’ll give one nice thing about the movie. The acting was pretty good. The character’s actions seemed natural for them, despite my feelings that the characters themselves were artificial. The conversation where Paul meets Madeleine seems so natural that it’s as if the two really are having that first meeting. (I’m holding my tongue here on how the dialogue was awkward.) The camera, however, kinda ruins the scene by the typical Godard-showing-one-person-during-a-converstaion-thing.
The ending seemed so poorly thought out to me. Paul dies, than then BAM! Madeleine kinda confesses that he liked him, and that she’s pregnant with his kid. And the movie ends leaving us in a state of helplessness. Typical Godard. I’m so officially blah over anything he does.
Okay, okay, I get it. But I’m sick of him. So sick of his films that remembering them become painful.
Sure, he does a lot of cool editing tricks, but for what? It’s not entertaining, it’s painful to watch. Which seems to be what he wants. While refreshing my memory over this movie, I watched a trailer for it. What caught my eye more than anything was the flashing words shouting “A MOVIE ABOUT PARIS, SEX AND THE PEPSI GENERATION.” It seemed like SEX was flashing for a lot longer than any of the other words and it made me think. (And I totally realize that it’s just a trailer and I can’t base my opinion on the movie for it.) It seems like Godard is provocative only to be provocative. Everyone says that he does these things to show us something. Honestly, I don’t think any of this was intentional. Mainly because there are extremely few, if any, points of reference to show us what is ideal.
Masculin, Féminin rubs me the wrong way for the same reasons I’ve been complaining about for the entire semester. The character Paul comes off as creepy and annoying, not to mention irrational, and his girlfriend Madeleine is just a bitch. One of the roommates wasn’t so terrible, but she only gets a small amount of screen time.
Oh, the erotic film they all watch. I thought that was just plain stupid. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the sort. But let’s face it, what was the point? To provoke us? To make us feel uncomfortable? Eh, you know what, the actress was good at doing her job, which was acting like she was getting raped. So I’ll give her that.
Actually, you know what. I’ll give one nice thing about the movie. The acting was pretty good. The character’s actions seemed natural for them, despite my feelings that the characters themselves were artificial. The conversation where Paul meets Madeleine seems so natural that it’s as if the two really are having that first meeting. (I’m holding my tongue here on how the dialogue was awkward.) The camera, however, kinda ruins the scene by the typical Godard-showing-one-person-during-a-converstaion-thing.
The ending seemed so poorly thought out to me. Paul dies, than then BAM! Madeleine kinda confesses that he liked him, and that she’s pregnant with his kid. And the movie ends leaving us in a state of helplessness. Typical Godard. I’m so officially blah over anything he does.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The depressing story of Adele Hugo
I sometimes wonder if the French hate life. But to be honest, I thought L´histoire d'Adele H was a good film. I just didn’t personally like it. The acting was well done and believable, even though the character Adele was a complete nut job. When we first started watching the film, I thought it wasn’t a New Wave film, but maybe that was due to me hearing English dialogue.
That too was really cool. Hearing the characters talk in different languages was one of my favorite parts of the film. They spoke both languages so well that I thought it was an English film at first.
There wasn’t much I noticed about this film cinematography-wise. Anything that would be considered “New Wavy” had to do with the plot itself. It was a tragedy based on a female lead’s decent into obsessive madness .
Yet the reason why I wonder if the French hate life is due to the ending scene. It drags out how Victor Hugo was a great man and everyone mourned him at his death, then contrasts with the death of Adele going unnoticed. Personally, I thought this was a bit much. We feel pity for the character the entire film. We want to get the damn girl some help, we want to see her comforted. Yet we are never given that. Fine. I’m okay with that. The movie is a tragedy. But do we really need to just beat the dead horse?
But hey, I realize that this is just a personal preference. This film was enjoyable regardless of my disapproval for the end.
Not bad Truffaut. Not bad.
That too was really cool. Hearing the characters talk in different languages was one of my favorite parts of the film. They spoke both languages so well that I thought it was an English film at first.
There wasn’t much I noticed about this film cinematography-wise. Anything that would be considered “New Wavy” had to do with the plot itself. It was a tragedy based on a female lead’s decent into obsessive madness .
Yet the reason why I wonder if the French hate life is due to the ending scene. It drags out how Victor Hugo was a great man and everyone mourned him at his death, then contrasts with the death of Adele going unnoticed. Personally, I thought this was a bit much. We feel pity for the character the entire film. We want to get the damn girl some help, we want to see her comforted. Yet we are never given that. Fine. I’m okay with that. The movie is a tragedy. But do we really need to just beat the dead horse?
But hey, I realize that this is just a personal preference. This film was enjoyable regardless of my disapproval for the end.
Not bad Truffaut. Not bad.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
:)
Dear God.
Day for Night is the only film in this class I can say I truly enjoyed without exception. The story wasn’t sacrificed for the sake of experimentation. The characters weren’t hating life and weren’t some comical not-close-to-reality drones. (Hey, I’ve met enough theater students and they’re all eccentric like the people in the film are.)
Oh, the characters were relatable! It was so goddamn refreshing from all the other movies I’ve seen in this damn class. I liked them, grew attached to them. I cheered them on when they were down and expressed joy with them when their goals were completed.
See, is there anything wrong with adding a little bit of “mainstream” to your movie? No, there really isn’t. Some conventions are there because they’re enjoyable.
Showing the making of the film with all of it’s technical aspects was really cool. Even showing the extras doing the same things over and over was enjoyable to watch. The shouts of the director were humorous and seemed to make me give some respect for extras in movies. The transitions from that to the montages were awesome and I was actually excited to see them physically working on the movie.
It’s no wonder this film won the best picture of the year.... If only all these movies were enjoyable as this one…
Thanks Truffaut.
Day for Night is the only film in this class I can say I truly enjoyed without exception. The story wasn’t sacrificed for the sake of experimentation. The characters weren’t hating life and weren’t some comical not-close-to-reality drones. (Hey, I’ve met enough theater students and they’re all eccentric like the people in the film are.)
Oh, the characters were relatable! It was so goddamn refreshing from all the other movies I’ve seen in this damn class. I liked them, grew attached to them. I cheered them on when they were down and expressed joy with them when their goals were completed.
See, is there anything wrong with adding a little bit of “mainstream” to your movie? No, there really isn’t. Some conventions are there because they’re enjoyable.
Showing the making of the film with all of it’s technical aspects was really cool. Even showing the extras doing the same things over and over was enjoyable to watch. The shouts of the director were humorous and seemed to make me give some respect for extras in movies. The transitions from that to the montages were awesome and I was actually excited to see them physically working on the movie.
It’s no wonder this film won the best picture of the year.... If only all these movies were enjoyable as this one…
Thanks Truffaut.
Zeroville!
Alphaville, a sci-fi flick that isn’t really a sci-fi flick. Despite being set in the future, there is nothing in the setting to show this. Godard uses real places (as he always does) and doesn’t bother to use props or anything that would make the movie seem “futuristic.” Even the cars are the same cars of Godard’s time period.
Honestly, I thought it was kinda cool.
I still think the whole film had the sci-fi feel to it. Which I think Godard didn’t want the film to have, but whatever. I got an imagination, I was able to work with it. After all, the fact that only Alphaville is shown leaves the rest open to speculation. (Take that Godard.)
There was a scene or two that I thought was really cool. The whole flashing light from outside the window constantly blinking causing the screen to go black was really well done. It transitioned the scene very well.
In this film Godard goes back to his pointing out the objectification of women by showing all the women with bar codes on them. I thought this was a nice touch and a breath of fresh air from what I’ve normally seen. Also, the fact that most of the women shown were prostitutes is another fact worth noting. Although I’m getting tired of this whole thing. Can we just drop the women as objects thing and…ya know… stop doing it? But hey, I know I like being put on a pedestal and worshiped, but that's just me.
Alphaville: the sci-fi movie that wants to rebel against it's parents but ends up doing what they do anyway.
Honestly, I thought it was kinda cool.
I still think the whole film had the sci-fi feel to it. Which I think Godard didn’t want the film to have, but whatever. I got an imagination, I was able to work with it. After all, the fact that only Alphaville is shown leaves the rest open to speculation. (Take that Godard.)
There was a scene or two that I thought was really cool. The whole flashing light from outside the window constantly blinking causing the screen to go black was really well done. It transitioned the scene very well.
In this film Godard goes back to his pointing out the objectification of women by showing all the women with bar codes on them. I thought this was a nice touch and a breath of fresh air from what I’ve normally seen. Also, the fact that most of the women shown were prostitutes is another fact worth noting. Although I’m getting tired of this whole thing. Can we just drop the women as objects thing and…ya know… stop doing it? But hey, I know I like being put on a pedestal and worshiped, but that's just me.
Alphaville: the sci-fi movie that wants to rebel against it's parents but ends up doing what they do anyway.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Godard offically pisses me off.
Okay I take back all the things I said in the last blog post. In fact, you know what? I think Godard is an asshole and I think most of the French Wave sucks and I’m going to use Les Carabiniers as my reason. This film was the biggest waste of time in my entire life. Seriously, what the hell is the point of making a movie that alienates the audience and is almost unwatchable? This pretentious movie making stuff is starting to piss me off. Yes, I know Godard is trying to make me have this kind of reaction, but that doesn’t mean t becomes a good film, it means Godard is an asshole.
The worst thing is, I love dark humor. But this movie wasn’t funny. I didn’t even know there was “humor” in the flick until it was pointed out in class, and I still think that’s a load of shit. Okay, so they let the girl ramble on about justice and then shoot her multiple times. That’s not funny, that’s stupid. And you know what, I’ve seen something like that done and actually made funny. What was it? I don’t remember, I’m too busy being pissed off here.
Oh, that scene where they take images as deeds? The scene really does not need to be that goddamn long. You get the point almost right away. But it goes on for 10 minutes? Really Godaard? You’re a prick and an asshole and if I ever see you in person, I think I might punch you in the face. That’ll make up for all the time in this class I’ve wasted watching your pretentious shitty art movies.
And the characters….Oh those characters… they were so materialistic and stupid… I mean really, is it even possible for people to be that cold hearted. Yes, yes, I know, they’re supposed to be over-the-top and almost comical, but for what purpose? Oh, right, that alienating BS again. The portrayal of soldiers in this film also offended me, and I don’t even know any personally. Yeah, yeah, I know, “comical” alienating, whatever. You’re all making excuses.
I can tell you one part I liked. The end. The girl’s head was shaved, and the boys were shot and killed. The movie was over. I was slightly happy, but then pissed that I wasted all that time.
The worst thing is, I love dark humor. But this movie wasn’t funny. I didn’t even know there was “humor” in the flick until it was pointed out in class, and I still think that’s a load of shit. Okay, so they let the girl ramble on about justice and then shoot her multiple times. That’s not funny, that’s stupid. And you know what, I’ve seen something like that done and actually made funny. What was it? I don’t remember, I’m too busy being pissed off here.
Oh, that scene where they take images as deeds? The scene really does not need to be that goddamn long. You get the point almost right away. But it goes on for 10 minutes? Really Godaard? You’re a prick and an asshole and if I ever see you in person, I think I might punch you in the face. That’ll make up for all the time in this class I’ve wasted watching your pretentious shitty art movies.
And the characters….Oh those characters… they were so materialistic and stupid… I mean really, is it even possible for people to be that cold hearted. Yes, yes, I know, they’re supposed to be over-the-top and almost comical, but for what purpose? Oh, right, that alienating BS again. The portrayal of soldiers in this film also offended me, and I don’t even know any personally. Yeah, yeah, I know, “comical” alienating, whatever. You’re all making excuses.
I can tell you one part I liked. The end. The girl’s head was shaved, and the boys were shot and killed. The movie was over. I was slightly happy, but then pissed that I wasted all that time.
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