Out of the Past- Film Noir

Out of the Past is a classic piece of film noir. The characters, devious and mysterious play an important part to the film noir cinematography. In Out of the Past, the main protagonist, Jeff Bailey(Robert Mitchum) plays the audience with this double persona identity all the while trying to capture the complex femme fatale, Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer). He tries to escape his gangster past by completing some unfinished business to hopefully come full circle and retreat back into his new sedentary lifestyle. Certain cinematic effects truly make this a great film noir. First, the movie is in all black and white which makes the contrast between light and dark very prevalent throughout the movie. By constantly moving from day to night scenes, director Jacques Tourneur not only creates a chronological path to the movie, he also shows how the two parts of a 24 hour cycle differ. For example, in the beginning where Jeff and Kathie are in Mexico, they only decide to meet at night time and at Kathies will, thus hinting at her dark personality or even dark motives. The day time is reserved solely for personal time or innocent activity. Also, a main characteristic of noir exemplified in Out of the Past is the costume. Noir is all about the 40's and early 50's making the clothing only appropriate for that time frame. The gangsters wear suits and hats and the women wear long dresses. Bailey is only depicted in a decked out suit other than the one scene where he is fishing with his present girlfriend. Bailey's nemesis Whit (Kirk Douglas), is the pinnacle of noir gangster, with his gigantic house, intelligent swagger, and unlawful decision making. Another noir-esque theme in Out of the Past is the fear of the future, or the unknowing of what lies ahead. Bailey seems to have a decent idea of how his fate will end up becuase he makes poor decisions throughout the film but there is still an aspect of 'will Jeff get out unscathed?' and 'is Kathie on Whit's or Jeff's side as the femme fatale?'. All of these aspects general aspects of film noir are what makes the movie fall into the noir category. Overall, Tourneau makes a film which pushes the limits of society acceptance and creates a picture of everlasting relevance.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!/ The world forgetting, by the world forgot/ Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! –Alexander Pope in Eloisa to Abelard(1717)

Why would a person want to erase an entire episode of their life from memory? Maybe a serious, traumatic experience could prompt this action? Or perhaps one could want their memory erased to forget another person entirely, for eternity. Joel Barish, played by Jim Carrey takes on this endeavor through a fictional procedure to eradicate the girl he once loved, Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) in director Michel Gondry’s romantic comedy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The movie starts with Joel randomly skipping work, taking a different train to Montauk and walking aimlessly on an unusual beach, all of these actions seem impulsive and unwarranted. He meets a woman seemingly doing the same exact thing- walking aimlessly during the middle of a perfect workday on the beach. The two get curious with one another’s actions and start to hit it off. After some filler romantic scenes, they break it off over an unknown reason and thus resulting in trying to rid each other of their memories. Clementine does it first; she goes to Lacuna Inc., a company that has the technology to erase another’s specific memories, and completes the process. Joel, not one to be outdone, decides to follow in suit. The bulk of the movie is in Joel’s memories, trying to hold on and piece together the history of their relationship all the while a team of professionals from ensue to zap away Clementine in each particular event. In the end, the memories become completely erased and swept away forever. However, Joel and Clementine somehow meet again, through impulse and fall in love all over again, in a replication of the last relationship.

The procedure the people from Lacuna Inc. do, although entirely unreal, focuses on erasing precise memories by using retrieval cues, symbols and things that reminds the customer of the other person they are trying to get erased. After analyzing what parts of the brain react to the triggers, the team of professionals can zero into the exact brain coordinates which hold these memories and take them away. They drug the customer the ensuing night, which makes the customer fall into a deep sleep where he or she encounters each and every memory in reverse chronological order and the team uses technology to use the pinpoints they gathered earlier and erase them. However plausible this procedure may seem, it’s completely made up. There is no way of pinpointing where certain memories take place. Researchers have only determined that memories are located through a loose webbing of experiences and an event stored throughout the brain, again, there is no way of finding these and erasing them.

Overall, I think the movie brings up more of societal and emotional questions more than others. Would this procedure be deemed lawful in society? Would you want to erase someone from your own memory? If a person were to replace themselves with Joel or Clementine, I believe a large majority of the populations would not choose to erase an entire person/place or thing from their entire recollection.

Unforgiven

The movie Unforgiven directed by Clint Eastwood, is a revistionist film to point out the flaws of the Western Genre for its usual excessive and unneccessary violence. However, the flaw of the western violence is, to me, not that big of a deal. Eastwood tried to show how thoughtless and uncivilized the genre dipicted the west through its use of woman abuse, gunslinging mentality, multiple killings, and the end-movie slaughtering. Sure, all of these things are bad, but hey, in the end the bad guys were all gone, and the good guys were still around to make things back to normal. Examples: English Bob- gone by getting the crap kicked out of him, Guy who cut whore- killed, guy who "owned" whores- killed, and corrupt sheriff-killed. All of these members of society represented the unjust, ruthless, stuid, and self promoting aspects of the town. All of the good guys, lived and went on, Munny-moved to San Fran, townfolk- not killed, whores- staying alive. The only good guy who wasnt eliminated was Munny's partner, Ned. Overall, I feel like the movie played a role in that it said yeah violence is bad but the people who use it for the wrong reason get whats coming to them.

This concept of the good guys winning relates in an almost inverse way today. Today, a lot of the times, the bad guys win. All of the "red tape" in the judicial system, all of the bureaurocratic inefficiency and most all of the liberals help the bad guys win and the good guys lose nowadays. The judicial system is corrupt in it takes years for trials and a good lawyer will get anyone out of anything, even if they are 100% guilty of a crime. Exibit A: OJ Simpson, Exhibit B: the GHB drug being used for raping women yet the accused not guilty because the woman was unconscious and couldnt say "no". Liberals help the issue with their "it isnt my fault" whining. Most liberals take a "victimized" stance on touchy issues to slither a way out. "Its not my fault I drank too much alcohol and hit a person with my car, its the bartender who sold me the drinks" but, "its not the bartenders fault, its the manufacturer who sold the alcoholic beverages to the car" and, "it cant be the manufacturers fault, becuase it was the government who gave them the permit to brew alcohol" and so on, and so on. If only we adopted a wild west gunslinging law to rid the world of the drug dealers, rapists, liberals, bureaucrats, and whiners, this country would be a much better place.

The Great Escape

The Great Escape (1963), directed by John Sturges, is a World War II based movie about the largest mass escape by allies from a POW camp during WWII. Some notable actors who played key roles in the movie were Steve McQueen (Captain Hilts), James Garner (Lt. Hendley), and Charles Bronson (Lt. Danny Velinski).

The greatest part about The Great Escape, is not only the comedic ways of the concentration camp, or even the adventurous ways the guys previously try to escape. No, the greatest part of the whole movie is the dynamite script. The person who was most responsible for the script was James Clavell, who also wrote notable scripts for the household named movies, To Sir, With Love (1967), and The Fly (1958). A little known fact about Clavell: he actually recieved the Writers Guild Best Screenplay Award in 1963 for The Great Escape. That just goes to show how awesome the script was indeed. The main idea for the movie originated from the story of how about 70 POW's in WWII managed to escape Hitler's grasp in newly built captive camps. Paul Brinkhill wrote the novel The Great Escape, of which the movie is based on. The genious these guys displayed were really quite remarkable. They created picks by taking pipes off a car, they made a small hand shovel with the muffler of the car, they disguised thier pounding by singing and they built infrastructure from various pieces of wood taken from behing cabinets and other appliances. Clavell does these geniouses justice by eloquently creating narrative for the guys to mimic what was most likely normal conversation and jargon in the camp during the time.

The suspense of whether or not the germans will find out what they are doing also adds to the film. The secret conversations and meetings held are under supervision from a chain of people sitting outside to make sure the germans dont see them doing anything.

Overall, the movie was good but the script writing was great. In most war movies, the dialogue doesnt matter, just as long as the audience sees a ton of fighting and action. With The Great Escape, the writing is what keeps the audience and attentive and entertained throughout.

ALL WORKS

"Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It's just not really widely reported." - David St. Huggins

The 80's were characterized by super bands made up with glamorous persona's with even more glamorous hair. Great bands such as Def Leppard, Van Halen, and Bon Jovi ruled this decade whereas the wanna-be rockers dismally failed. One group in particular, known as Spinal Tap, fell into the latter of the two. Aside from the overly sexual lyrics, tacky stage props, crazy make up, childish attitudes, dying drummers, and the overall stupidity of the entire band, they are actually pretty good. Director Rob Reiner gives us an exclusive look into the everyday touring of the parody group in a mock-documentary film called This Is Spinal Tap (1984).

The documentary is shown from fictional fan and film maker Marty DeBergi's point of view as he tours with the group from the east coast of the US to the west coast. The hand held camera used throughout the vast majority of the shots gives the audience a feel of authenticity to the mock-umentary style. The overall characterization of the rockers David St. Hubbins (played by Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), and Tommy Pischedda (Bruno Kirby) is that of utter stupidity, selfishness, absurdness, austere and strangeness. The comedy of the film comes directly from the ridiculousness in the general endeavors of the band. For example, a specific scene comes from when filmmaker Marty DeBergi is interviewing lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel in a room filled with various guitars and amplifiers. Tufnel goes around giving anecdotes and information about the collection when he shows DeBergi a Marshall amplifier set which he is especially proud of,

Nigel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleve, and...
Marty: Oh I see, and most amps go up to ten?
Nigel: Exactly.
Marty: Does that mean its louder. Is it any louder?
Nigel: Well its one louder isn't it? Its not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty: I don't know.
Nigel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty: Put it up to eleven
Nigel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder
Marty: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel: [pause] These go to eleven.

This sort of humor is used frequently throughout the film giving it a feel of dumbness and hilarity. Although This Is Spinal Tap may seem like a just another brainless comedy, the subtleties and quiet nuances of the parody makes it very enjoyable and extremely laughable. Technicalities such as the colorful lighting on stage when they are playing, the countless low angle shots of the band's crotch areas and the absolutely terrific makeup, setting, and costume all play into role of the impact of the film.

This parody of a British rock band in the 80's makes for one of the truly great comedies of all time. Not only did Reiner manage to thoughtfully mock an entire decade of music, but he also captured the intensity and drive a band of Spinal Tap's nature needs to accomplish in order to survive in the world of entertainment.

Critique the Critic

I chose to review the comments of Rich Cline on the movie We Own the Night directed by James Gray from the Rotten Tomatoes link. I have no idea who this James Gray character is so after a little reseach, I found out he directed the movie Little Odessa, which won a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Critic Prize at the Deauville Film Festival. Judging by these awards, Little Odessa must be a pretty solid movie, giving Gray credit to his directing skills which I anticipate he imposed into We Own the Night. The movie is basically about a particular family where the father and one son are police officers and the other son is in the world of selling drugs at a nightclub. Clines criticisms of the movie were very intelligent and interesting. I have not seen the movie yet but planned to, and now after Cline's words, im not quite sure its worth my time anymore. Cline describes the film in its entirety as,

"somewhat slow and dry with only brief flashes of emotion or action."

He also states, which was very key in my approval of the criticism,

"its a bit too deliberate and over-serious to keep us thoroughly engaged."

I cant stand movies where the director seems to be over the top so that the audience becomes fully engaged. This does not engage me however, it just makes me bored and wanting to just cut to the chase. When I go to see a movie, I enjoy a lot of action and fast paced scenarios. With this movie however, it appears as though my viewing pleasures would not be successfully fulfilled. I really like the actors and actresses who star in this film (Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Walhberg, and Eva Mendes) which was a main reason in my wanting to go watch the movie. After this review, I dont want to really go out and actively pursue renting this film (which comes out on DVD this week) . If I am bored with my friends and there are no other movies which look tasteful in the red box next weekend, I might consider renting We Own the Night.

Intro

This is my Art of Film blog. I took this class so I can get to view movies I otherwise would not be able to see on my own time. Hopefully I can benefit from being exposed to the curriculum and gain a new understanding of exactly how movies are a true art form. I enjoy watching movies and discussing their effects or ideas, which will hopefully help me out in this class and make my movie viewing all the more fun.