Film Techniques & Analysis: Citizen Kane & A Clockwork Orange - Prof. Walter Korte, Study notes of Theatre

Download Film Techniques & Analysis: Citizen Kane & A Clockwork Orange - Prof. Walter Korte and more Study notes Theatre in PDF only on Docsity! Cinema As an Art Form 8/26/11 Take little note on each movie (or draw picture). Bordwell viewers guide. Film- a series of still photographs projected on a screen at a significantly rapid rate to create the illusion of motion.  24 pictures frames per second is the rate that humans can person a still image seems to be moving. Origins Permanent photographs were created around the 1820s. Photographs were used in the 19th century as a memento or keepsake. Later for journalistic reason such as in magazines and newspapers. Still photography use to be associated in the public mind with realism, which helped it become so popular. At that time the saying was “photography doesn’t lie.” The intricacies and the expenses of early film showed that movies would have to be commercially appealing. In 1835 several enterprising entrepreneur saw this as a way to sell to the public December 28th in 1835 two young business men decided to show short motion pictures. Composition, Motion, and Sound Composition- Motion – editing, vantage points Sound-speech, noise, and music Lumiere Films 1895-1897 (Look Up in Book)- business men who produced lenses for cameras One shot and no camera editing for their films. Became synonymous with filming real events or making events seem real or not staged.  Exiting the Factory- realism because photography was associated with realism (actualities) o Placed camera in front of factory as people walked in front of it  Arrival Of A Train At LA Ciotat o Placed camera at a diagonal and exploited perspective. o Train came at an angle creating depth o When you go to a movie you lose all sense of absolute scale. o Lots of people moving around  Baby’s Lunch o Narrow shot (medium shot) and more focused on one shot (only three people). o First home movie: candid, personal, and emotional. o More coziness or closeness due to proximity of the camera. o More accessible and charming. 8/29/11 Mercury Production reflects Orson Welles’ theatrical background. Radio was initially the only home entertainment system. Welles was granted creative freedom from RKO. It had one of the best special effects in the business. Three of the major collaborators with Welles for Citizen Kane were:  A writer named Herman Mancowitz o Intitial writing called American  Greg Tolland- director of photography and cameraman o Taught Welles about lighting Cinema As an Art Form  Perry Ferguson- art director of Citizen Kane o Created most of the movie in a studio Citizen Kane Begins with a mystery: What is the meaning of rose bud?  Two introductions  Xanadu  News Reel  Five narratives (Witnesses)  And a Epilogue Music in the movie is very spooky and mysterious. Initial sign says no trespassing but the camera immediately begins to trespass. Always remember the opening shots of a film.  It’s a sort of road map of what the movie is going towards in the movie.  Opening shots o What is the film maker showing me? o How is he showing it to me? o Why is he showing it to me? o Citizen Kane-Sign saying no trespassing. Places in a movie are actors. Patterns, patterns, patterns.  Welles likes to introduce sights and sounds of the environment. o Wind, fire, and water (snow, rain, etc.). 8/31/11 Xanadu is Charles Foster Kane. Very soft, diffuse lighting is used to perceive the feelings of the movie. The movie uses a lot of matte and composite shots In the Projection room shot the only bright thing is the screen. “It will probably turn out to be a very simple thing.” 70 year span (1871-1941) 9/2/11 6. g. Convergence of lines draws your sight to Kane even when he is in the back not speaking. 6.j. intricate triangle set up. More depth between the foreground and the background. Welles used deep focus to give the movie go-er the option to decide where to look. 4.a. The library has a very uninviting tone. The architecture is the emblem of the person. The remoteness coldness represents Thatcher. As Kane moves into middle age he becomes more and more like Walter Thatcher. The lighting set up makes very dramatic with the shadows in the reading room. The camera as a participant observer, as a sort of investigative agency. 9/5/11 Mournful sound of the train when Kane is being taken as boy to the east. Rosebud is being covered in snow in the beginning and in the end it is consumed by fire. Cinema As an Art Form  First part of A Clockwork Orange is about tribe mentality. Alex and his gang are a tribe interested in ultra violence. Anthropological dimension in this movie.  Movie is series of repetition and rituals.  Starts with a focused shot and then zooms out to give more detail. o Given no context for the face o Not scene against a realistic background until it zooms out. o Gaze looks right at viewer. o You cannot be neutral about this shot. o Alex is trying to share his experience with the viewer and trying to set up a bond between us and him.  Drunk Man o Sits in the underpass o Close up and pulls back o Vulnerability is shown by his aloneness. o Alex and the gang’s shadows precede them; they are grossly elongated and distorted.  Shadows give foreshadowing of assault.  Kubrick uses these colors in ways that sort of work on you emotionally.  Kubrick likes to shoot straight into the light (like he is using light to assault the audience).  Movie is centered on performance (fighting, raping, etc.) 9/21/11  Casino/ Theater Scene o Alex and his gang meet a rival gang about to rape a woman on stage.  Arrival in the house of the writer. o In the novel “Alex stands near the typewriter and looks at the manuscript in the typewriter and the title says ‘A Clockwork Orange’ ”.  When he goes home. o He treats the money just like any other stuff. The things he cares for are his snake and his Beethoven. o He goes through a sort of ritual.  Going to the record shop o Kubrick is using a very wide angle lens. o Seems like the space warping away from Alex as he walks around  Showing his dominating presence. 9/23/11  Dancer home invasion o When he brings sculpture down it makes the scene explode  Prison Yard Scene o Minister of Interior enters to music 9/26/11 A fairytale or retribution. Center if movie is based around an imbalanced society Full Metal Jacket  Goodbye My Sweetheart  The shooting style is similar to that of a clockwork orange. 9/28/11 Cinema As an Art Form REVIEW MOVIES AND BOOK Kubrick’s camera moves a lot while Hitchcock does not move his camera. Hitchcock and Welles’s movies seem ordinary and every day, while Kubrick’s films are realistic but are antagonistic and inhospitable. How do the movies move? Do they move very quickly? Keep tempo and pace in mind while watching the movies. Act One: Process (Windup)  Military Training o Protocols and codes o Breaks down o When the sergeant hits joker, it is an example of how Kubrick uses angles to make it seem that the berating is focused on the viewer.  The war cry is used to show that he is part of a group (tribe). It is a type of mask as shown by Alex in A Clockwork Orange. o He is using a telephoto camera to show how the soldiers are being absorbed into their environment.  Telephoto lenses flatten the space. o Hyper-reality intensifies the action of the scene by using certain cinematic techniques to make it look hyper real. o The scene where Pile is beaten with soap is the turning point where he drifts into insanity.  He uses a highly synthetic track to heighten the unrealism of the scene.  In the last scene when Pile is in the bathroom, you see the mask he puts on (one of total estrangement or outsiderness). Act Two:  Warfare o Full of uncertainty and contradiction (Joker’s helmet saying “Born to Kill” and Peace symbol)  All the codes begin to breakdown o The last scene where Joker does a mercy kill on the sniper.  The lighting makes the people look deranged like Pile in the bathroom in the other scene. 9/30/11 The Shining  This movie emphasizes the centrality of place.  Bates motel, Xanadu, and Overlook Hotel  The Shining as an American morality play in the setting of a horror film. o Jack had been there before on the 4th of July in 1920.  First Shots o Very vast and expansive when Jack  Jack in the hotel. o A lot of American history icons in the hotel. (Native American patterns, rugs, and tapestries.) o Desecration of one culture’s past to make way for another. (Building of the overlook on Native American burial ground.) o Overlook is designed for the wealthy classes. 10/14/11 Cinema As an Art Form Scorsese is both an insider and an outsider.  He had asthma and therefore could not really play as a child and became an outsider  However he grew up in a thick Italian community where he was very much an insider.  Shaving Film o Does not seem to care that he is cutting himself o Taking an everyday routine activity and then becomes very weird and strange. o Drifts from what the audience is expecting. 10/17/11 Mean Streets Charlie who is the focus of the movie has very strong family ties. Charlie is a central character of the tribe but he still feels uneasy. He wants to breakout and yet still belong. “Games People Play”---Alternate title Sound bridges are used to a large extent in this movie. The first thing mentioned in the film is how to make up for your sins.  “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit.”  Charlie is all about consequences. He’s a mediator/good guy.  One of the first shots is Charlie in the church right after confession.  The Church is never far away in the early films of Scorsese.  Feast of Saint Geenaro o New York City’s Longest Running religious festival. o The very festival is used as a money making device for organized crime. Opening Credits  The home movie part is the Mean Streets style. o Very personal and very episodic o Informal and sporadic. 10/19/11 First scene when Johnny Boy enters the bar with two women  Moderate slow motion  Dim red lighting (extreme stylization of lighting)  Music takes over the sound effects 10/21/11 Sacred ground (cemetery) is where they have conversation about consequences.  Johnny Boy has a weak sense of consequences o He is loose cannon.  Charlie helps gets his debts lower as a sort of mediator. o He is all about consequences. o Has conflict between his own life as a petty crook and his own desire to get out and find his own way.  The End scene o Scorsese uses parallel construction to end the film. 10/24/11 Taxi Driver About mental disintegration. A very familiar sight (taxi cabs) is rendered unfamiliar because of style (slow motion and steam). Cinema As an Art Form Other films Slow Motion 12/5/11 Speech  Feel more comfortable when things are verbally communicated to us rather than shown to us visually.  Dialogue o Think about it in most of the Scorsese films. Most speech is idiomatic. It is of the streets and in the streets. “the Godfather is like an epic while my films are like a couple guys on the street corner having a conversation” o His speech is conversational and natural as if actually on the streets. o Spontaneity and improvisation gives a very natural flow. o In Kundun it is more artistic type of speech o Dialogue will be substantive or just there for the sake of creating atmosphere.  Voice over o The whole question of the reliable and unreliable narrator (Charlie and Henry) o The use of language can be kind and sincere or used as part of the ‘game’. o The up-close and personal voiceover we look at what their thoughts and perspective. o It is almost freighting-ly intimate in taxi driver. Noise  Usually present in the ambient sound track (or location soundtrack). The sounds of the location to make it seem more realistic.  What about those instances where he takes some element in the ambient sound and plays with it. Amplifies is or deemphasizes it. (Fight scenes in Raging Bull)  Taxi Driver o Scene right before Travis walks into the campaign headquarters right before he breaks it off with Betsy. It is interesting because we hear a ticking. It starts of as a natural sound of a clock ticking in the apartment but it gets louder and louder and louder until a cut to the next scene of Travis’s confrontation in the campaign headquarters. Music  The music that they think of in taxi driver is the mournful score and creates the mood of Travis  Sometimes the music used to reflect the music of the time period. However the lyrics of the songs become ironic and comment on the action or on the characters. Silence Always when talking about the film techniques do NOT just list them. Go in depth and explain how those techniques are being used. How is the film maker showing it to me? Lighting, framing, movement, etc. What effect does this all create?  Plausibility o Ask yourself is the world of the movie plausible?  What is this not?  Is there things about the story that don’t work for you  Sights and Sounds o Do they work together? Cinema As an Art Form o BY complementation or by contrast. o Voice over should add something to what the pictures are telling you.  Movement  Symbols o Do these symbols arise naturally from the film? If so they will be effective and good symbols. o Arise naturally from the visual world of the film.