Revolver: an incoherent mess of powder and chess

One of these things... 

Revolver (2007)

...Is not...

Snatch (2000)

...Like the other.

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

If a film is bad, who do you blame? Chances are you blame the director because we believe he is the leader on set and that it is his vision behind the camera. Before the success of Sherlock Holmes, British director and screenwriter Guy Ritchie was first known for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000). In examining his older films, I have seen how his earlier works have influenced what some claim to be his second worst film Revolver. Revolver is hard to understand because it is filled with a lot of details such as subtext, cluttered scenes, and multiple storylines. Using film noir and auteur theory, I examine Guy Ritchie’s film Revolver.

See the full essay written March 26, 2013 here.

French New Wave Anthology: Shoot The Piano Player

This anthology is part of my final assignment for a CMCL398: Post Nouvelle-Vague French Cinema. I have broken it up into parts so that it may read better. I started this blog with my favorite film Alphaville (http://aleafordproductions.blogspot.com/2011/05/french-new-wave-anthology-alphaville.html). I didn't like Shoot the Piano Player or Tirez sur le pianist, but don't take my word for it.

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30 April 2010

Shoot the Piano Player

Francois Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player (Tirez sur le pianist, 1960) is a black and white romantic film noir about Charlie Kohler, formally known as Edouard Sayoran (Charles Aznavour). He is a bar piano player who falls in love with the headstrong waitress Léna (Marie Dubois). Through the course of the movie, the audience learns about Charlie’s past life as Eduoard Sayoran.

            I really disliked this movie because the plot was hard to follow. Like film noir, this movie is told non-linearly. However, unlike most film noir, it is hard to distinguish the timeline in Shoot the Piano Player (“Piano”). Besides the flashbacks, Truffaut explores gender. This film reverses gender norms and expectations especially Charlie’s. Women, men, and their romantic relationships are not portrayed well in this film. Women like Charlie’s neighbor and Ed’s past wife are portrayed as prostitutes. The male characters talk about women in a demeaning way and in front of other women. The best example of this is the car scene towards the begging of the film.

Léna and Charlie are riding in a car with two gangsters. They are on their way to visit Charlie’s brother. Léna is seated on the passenger side, and Charlie is seated in the back and across from her. The other two men are on the other side. Léna is always shown in a single medium close-up shot whereas the other men are shown in a medium two shot. The gangsters are the dominant conversation starters and carriers. The driver talks about watching women in a voyeuristic and generalizing fashion when he says, “I’ve got an eye for the moment when the wind’s gonna lift a skirt or some nice legs gonna board a bus” (Truffaut, Shoot the Piano Player). They talk about women’s clothes, style, and their first experiences with them. Even Lena jokes and adds her comments and thoughts to the conversation. Eventually, Léna steps her foot on the accelerator and gets the car pulled over where Charlie and she make their escape. Despite being outnumbered and literally dragged into the situation, Lena is able to remain calm and strong. Unlike Charlie, Lena is confident and aggressive too. She has all the “male characteristics” and becomes the “man” of their intimate relationship when she takes Charlie’s arm as they walk down the street after the car scene. Charlie failed to grab Lena’s hand in an earlier similar scene (close-up). Even Lena notices Charlie’s shyness and ineptitude when she says, “I was dying for you to take my hand” and “You are shy and respect women” (Truffaut, Shoot the Piano Player).

However, Charlie later redeems himself when he surprisingly saves Léna from a verbal argument turned physical. In a wide shot, we see Léna arguing in the background with Plyne (Serge Davri) at the bar in the top left corner. Charlie is in the bottom right and is shown in a medium close-up. In a voice-over he decides not to get involved when he says, “Just take your seat, you don’t care one way or another” (Truffaut, Shoot the Piano Player). He walks over to the piano (medium shot) and starts to play (medium close-up). Meanwhile the argument gets more heated and is shown in a closer shot. Plyne raises his hand to slap Léna (medium shot). His arm goes out of frame. The camera suddenly pans over to reveal Charlie who had caught his arm (medium shot). This scene is more like the classic film noir that audiences are used to, but it’s different in this case because it was unexpected due to Charlie’s meek nature. On a more surprising note, Charlie was able to kill Plyne, but not before Plyne could say, “Woman is pure and delicate. Léna is a slut. She uses dirty words...” (Truffaut, Shoot the Piano Player). Like in The Bride Wore Black, the ideal woman is “pure and delicate” or in other words naïve, dresses modestly, doesn’t sleep around, and etc.

In conclusion, Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player is an interesting movie on gender and relationships. Truffaut continues his dialogue on gender and relationships in his later films such as The Bride Wore Black. He has complicated characters and complex, multiple storylines in Shoot the Piano Player, but afterwards, he becomes a lot more conservative.

Works Cited

• ·         Austin, Guy. Contemporary French Cinema: an Introduction. 2nd ed. Manchester, UK: Manchester UP, 2008. Print.

• ·         "The Bride Wore Black Review." TV Guide.com. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. <http://movies.tvguide.com/bride-wore-black/review/120111>.

• ·         "The Bride Wore Black." TCM Turner Classic Movies. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. <http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article.jsp?cid=236432&mainArticleId=246633>.

• ·         Ebert, Roger. "The Bride Wore Black :: Rogerebert.com :: Reviews." Rogerebert.com. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19681009/REVIEWS/810090301/1023>.

• ·         Internet Movie Database. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054389/>. Shoot The Piano Player

• ·         Internet Movie Database. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058898/>. Alphaville

• ·         The Internet Movie Database. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060675/>. Masculin, Féminin

• ·         The Internet Movie Database. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061955/>. The Bride Wore Black

• ·         "Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome-Artemis (Diana)." The World Wonders .Com. Web. 30 Apr. 2010. <http://www.theworldwonders.com/mythology/myths-legends19-artemis.html>.

French New Wave Anthology: Alphaville

I wrote my critique on Alphaville as part of my final assignment for CMCL 398: Post Nouvelle-Vague French Cinema. 

Jean-Luc Godard’s film Alphaville (Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution, 1965) is about an American secret agent named Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) who arrives in the futuristic city of the same name. While there, he falls in love with the mad scientist Von Braun’s daughter Natasha (Anna Karina). Natasha, like the other city’s inhabitants, is being controlled by her father’s (Howard Vernon) creation: the smart robot Alpha 60. Alpha 60 outlaws love and self expression. Alphaville is an excellent example of Godard’s tongue-in-cheek humor and counter-cinema ideas as he experiments mixing film genres, technical elements such as camera work and lighting, and plot elements.

This scene is my favorite from the film:

This is the original trailer from the film:

You can read my take on Alphaville here.

Return of the Quack (Midterm Project Critique)

I had to write a critique for my midterm project Return of the Quack. I went on to enter this video into MultiVisions 2011. MultiVisions is an annual contest/showcase in the Telecommunications Department at Indiana University, Bloomington. I didn't win the "Graphics for Video" category, but I was a runner-up. Below, you'll find what I had to say about my project.
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3 March 2011

Midterm Project Critique

            My midterm project is based on a photography project I had last spring semester. Last spring, I made a black and white, film noir inspired “photonovel” or a comic book with photographs. Unfortunately, because it is not a digital photography project, the pictures are not online. They are posted in a black sketchbook as part of a “detective’s file.” The story follows Detective John Wilson Hart as he battles corruption and other metropolitan issues in a New York police district. I started telling the story with his last case file where he is killed by Madam Madeline King at the end so the midterm project is a continuation of the storyline. John’s older brother Dr. Calvin Lloyd Hart takes over John’s business in an effort to bring down the people who murdered him.

The 30 second video is an advertisement notifying “fans” of the John Wilson Hart series when the next installment is going to be released via date and website. The ad is supposed to be dramatic, intriguing, and mysterious as the story introduces Dr. Hart. Upon watching it, fans will browse the website and buy the novel whereas nonfans will be inspired to learn more about the series. To make this dramatic ad, I used several tools in Photoshop and After Effects.

In Photoshop, I composed the backdrop and bloodstained badge. Using online tutorials, I made the foggy and rainy night scene using layers and various filters. For the rain, I used “add noise” and motion blur followed by levels under the adjustment settings. Finally, I added film grain to make it look like rain from a Frank Miller novel. Next, I created the silhouette of a man using an existing picture I found via a Google search.  This was the original picture:

I chose this picture because it was very large, had a white background that I could easily cut out, and had a subject in a simple pose wearing a fedora. This picture was perfect for my silhouette. I used the following layer properties: drop shadow, inner shadow, outer shadow, and stroke to turn this photo into a silhouette. I added a new layer, rendered clouds and then liquefied them to get my fog.  Finally, I used color, blend modes, and layer orders to get the right composition. The words were also made in Photoshop but in a separate file so that I can animate them easily. Besides the night scene, I made a bloodstained badge through an online Photoshop tutorial that utilized shapes, colors, layers, layer properties, burn tools, smudge tools, and varying opacities. Once I finished all of these elements I animated them in After Effects.

            My use of After Effects was strictly for animation. I did not create anything new in the program. I animated mostly words using the chapter “Textacy” from the course book. I animated the position, opacity, tracking, motion blur, scale, and leading to achieve a typing effect which adds to my crime drama themed book. I animated the title “Return of the Quack” using position and scale. Besides the text, I animated the badge’s position and rotation to make it look like it was rolling on the ground.

 My sounds were apple loops from Soundtrack Pro. It’s supposed to sound like Dr. Hart is walking in a thunderstorm until he meets Madam King. He says a “witty line” (“The Doctor will see you, Madam”) and cocks a gun. I personally thought everything sounded cool and worked for my theme, but I could have improved my image by adding vocals (i.e. a narrator’s and Dr. Hart’s) to the track. 

 Overall, I am satisfied with my 30 second ad, but I could improve it in numerous ways. I could have created the background in After Effects. The background was the most frustrating part of the project because it looked fine in the program but when outputted it looked compressed. I imported the background as Photoshop layers and as a TIFF besides rending out in higher quality (i.e. as an animation file), but nothing seems to work. My background is the only part I would definitely change if I had figured out how to create it in After Effects. Unfortunately, the book didn’t give me ideas on how to achieve this, and the few tutorials I did find required cameras, plug-ins, or tools beyond my understanding and skill. Besides the background, I would have added vocals, slowed down the badge, manipulated a photo I owned (to make it 100% legal) and changed the pacing of my text (because it was very slow). In conclusion, I have learned a lot more about After Effects and Photoshop, and though I did use a lot of Photoshop to make the commercial, the techniques I learned such as burn, smudge, and liquidfy might be transferrable to After Effects. Now that I know what tools exist I must find them in After Effects.