Post 16

I would just like to say that I have enjoyed this class so much throughout the year and am very glad that I took it.
Personally, I feel like 1979 is still one of the greatest years in film, though my knowledge and understanding of the medium has grown so much since the time that I chose it. The films that I chose for that year each hit me in a profound way.
Apocalypse Now was the first film I had ever seen that left me with a sense of awe. The graphic, horrible beauty of it left me speechless and introduced me to the power of film.
Stalker is one of my all-time favorite films by one of my favorite directors. You can feel the world of the film, and it sucks you into it.
Mad Max showed me that it was possible to make a commercially successful sci-fi film for the cost of an expensive house. Its $400,000 budget is trivial when compared to many inferior Hollywood blockbusters.
I did however love many of the films that we watched in class. Bonnie and Clyde blew me away. It was so surprising to me that I had never seen such an amazing and important piece of American cinema.
John Cocteau’s Orpheus was wonderful. There is just no other way I can describe it. I plan on watching his other films soon.
Overall, this class has just been a great experience this semester. It is one of my favorite courses that I have taken. Thank you for that!

Final Post

For my very first discussion I chose to talk about the year 1999 in film. Although there were a heck of a whole lot of other tremendously great and influential years of film, I would still like to stand by my decision because it was based on personal experience. Because I’ve learned so much from this class, my decision could always change in the future once I start watching more films from the eras we’ve discussed. What I like about 1999 are the directors that it attributes such as Stanley Kubrick, Spike Jonze, David Lynch (love him for Twin Peaks), and John Lasseter.

Overall, I’m really glad I took this course because of the amount of knowledge I was able to attain in such a short period.

Week 16 Discussion Post

While revisiting my first discussion post I though back on all the wonderful films that I watched and how many groundbreaking years of film there has been. Perhaps it’s just nostalgia, but for me, the best year for films is still 1985. Of course there are years of film release that have better productions and more social conscientiousness, but there’s something about this time that fascinates me. There’s no others era where films like these were being made, which I believe is the consequence of the unique period of time that the United States was going through. The country was on the brink of a technological revolution, but still wasn’t quite there yet. In many ways, old social structures were still in existence but crumbling in order to make way for a level playing field. I have grown an appreciation for older years in film when experimentation was the norm and new ways of making films was expected. They not only advanced in the technology being used, but also, the writing, acting, and directing that we are now familiar with today. I feel as though 1985 endeavored on a bit of experimentation as well. Though cinematographic aspects remained relatively the same, story writing in these films was really starting to take off. These films aimed to tell stories that enriched the audiences perspective on social issues, particularly those dealing with adolescence. My thoughts on this question will most likely change over the coming years when I broaden my film experience, however, for the time being the best year is still 1985.

Fifty Four Year Old Magic

Even the most amateur sleuth could see that I did not do my first blog post or even figure out WordPress until the second week of class, but that did not keep me from pondering its topic for the entirety of the class. I eventually came to a conclusion that I still feel comfortable with, and that is that they best year for cinema was 1960.

There are five main films made in 1960 that justify this position: À bout de souffle by Jean-Luc Godard, Tirez sur le pianiste by François Truffaut, Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick, La Dolce Vita by Frederico Fellini, and Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock. With the exception of Psycho, none of these films represent my favorite work of their respective director, but all are terribly important films and show clear signs of the talent we will see in their later works.

À bout de souffle was not the first French New Wave film, but certainly one of the earlier and more definitive films of the movement. Together with Truffaut’s second film, Tirez sur le pianiste, the two auteurs built upon Truffaut’s previous movement-defining film Les 400 coups to relate the genre more to its sense of free experimental nature we know if for today.

Spartacus is my least favorite Kubrick film, but that is hardly an insult to the man. It was the film Kubrick had the least control over but it’s commercial success made him a household name, free to take command over his films and release more experimental masterpieces like 2001: A Space Odyssey seven years later.

La Dolce Vita similarly paved the way for future masterpieces. By winning the Palm d’Or, La Dolce Vita made Fellini a recognizable name within the community of film critics and aided in his ability to make 8½ in 1963.

Psycho is the big winner here, being a permanent placeholder in my top horror films of all time. This film did so much for the horror genre and film as a medium (and I’m not just talking about showing toilets on screen). It is a movie filled with sex and violence, with mental disease and mistrust. It revolutionized narrative structure by killing off protagonist Marion Crane before the halfway point in the film. Essentially, Psycho took audiences and asked them “do you know what a movie is?” then challenged them on every level to compare it to a traditional film.

So is 1960 my favorite year in film? I’m comfortable saying it is, but I am more comfortable calling it the most important year. While not my favorite films, they certainly deserve merit and appreciation and laid the groundwork for some of the greatest films ever made.

Week 16 Discussion

It has been a pretty great semester. I am really glad I took this class, I feel like I will appreciate films in many different ways now.

After looking back at our first week of discussion posts, I remembered I chose 1994 as my favorite year of film. It has a lot of my favorite movies contained in that year such as: Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Leon: The Professional and Clerks. Looking at it now from the end of the semester, I still stand by that year.

I think that 1994 was very special in what it gave to the world of cinema. Those films that I mentioned went on to define an entire generation of modern cinema, and still does to this day.

The world was transitioning through the end of the Gulf War. A lot of these films dealt with violence, but in an almost humorous approach. Pulp Fiction was had morally corrupt characters abound, but it also explored the lighter, quieter sides, of them as well. Forrest Gump had actual war as part of its narrative and has some of the most iconic scenes of military life as part of that.

Clerks dealt with the monotony of everyday life, not being content with what you have and always struggling for more. I feel that the 90’s was a decade of a lot of those types of feelings and Clerks really personified that.

Leon: The Professional was a foreign film, but used a young Natalie Portman to portray its message of loss of innocence.

I hope everyone has a great holiday!

Week 15 Discussion Post

After hearing we were going to watch the film Snowpiercer in class, the last thing to enter my mind on what the film may have been about would have been a people revolting in train to take control of it. This film is definitely something to new to me and I really enjoyed what I saw ad never in my mind could I see a driven and complex story like this from a joint film.  Along with this film came some very intriguing themes that relate to Korean themes such as themes class struggle and revolt. One other major theme is the psychological twist in the end that ends up relating to real world scenarios such as natural selection. While this movie as all the aspects of America style Hollywood, there are some hesitations that would prevent this film from being shown in the states. One of the obvious factors are the excessive violence that happens especially the scene when they battle their way through the mercenaries with axes. The psychological aspect could also pose as a problem for showing this film in America. This film also brings a lot of hybridity to it and that’s what probably makes this film so great. The use of American actors such as Chris Evans brings a lot of variety to the film and how they adapted to the films dark nature made the acting much better. The mixing of Korean and American themes also make for a good setting to the story as well.

Week 15 Discussion Post

I was actually pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this film, I read the short synopsis on Netflix at some point and had planned to watch it. While watching the film I didn’t even pay close attention to the hybridization of contrasting film styles, however, after looking at it through this lens it is very easy to see. This film felt so much like a Hollywood blockbuster, yet I kept being reminded of other films, while watching, that were quite the opposite. While blockbusters can certainly have dark elements sprinkled throughout, this film was doused in them. It shows the true nature of people in unfortunate circumstances and in that way provides great insight into the psychology of humanity as a whole, especially the last sequence with Wilford. The Korean influences in this film are seen particularly well when it comes to the plot. Distrust of authority figures, or government in general, is a common theme that is seen in many Korean films. I don’t feel as though this film would have found much success if it would’ve leaned too heavily on either side of the spectrum, in terms of hybridization. I thought that it was able to balance these two genres with great eloquence and often times it felt as though I was watching any other action film released through Hollywood, and others, it felt like I was watching something completely new. I feel that this hybridization is a great thing for cinema. It exposes people to new aspects of filmmaking that they might have not been previously aware of.

Discussion 15

Having read the description of Snowpiercer on Netflix before actually seeing it in class, I was skeptical as to whether or not this film was for me. The movie itself was just as ridiculous as it sounded, but in a glorious and unforgettable way that was entirely new to me. The film seemed to run the gamut of emotions that are possible, and still maintain a cohesive storyline (as far as such a heavily stylized film can). I was very impressed.
The heavily Korean theme of revolution and distrust of authority pervades throughout and allows for the plot to develop rather quickly and effectively. Snowpiercer was much more than just a Korean genre film, and had many intellectual undertones. Weinstein was probably worried that this would push away much of the American audience who, if you can infer from Weinstein’s stance, were either not interested in intellectuality or would not even understand it. If Weinstein had been able to get his hands on Snowpiercer a fundamental aspect of this film would have been lost.
Much of Korean film is genre based. Snowpiercer falls in line with the dystopian science fiction genre, and is the result of an attempt to solve global warming once and for all. The irony of this is striking, and is mirrored in the plot of the film itself. Curtis attempts to lead a revolution that will theoretically save his people from their squalid conditions, only to find out that this revolution was doomed to fail from the beginning. In both cases, trying to solve a large problem has even larger consequences.

Discussion Post 15

The diversity found in Snowpiercer is quite clear and although it did incorporate elements reminiscent of Hollywood, there were many cultural references to be appreciated. I think for this reason alone the film was a lot more bearable than most Action, Sci-Fi movies out there. I found it interesting how the literary source behind the film is based on a French graphic novel titled “Le Transperceneige” and Joon-ho Bong, the man who directed the film, is of Korean decent. Not to mention, this is also the first English language film done by Bong and even though most of the script was in English, there was still a Korean feel to it. Of course something that stood out to me as Hollywood were the main actors, Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton, because they are both fairly well known stars in Hollywood films. However, Bong casted actors of many different nationalities which helped set the tone for international cinema. One thing that also stuck out me that I found unique was the actual narrative of the film because it reminded me of something I had previously experienced from watching a foreign film. I believe that the hybridity between Korean and U.S. cultures gives the film an upper-hand because it’s a good way to entice the public and connect with people of various descents. I think it’s a valuable thing to be able to watch the works of people from other countries because its a very interesting experience. Learning about Joon-ho Bong actually reminds me of Chan-wook Park, another Korean director who expanded to U.S., & who also directed Oldboy which was a fantastic film.

Discussion Post Week 15

Snowpiercer was the best movie I have seen in a very long time. It took me very long to figure out that Chris Evans, the same actor who was Captain America in the Hollywood-ized The Avengers, was the man who made it all happen in this film. I researched co-production films and found it interesting that The Marshall Plan was initially the start of co-production films because it stated that countries can not take film profits by foreign exchange out of European countries; this to me shows how influential films become.

There are bits of Hollywood still seeping through this multi-cultural film. The few famous American actors, the action scenes, and the scenic mountains and cites created by green screen are examples of pieces of Hollywood. However, Snowpiercer has far more depth to it than the usual American films. Modern Korean films have a much darker feel than what American audiences view. It showed the world incredibly bleak and without hope. Right from the start of the film these were the elements that made Snowpiercer seem so foreign audiences; hence, not you usual Hollywood film. It’s a fairly simple plot with a large amount going on in only a few train boxes.

The Weinstein Company was turned off by the non-American director and the Korean dialogue. They didn’t think that a Korean filmmaker could make a film that would appeal to American audiences.