Entry #26

May 6

We watched Hannah's group's film. My notes are below.

Blanche

Overall:

-Confusing, underdeveloped concept/script

-Deeper meaning is not conveyed well and not really effective

-Dragged in the end

-Cinematography was okay, nothing special but nothing bad.

-It just didn't made sense. Would've been much better if more time was spent in creating a narrative.

-The pace was too consistent throughout. Felt slow even though there was a lot of chases.

-Portals? Only one really good one, which was the bathroom one.

Sound: 

-Music was appropriate but it felt as if the song was monotonous. I think it's mainly to do with the script not having any climaxes or peaks and didn't help the song. Also, near the end of the movie, the volume of the song decreased quite randomly. It was more of a disruption and ruined the illusion of a movie. 

-Just did not work with the movie that much.

We then moved on to our next unit, which we will be dealing with Wong Kar Wai. I learned a lot this class not only about Wong Kar Wai but of making montages. It's certainly one of the exclusive aspects film has over other art forms.

Although the concept of montages aren't new to me, I had no idea there were different types of montages: metric, intellectual, rhythmic, tonal, and overtonal. They can help enhance either the story telling, the atmosphere, or even the symbolism. 

The most interesting thing I learned today was the Kuleshov Experiment as well as an explanation by Alfred Hitchcock. It is where there are two cuts, a close up of the person's eyes, and another shot. You can substitute the second shot and convey different opinions and emotions towards either the person or the film itself. I thought it was a really interesting and clever technique/experiment.

We learned about Eisenstein and his belief that 'editing could be used for more than just showing a scene. The collision of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors". 

From the movies I've seen, I've seen plenty of montages, usually from sports movies that shows either the player or team working out (i.e. Rocky). But there are a few movies that uses montages very effectively. "The Departed" by Martin Scorsece uses a lot, but my favorite in particular is the one where the title finally appears, and Leonardo DiCaprio is in prison while Matt Damon is enjoying his new home. Click here and go to 9:50 in the video. Another one is from the Godfather and its famous scene with the murder of the 5 families. Click here. And there are other movies that have montages like American Gangster, The Dark Knight, Snatch, etc. 

I think I'm pretty familiar with Wong Kar Wai even though I've only watched 3 of his movies: My Blueberry Nights, Days of Being Wild, and In the Mood for Love. I liked the first two. In the Mood for Love was probably only for devout WKW fans.

His style is needless to say unique, probably under the 'artsy' film genre. His kinds of movies are generally hard to appreciate because they are so unconventional and slow. We gathered from watching his movies that his style is disjointed, vague story line, ambivalent plot, and sporadic appearances from characters, which all defies the audience's expectations and makes viewers conscious that they are watching a film. This made me wonder why WKW is so critically acclaimed because he basically just does everything your not supposed to do in making a movie.

I think it works because of two things: his very stylized, beautiful cinematography and framework, and his 'poetic' approach in making films. Even though it makes it very difficult to understand and appreciate WKW, if/when we do, the reward is much sweeter. 

For the next task we are to write a script based on any image. The script needs to incorporate WKW style. 

I was an IB Learner: 

Communicative: discussed my opinions about WKW and the film

Reflective: Reflected on the pros and cons of Blanche.

Inquirer: Curious about WKW and montage editing.