Monday, May 14, 2012

Singin' In the Rain paper


 Singin' in the rain



1.      Singin' in the rain 1952
Musical comedy
Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donnen
Starring Gene Kelly, Donald O’ Connor and Debbie Reynolds
Cinematography by Harold Rosson

2.      Singin' in the rain tells the story of Don Lockwood a famous silent film star and how he comes to deal with different problems that enter his life. The first is his leading lady Lina Lamot who is convinced they are in love even though Don hates her. The second is learning to make a talkie picture that doesn’t get laughed out of the cinema by the audience (as the characters come to find their movie). The third is meeting a woman whom he falls in love with (Kathy Selden) and Lina becomes jealous and tries to sabotage their relationship and their picture the dueling cavalier in the process.

3.      The way in which singing in the rain relates to my text is through the section about musicals. It follows the genre of the musical on a basic level but it also challenges or goes beyond the genre conventions. Besides just being a movie that includes song and dance numbers it also tells the story of silent Hollywood and the troubles that people had with adapting to the changing technologies and times. So this film works on two different levels just as Hugo is not just only a kids film but it is enlightening to the story of Georges Méliès and his contributions to cinema.

4.      The theory that applies to this film would be genre studies in which the film is examined and patterns are found relating it to other films that have similar patterns and themes. Singing in the rain shares similarities with other musical comedy films such as The Bandwagon, 42nd Street and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Through genre conventions the audience can come to make certain judgments about the film based on other films they have previously seen from this genre. Genre resonates with people because of the familiarity as well as short hand conventions these things allow people to instantly recognize what is going on in a given situation in the film based on previous events in previous films.   


5.      The two articles I chose to write about for singin' in the rain are a review by Roger Ebert and More than meets the eye in Singin’ in the Rain and Day and Night by James Card.  In Roger Ebert’s article he talks about how the film was not instantly recognized for its greatness and it won no awards and it wasn’t until the late 50s that it was characterized as a classic by MGM. The second article More than meets the eye in Singin’ in the rain and Day and night analyses how the film had come to have a profound affect on people like Francois Truffaut whom considered it a classic which he studied every frame of it. The article also analyses how both films have similar content in they both hold many allusions to other films such as the jazz singer or John Gilbert’s first talkie where audiences openly laughed when he repeated I love you, I love you.
  
6.      I had heard a lot about this film but had never seen it before watching it in class. I am also not a fan of musicals (the only other two I have seen are Chicago and Nine) but I was simply amazed by the entire film and I found myself looking up the dance numbers on youtube. They are technical and amazing yet also retain a certain degree of humor and wit. Besides just being a musical it also explores the change of Hollywood from silent to talkies and shows the problems that came along with such monumental changes. It really enlightened the public conscious to earlier shifting events that affect the way we view movies, especially for people of our generation who have no recollection of such prior events.

Bibliography

Ebert D, Roger. "Singin' In The Rain :: Rogerebert.com :: Reviews." Rogerebert.com. 18 June 1998. Web. 05 May 2012. <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980618/REVIEWS/806180301/1023>.

Card, James. "More Than Meets the Eye' in Singin' in the Rain and Day for Night." Literature Film Quarterly 12.2 (1984): 87-96. Print.

                                                                  CHECKLIST FOR PLAGIARISM
7.      1)      (    x )  I have not handed in this assignment for any other class.
8.      2)       (  x  )  If I reused any information from other papers I have written for other classes, I clearly explain that in the paper.
9.      3)       (  x  )  If I used any passages word for word, I put quotations around those words, or used indentation and citation within the text.
10.  4)      (    x )  I have not padded the bibliography. I have used all sources cited in the bibliography in the text of the paper.
11.  5)      (  x   )  I have cited in the bibliography only the pages I personally read.
12.  6)      (  x   )  I have used direct quotations only in cases where it could not be stated in another way. I cited the source within the paper and in the bibliography.
13.  7)      ( x    )  I did not so over-use direct quotations that the paper lacks interpretation or originality.  
14.  8)      ( x     )  I checked yes on steps 1-7 and therefore have been fully transparent about the research and ideas used in my paper.


          Name_____Matthew Larue_______________ Date___________5/5/12________________


Friday, March 2, 2012

Breathless Essay



Breathless

1.       1959, romance/ drama, directed by Jean Luc Godard, written by Francois Truffaut and Jean Luc Godard, Stars Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.

2.       Breathless tells the story of a petty criminal named Michel who stole a car and killed a patrolman who chased after him. Michel stays in the city and spends his time trying to convince his American girlfriend Patricia to run away to Rome with him. He eventually convinces her to run away but she ends up betraying him and Michel ends up getting gunned down by the police collapsing in the street out of breath after a chase.

3.       Breathless relates to my text because the movie uses many of the principles of film that are mentioned in chapter two. The most important are the use of lighting in the film, it being shot in black and white and using elements of realism. The lighting in the movie is sparse and natural usually being found coming through windows and open city streets. The lack of lighting actually makes it seem more realistic which is along besides the dialogue and setting ways in which the film was shaped in a realistic tone. The characters were not generic cut outs in the way many Hollywood had typical type characters and the settings were very basic and shot naturally.

4.       The film theory that I think applies to this movie is the editing to the movie. Godard used jump cuts within movement or dialogue to help show the illusion of continuous time and space within the movie. The scene where Patricia is driving in the car with Michel is an example where a jump cut causes her head to turn abruptly and it in turn creates a jarring effect through the emphasis of the two distinct shots.

Jump Cut 1 

Jump Cut 2
 


5.       The popular article that I found for Breathless is an essay by Roger Ebert in which he talks about the influence of the film and how some of the technical marvels were achieved. Ebert speaks about how the film was as influential as Citizen Kane and a precursor to all of the film detailing youth revolt that came about during the 60s. Ebert says breathless had gathered “a body of legend” about its shooting, between the spontaneous feel of the film, the quickly written dialogue and makeshift techniques. The actors were given lines for the shoots briefly before hand so they could keep a spontaneous and fresh feeling to the film. They also shot scenes handheld shunning lighting and lacking in equipment such as dollies which they substituted for a wheelchair. Ebert ends by saying that Godard achieved a turning point in cinema that rivaled Welles and D.W. Griffith. The second scholarly article is titled The Cinema of the Interstice:Jean Luc Godard’s Prenom Carmen and the Power of Montage. The article deals with the director’s use of montage and how he uses it to cut through reality from different types of images.  Montage is considered important to use in creating a style of cinematography that is more advanced that previous styles in film making.

6.       I felt that breathless was an exceptional film that paid homage to American cinema and built upon it to create something new and unique.  It told a story that seemed to be gritty and realistic, being shot hand held gives it a feeling that a steady camera would not evoke. Watching the movie I see all the movies that came after it involving the young man trying to play a tough guy, I see influence in less romanticized more gritty tales that came about in the 60s and 70s. Godard may have framed his movie after American films before it but his movie went on to influence American directors to create movies using his same aesthetics.  

Bibliography

Ebert, Roger. "Breathless :: Rogerebert.com :: Great Movies." Rogerebert.com. 20 July 2003. Web. 02 Mar. 2012.

Youngjeen, Choe. “The Cinema of the Interstice: Jean Luc Godard’s Prenom Carmen and the Power of Montage.” Quarterly Review of Film and Video, April-June 2006, Vol. 23 Issue 2, p111-127, Print



CHECKLIST FOR PLAGIARISM
1)      (  x  )  I have not handed in this assignment for any other class.
2)       (  x )  If I reused any information from other papers I have written for other classes, I clearly explain that in the paper.
3)       (x  )  If I used any passages word for word, I put quotations around those words, or used indentation and citation within the text.
4)      (  x  )  I have not padded the bibliography. I have used all sources cited in the bibliography in the text of the paper.
5)      (  x  )  I have cited in the bibliography only the pages I personally read.
6)      (   x )  I have used direct quotations only in cases where it could not be stated in another way. I cited the source within the paper and in the bibliography.
7)      (  x  )  I did not so over-use direct quotations that the paper lacks interpretation or originality.   
8)      ( x    )  I checked yes on steps 1-7 and therefore have been fully transparent about the research and ideas used in my paper.


Name_________________Matthew Larue ______________________ Date_____2/28/12______________________