Below are the handouts for the individual films from ENG 230, Spring 2006. SIN CITY (FRANK MILLER’S SIN CITY) Directors: Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, with guest director Quentin Tarantino Producers: Elizbeth Avellán, Frank Miller, and Robert Rodriguez Screenplay: Frank Miller, based on his graphic novels Cinematography: Robert Rodriguez Editing: Robert Rodriguez Original Music: Robert Rodriguez, John Debny, and Graeme Revell Principal Actors: Jessica Alba (Nancy), Devon Aoki (Miho), Alexis Bledel (Becky), Powers Boothe (Senator Roark), Rosario Dawson (Gail), Benicio Del Toro (Jackie Boy), Michael Clarke Duncan (Manute), Carla Gugino (Lucille), Josh Hartnett (The Salesman), Rutger Hauer (Cardinal Roark), Jaime King (Goldie/Wendy), Michael Madsen (Bob), Brittany Murphy (Shellie), Clive Owen (Dwight), Mickey Rourke (Marv), Nick Stahl (Roark Jr./Yellow Bastard), Bruce Willis (Hartigan), Elijah Wood (Kevin) Year of Release: 2005 Running Time: 124 minutes Background: Taking its creative origin in Frank Miller’s graphic novel series, Sin City represents perhaps the most faithful filmic adaptation of another text, graphic or otherwise. Miller’s series itself, however, blends a variety of literary and cinematic inspirations, primarily pulp fiction and film noir. Stylistically, Sin City tears beyond these formalistic allusions by depicting an urban landscape even more impossibly moody and foreboding than the grittiest gangster movie. The violence and sexual energy are much more intense than traditional film noir, although Sin City contains such noir elements as morally ambiguous tough guy protagonists, femmes fatales, and nonlinear, confusing plots and subplots. Aside from the acting, dialogue, and narrative structure, also watch for such touches of film noir as the shots involving high contrast lighting, the jazzy musical score, and the bleak, stark mise en scène. Like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Sin City was shot entirely using greenscreen technology, which made possible both the dirty, metropolitan feel of the movie’s digital environments as well as the occasional use of color or highlighting in the otherwise black-and-white palette. Exploiting these technological innovations for all they are worth, Sin City invents a new look for a movie that is solidly grounded in the legacy of comic books, pulp dime novels, and film noir. *********** THE BIG SLEEP Director: Howard Hawks Producer: Howard Hawks Screenplay: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman, based on the novel by Raymond Chandler Cinematography: Sid Hickox Editing: Christian Nyby Original Music: Max Steiner Principal Actors: Humphrey Bogart (Philip Marlowe), Lauren Bacall (Vivian Sternwood Rutledge), John Ridgely (Eddie Mars), Martha Vickers (Carmen Sternwood), Dorothy Malone (Acme Bookstore Proprietress), Peggy Knudsen (Mona Mars), Regis Toomey (Chief Inspector Bernie Ohls), Charles Waldron (General Sternwood), Charles D. Brown (Norris, Sternwood’s Brother), Bob Steele (Lash Canino), Elisha Cook, Jr. (Harry Jones), Louis Jean Heydt (Joe Brody) Year of Release: 1946 Running Time: 114 minutes Background: With its snappy dialogue, twisted plotlines, and down-and-dirty ambience, The Big Sleep is quintessential film noir. The film also capitalizes on the chemistry Howard Hawks has discovered between Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in his earlier, Hemingway-based To Have and Have Not; in fact, The Big Sleep was re-edited to accentuate the relationship between Philip Marlowe and Vivian Sternwood Rutledge, so as to satisfy audiences who craved to see more of the off-screen romance Bogart and Bacall kindled during their previous shoot. But The Big Sleep was and is more than fodder for trivial Hollywood gossip, as it coalesces many of the most famous components of film noir mysteries into an archetypal tale where the style of the convoluted narrative is much more engaging than the plot’s actual resolution and denouement. Also, The Big Sleep melds the writing talents of Raymond Chandler (famous with Dashiell Hammett for shaping the tone of harboiled crime thrillers and their cinematic film noir counterparts) with William Faulkner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Southern novelist who subsidized his income by writing Hollywood scripts. According to a famous anecdote, Faulkner called Chandler for help sorting out the confusing novel; specifically, Faulkner wanted to know who shot the chauffeur during the script-writing process, and Chandler, not knowing an answer, replied that the butler did it. Chandler’s glib response provides one of the best ways to enjoy The Big Sleep: forget the technicalities of the plot holes and relish the movie’s rich style. *********** M Director: Fritz Lang Screenplay: Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou, based on the article "Murderers Among Us" ("Mörder unter us") by Egon Jacobson Producer: Seymour Nebenzal Cinematography: Fritz Arno Wagner Editing: Paul Falkenberg Principal Actors: Peter Lorre (Hans Beckert), Ellen Widmann (Madame Beckmann), Inge Landgut (Elsie Beckmann), Otto Wernicke (Inspector Karl Lohmann), Theodor Loos (Inspector Groeber), Gustaf Gründgens (Schränker), Friedrich Gnaβ (Franz the burglar), Fritz Odemar (The cheater) Year of Release: 1931 Running Time: 110 minutes Background: In his first sound motion picture, M, Fritz Lang creates a dark, brooding landscape, capturing the film’s dread through the thick shadows, through the stuttering, whistled repetition of a motif from Grieg’s Peer Gynt, and through the everyday details his camera focuses on while horrible things are happening out of frame. Withholding the grisly details of the child murders in many senses accuses the audience, involving their imaginations of what is happening and thus spreading the guilt and dread of the film’s anti-hero, Hans Beckert. M has had a tremendous cinematic influence, on thrillers, on the genre of film noir, and on portraits of psychosis, but the film was allegedly almost quashed by Nazi authorities, as they did not care for the implications of its original title, Murders Among Us. After all, while the storyline of M draws its roots from real-life child murderer Peter Kürten, "the monster of Düsseldorf," Lang’s most savage indictment is reserved for the mob thinking whipped up by the indistinguishable corrupt police and organized criminals. According to the lore surrounding the film, Lang’s allegorical criticism of fascist mobs prompted Nazi death threats, and, eventually, Lang immigrated to America to continue his film career. While M may be somewhat tame by today’s thriller standards, its gloomy depiction of the spectrum of violent mentalities remains as critical and current today as it did upon its release. *********** THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (DAS KABINETT DES DOKTOR CALIGARI) Director: Robert Wiene Producers: Rudolf Meinert and Erich Pommer Screenplay: Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer Cinematography: Willy Hameister Editing: Robert Weine Principal Actors: Werner Krauss (Dr. Caligari), Conrad Veidt (Cesare), Friedrich Feher (Francis), Lil Dagover (Jane), Hans Heinrich von Twardowski (Alan), Rudolf Lettinger (Dr. Olson) Year of Release: 1920 Running Time: 70 minutes Background: Although many critics have attributed German Expressionism to a variety of social, cultural, and historical forces, one of its of undeniable aesthetic influences lies in expressionist art, which sought to map characters’ emotional affect outward onto objects and landscapes, rather than capture the essence of the material world through the tenets of impressionism. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari provides one of the most easily recognizable examples of German Expressionism’s stark, harsh environments, as the sets, makeup, costuming, and lighting all veer far from any sort of naturalistic depiction. The dark tale of murder, manipulation, and madness obtains a sense of whimsy through its almost childlike sets, with their extreme angles and overblown shapes, but this fanciful atmosphere quickly acquires a mystical, jittery undercurrent to it. In its initial form, the film did not have the narrative bookends of the asylum scenes that we now see, but these additions—while they drastically change the scope and tone of the story—serve to layer Caligari with more elaborate convolutions; the characters and their stories are just as twisted as the landscape, making reality itself unreliable in Dr. Caligari’s ominous world. Due in part to the otherworldly qualities of the film’s mise en scène, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was tremendously influential in its impact on the genres of film noir, horror, and suspense, because its distinctive look—playing as it does with archetype and stereotype—departed so absolutely from any sort of realism. Moreover, the basic narrative elements of Caligari’s storyline have become the foundations for many subsequent mysteries, thrillers, and monster movies, much like the bizarre, elaborate visuals have impacted the aesthetic style of directors from Orson Welles to Tim Burton. *********** REAR WINDOW Director: Alfred Hitchcock Producer: Alfred Hitchcock, for Paramount Studios Screenplay: John Michael Hayes, from a novelette by Cornell Woolrich Cinematography: Robert Burks Editing: George Tomasini Music: Frank Waxman Principal Actors: James Stewart (L. B. Jeffries), Grace Kelly (Lisa Fremont), Thelma Ritter (Stella), Wendell Corey (Tom Doyle), Raymond Burr (Lars Thorwald) Year of Release: 1954 Running Time: 112 minutes Background: In this story of voyeurism and amateur detectives, Hitchcock takes a direct look at the human desire to watch, linking vision and power. An excellent example of classical cinema, Rear Window combines some of the sharpest editing, sound, photography, and acting with a plot that touches the subconscious to create a powerful viewing experience for the audience. Hitchcock’s methodical attention to detail shows throughout the carefully composed shots, involving everything from framing to costumes to props. As the film unfolds, the themes of justice and judgment are interwoven with the compulsion to see without being seen. In short, Hitchcock manipulates our desire to control through seeing by teasingly showing us what we want to see while constantly threatening to cut short the voyeuristic experience. By making the protagonist a photographer, the film explores contemporary culture’s obsession with visually capturing and controlling, judging through seeing, and that obsession results in both punishment and reward within the film’s scope. While Rear Window has the style and structure of carefully balanced classical cinema, the stylistic flourishes of the lighting scheme also illustrate how illumination and darkness relate to innocence and guilt, dominance and subjugation, good and evil, as well as other paradigms connected to vision. The psychological desire to see, which we experience as an audience throughout much of the film, is known as scopophilia, a theoretical model proposed by Sigmund Freud that explicates the childhood fantasy of being invisible and being able to witness anything unseen. In laying bare this primal urge, Hitchcock exposes the attraction of cinema itself, our enjoyment from watching while still remaining "safe" in the comfort of our seats. *********** KIDS Director: Larry Clark Producer: Cary Woods Screenplay: Harmony Korine Cinematography: Eric Edwards Editing: Christopher Tellefsen Original Music: Lou Barlow and John Davis Principal Actors: Leo Fitzpatrick (Telly), Justin Pierce (Casper), Chloë Sevigny (Jennie), Rosario Dawson (Ruby), Yakira Peguero (Darcy), Sajan Bhagat (Paul), Michele Lockwood (Kim), Harold Hunter (Harold), Joseph Knopfelmacher (Taxi Driver) Year of Release: 1995 Running Time: 91 minutes Background: Although Kids veers into such morally ambiguous territory as teenage sex, drug abuse, and violence, Larry Clark presents his young subjects with more respect than the average exploitation film, making more of a statement than simply indulging in titillation. Also, by shooting with amateur actors, using available light, ambient sound, handheld camera, and low-resolution film stock, Clark adds a greater sense of realism to the rarely seen, sometimes unpleasant urban youth subculture. Because Kids portrays 24 hours of these teenage New Yorkers’ lives, without the restrictions of employment or school, the film unfolds with a kind of unhurried intensity, flying from one recreational location to the next just as its characters do, with only the loosest of final goals waiting for these activities’ culmination. The documentary feel of most of the movie mirrors Larry Clark’s earlier career as a photographer capturing spontaneous images of teenagers indulging in various social taboos. By presenting these images without inviting judgment or even position within a moral framework, Clark avoids the pat sentimentality and preachy self-righteousness that typically accompany depictions of "bad kids." Even a decade after its release, Kids still retains a fair amount of the notoriety that accompanied its critical acclaim, and the film’s screenwriter Harmony Korine, who was a teenager when he penned the script with Clark’s encouragement, has likewise acquired a reputation for his other arthouse film projects, such as Gummo and julien donkey-boy. *********** DO THE RIGHT THING Director: Spike Lee Producers: Jon Kilik, Spike Lee, and Monty Ross Screenplay: Spike Lee Cinematography: Ernest R. Dickerson Editing: Barry Alexander Brown Music: Bill Lee Principal Actors: Spike Lee (Mookie), Dan Aiello (Sal), Ossie Davis (Da Mayor), Ruby Dee (Mother Sister), Richard Edson (Vito), Giancarlo Esposito (Buggin’ Out), Bill Nunn (Radio Raheem), John Turturro (Pino), Paul Benjamin (ML), Frankie Faison (Coconut Sid), Robin Harris (Sweet Dick Willie), Joie Lee (Jade), Samuel L. Jackson (Love Daddy), Rosie Perez (Tina), Roger Gueneuveur Smith (Smiley), Steve Park (Sonny) Year of Release: 1989 Running Time: 120 minutes Background: Perhaps Spike Lee’s most critically acclaimed film, Do the Right Thing, the one that skyrocketed his career, is a group portrait of the Bedford-Stuyvesant community of Brooklyn during one of the summer’s hottest days. Matching the high temperatures are the high racial tensions, which threaten to break the community apart, and Lee carefully establishes the interconnected nature of the district’s members through a series of humorous and thought-provoking vignettes. Even though Do the Right Thing takes on serious social issues, the movie is buoyed by its vibrant color palette, its comedy, and its playful editing that skips from one storyline to the next. While the film touches upon numerous issues, the central one is the problem of furthering a sense of racial harmony in an atmosphere of intense, complicated antagonism. The two primary models for social change explored in the film are those of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, the two extreme ends of the spectrum of activists in the Civil Rights Movement. King, in the spirit of activists such as Mahatma Gandhi, proposed passive resistance, encouraging his supporters to practice absolute tolerance even when it meant risking physical harm. Malcolm X, on the other hand, believed his supporters should not shy away from responding to violence with violence; in other words, he advocated violence in the case of self-defense, and continually demanded improved civil rights. *********** THE NAVIGATOR Directors: Buster Keaton and Donald Crisp Producer: Buster Keaton Screenplay: Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez, and Joseph Mitchell Cinematography: Elgin Lessley and Byron Houck Editing: Buster Keaton Music: Robert Israel Principal Actors: Buster Keaton (Rollo Treadway), Frederick Vroom (John O’Brien), Kathryn McGuire (Betsy O’Brien) Year of Release: 1924 Running Time: 60 minutes Background: Buster Keaton has long been hailed as one of the silent screen’s greatest comic actors, and his artistic influence has permeated many other actors’ performances through such elements as his graceful slapstick style and his trademark stone-faced composure during chaos. While Keaton was not as popular with contemporary audiences as Harold Lloyd or Charlie Chaplin, several critics since have held him up as equally great or perhaps even greater than these two stars. Although many of Keaton’s films call attention to issues of class, The Navigator takes these themes on most directly by depicting two affluent aristocrats trapped on an empty passenger ship at sea. The satirical barbs of the film’s early scenes, wherein Keaton’s character Rollo Treadway behaves like a helpless, arrogant fop, change eventually to demonstrate that he has learned how to take care of himself and Betsy O’Brien, the wealthy woman he loves, albeit in inventively awkward ways. The cannibals who attack the young couple date the film in terms of its political correctness, but Keaton’s wry observations about the capabilities of the pampered upper classes ring just as true today as they did in 1924. Many of Buster Keaton’s finest comedies center on cultivating every possible gag out of a single, elaborate prop (the steamboat in Steamboat Bill, Jr., the train in The General, and the movie camera in The Cameraman), and The Navigator similarly focuses on the ocean liner. Because Keaton’s creativity relied so much on improvisation, his style was severely limited when MGM asked him to explain his movies in detail; his gags rarely made sense in words, and he was not allowed the freedom to play around as much with his material on the set. Although Keaton continued to work once movies converted to sound—even expressed an enthusiasm for adapting to the new technologies—audiences and studios often viewed him as a leftover relic from silent cinema, and his roles were severely limited. Still, in his wonderfully creative years during the 1920s, Buster Keaton flourished, providing the world with long-lasting comedic gems. *********** SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN Directors: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen Producer: Arthur Freed Screenplay: Adolph Green and Betty Comden Lyrics: Arthur Freed Music: Nacio Herb Brown Cinematography: Harold Rosson Editing: Adrienne Fazan Principal Actors: Gene Kelly (Don Lockwood), Donald O’Connor (Cosmo Brown), Debbie Reynolds (Kathy Selden), Jean Hagen (Lina Lamont), Millard Mitchell (R. F. Simpson), Cyd Charisse (Dancer), Douglas Fowley (Roscoe Dexter), Rita Moreno (Zelda Zanders) Year of Release: 1952 Running Time: 103 minutes Background: The advent of sound technology in the motion picture industry revolutionized cinematic art in a way that no other innovation had before or has since. In this delightful, light-hearted musical, the frenzy of activity surrounding this shift in focus and funding—as well as the foibles of experimenting with new and unfamiliar tools—bursts onto the screen with glorious Technicolor and the graceful, seemingly effortless dance choreography of Gene Kelly. For a film about a shift in technology that changed an industry from within, Singin’ in the Rain has nearly universal appeal for its breathless acrobatics, rapid-fire wit, and pleasing visual palette. In dissecting the introduction of talkies and their process of recording and playing sound, the movie carefully exposes the machinations behind one aspect of "movie magic" while wrapping the viewer in layers of other types of illusion. Although we see the story from the viewpoint of show business insiders, the elements of the story—the courtship of Don Lockwood and Kathy Selden, the rubbery antics of Cosmo Brown, and the shrewish comedy of Lina Lamont—are all pure Hollywood entertainment, more of the artifice that the movie deconstructs in certain parts. But the illusions perpetuated by Singin’ in the Rain feel irrelevant during the course of watching the movie’s wonderful scenes, setpieces, and dance numbers; things were never quite the way this movie depicts them, but they are infinitely more pleasurable in Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s vision and probably more fun that way anyway. *********** HAIR Director: Milos Forman Producer: Lester Persky and Michael Butler Screenplay: Michael Weller, based on the musical play (book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado) Cinematography: Miroslav Ondricek Editing: Alan Heim and Stanley Warnow Music: Galt McDermot Choreography: Twyla Tharp Principal Actors: John Savage (Claude Bukowski), Treat Williams (Berger), Beverly D’Angelo (Sheila), Annie Golden (Jeannie), Dorsey Wright (Hud), Don Dacus (Woof), Cheryl Barnes (Hud’s Fiancée), Richard Bright (Fenton), Nicholas Ray (The General), Miles Chapin (Steve), Fern Tailer (Sheila’s Mother), Charles Denny (Sheila’s Father), Antonia Rey (Berger’s Mother), George Manos (Berger’s Father), Joe Acord (Claude’s Father), Michael Jeter (Sheldon), Janet York (Prison Psychiatrist), Harry Gittleson (The Judge), Ren Woods ("Aquarius" Soloist) Year of Release: 1979 Running Time: 121 minutes Background: As a musical that violates the conventions of both society and typical musical tradition, Hair presents itself as deliberately nonconformist, although its privileging of the musical form serves to honor the genre through its adaptation and revision. Milos Forman saw the stage version of Hair on Broadway during the sixties, when its message held the greatest sense of urgency; after seeing the revolutionary musical, Forman wanted to bring a stage version to his homeland in Czechoslovakia, where he was working as a film director on the rise. Unfortunately, Forman had to flee the country due to pressures from the Czech government, but, once in the United States, Forman established himself as a director of rebellious, iconoclastic movies, most notably One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (based on the countercultural novel by Ken Kesey). For many years, Forman tried to bring Hair to the big screen, but it was only in 1979 that he was finally able to direct the film. Although the movie version of Hair retains the same life-affirming exuberance as the Broadway stage version, the historical context of its release was quite different from the theatrical musical, since many of the peace, drug, and youth movements Hair depicts had peaked and dissipated by 1979, and also because the fighting in Vietnam had ended by then. So, instead of the social gravity underlying the stage version, the film version contains more of a sense of nostalgia, even quaintness in its characters’ actions. In spite of these limiting factors, Forman’s version of Hair still preserves the excitement of the music, dance, costumes, and sentiments that endured far beyond the sixties. *********** BAADASSSSS! Director: Mario Van Peebles Producer: Mario Van Peebles, Michael Mann, and Jerry Offsay Screenplay: John Michael Hayes, based on the book Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song by Melvin Van Peebles Cinematography: Robert Primes Editing: Anthony Miller and Nneka Goforth Music Composer: Tyler Bates Principal Actors: Mario Van Peebles (Melvin Van Peebles), Joy Bryant (Priscilla), Ossie Davis (Granddad), David Allen Grier (Clyde Houston), Nia Long (Sandra), Paul Rodriguez (José Garcia), Khleo Thomas (Mario Van Peebles), Rainn Wilson (Bill Harris), Saul Rubinek (Howard Kaufman), T. K. Carter (Bill Cosby), Terry Crews (Big T), Len Lesser (Manny & Mort Goldberg), Sally Struthers (Roz), Vincent Schiavelli (Jerry), Karimah Westbrook (Ginnie) Year of Release: 2003 Running Time: 108 minutes Background: In 1971, Melvin Van Peebles broke new ground in the world of cinema by writing and directing a revolutionary film called Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song; this film was about being Black in America, without the traditional kowtowing to major studios’ lily white standards and general ignorance of true racial inequality. In his debut film, a comedy called Watermelon Man about a white bigot who wakes up Black, Van Peebles explored themes of racial tensions in more polite and entertaining terms, but Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was a gritty, subversive movie that went on to gross over $10 million, despite the fact that no major distributors or producers wanted to touch it initially. In Baadasssss!, Mario Van Peebles recreates the social, racial, and economic conditions his father faced in creating his very personal and political film and in finding the right means to catch the film’s audience. Baadasssss!, as a fluid integration of archival footage, recreated scenes, and pieces of Melvin Van Peebles’s original film, represents a loving homage as well as a contextualization of an era of film history, with the same radical chic and hip aesthetic that inspired numerous Blaxploitation films throughout the 1970s. Since Mario played a younger version of Melvin’s character in Sweetback, there is a sort of cyclical irony in Mario portraying his father in Baadasssss! over thirty years later, in a movie that is also fiercely independent and uncompromising. *********** BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN BRONENOSETS POTYOMKIN Director: Sergei Eisenstein Screenplay: Sergei Eisenstein and Nina Agadzhanova Cinematography: Edouard Tissé Editing: Sergei Eisenstein Principal Actors: Aleksandr Antonov (Vakulinchuk), (Chief Officer Giliarovsky (Grigori Aleksandrov), Vladimir Barsky (Commander Golikov) Year of Release: 1925 Running Time: 66 minutes Background: Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) was among the Soviet filmmakers who, after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, used cinema in innovative ways to project and legitimize the ideas of the Revolution and Marxism. In his films, Eisenstein developed many editing theories, the most famous was that of Soviet montage, a refining of D. W. Griffith’s montage. Soviet montage adopts the Hegelian/Marxist principles of dialectics, in which every thesis produces its own antithesis and the two interact to form some manner of synthesis, creating a new thesis and beginning the cycle again. As Soviet montage deals with images rather than clear-cut ideas, Eisenstein used juxtaposed shots to lead the viewer along to a final ideological conclusion, or synthesis. Thus, the images represented ideas, regardless of their continuity in time and/or space. Throughout his montage editing, Eisenstein employed parallel cutting, time compression, and time expansion, the most famous culmination of these techniques being the Odessa Steps sequence in this film. Another theory of Eisenstein’s was typage, where a single object, event, or person could stand for the whole. This theory of typage, too, is employed in Battleship Potemkin in that the officers represent the repressive regime of the tsars, the chaplain stands for the repressive Russian Orthodox Church, and the sailors’ mutiny and subsequent revolt denote the Bolshevik Revolution itself. Much like the tenets of Marxism, there is no single hero in this film, but the people as a whole instead stand for the cumulative hero of Russia, while the individual, authoritative characters of the film are associated with danger, corruption, and menace. *********** 8 ½ Director: Federico Fellini Producer: Angelo Rizzoli Screenplay: Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, Federico Fellini, and Brunello Rondi, based on a story by Federico Fellini and Ennio Flaiano Cinematography: Gianni Di Venanzo Editing: Leo Cattozzo Original Music: Nino Rota Principal Actors: Marcello Mastroianni (Guido Anselmi), Claudia Cardinale (Claudia), Anouk Aimée (Luisa Anselmi), Sandra Milo (Carla), Rossella Falk (Rossella), Barbara Steele (Gloria Morin), Madeleine LeBeau (Madeleine), Caterina Boratto (The mysterious woman), Eddra Gale (La Saraghina), Guido Alberti (Pace the producer), Mario Conocchia (Connochia the production director), Jean Rougeul (Carini the film critic), Mario Pisu (Mario Mezzabotta), Yvonne Casadei (Jacqueline Bonbon), Mino Doro (Claudia’s agent), Nadine Sanders (Nadine the hostess), Georgia Simmons (Guido’s grandmother), Edy Vessel (Model), Tito Masini (Cardinal), Mary Indovino (Mindreader), Marco Gemini (Young Guido), Giuditta Rissone (Guido’s mother), Annibale Ninchi (Guido’s father) Year of Release: 1963 Running Time: 138 minutes Background: Although Federico Fellini’s film career had its beginning in Italian neo-realism, 8½ represents a venture into capturing daily life only alongside highly stylized set pieces, choreography, and camerawork. Thus, the director’s vision (both the fictional Guido Anselmi and Federico Fellini) submits for the audience a technical as well as thematic blending of reality, fantasy, dreams, imagination, and repression. The unusual title signifies that this film was Fellini’s eighth, and he considered his previous collaborations to be worth about a half of a movie. And so 8 ½ suggests both an autobiographical aura and a kind of nonsensical whimsy. Yet the film is more complicated than just a collection of surreal reminiscences, as it is also about the total creative process surrounding the making of a film and, more specifically, about this film itself, as there is even a critic making pointed commentary on the scenes before the movie is over, illustrating that Fellini has already foreseen what his detractors are likely to say about his art. With such elements reminding us that we are watching the film under discussion even as the narrative fluidly slips into a new and different register, 8½ suggests that we are watching a playful illusion even as it plunges us back into the dreamlike landscape of the director’s mind. *********** AMERICAN MOVIE Director: Chris Smith Producers: Sarah Price and Chris Smith Cinematography: Chris Smith Editing: Chris Smith Music: Mike Schank Year of Release: 1999 Running Time: 107 minutes Background: A movie about making a movie to make another movie, Chris Smith’s American Movie contains more layers of self-reflexivity than most documentaries. Detailing the steps of independent filmmaking while making an independent film of his own, Smith provides a humorous yet tragic picture of Mark Borchardt as Borchardt goes through the painstaking and often frustrating steps of making a small-budget movie. The film details the difficulties of working with insufficient resources, amateur actors, and limited editing and recording equipment, as well as the pleasures of a finished product. Although this documentary has been criticized for being exploitative of its subjects, Chris Smith does not indulge in the irony and humor of Borchardt’s filmmaking attempts more than Borchardt himself does. Mark Borchardt seems to understand the ridiculous nature of his various situations, and he exploits them with all the sardonic wit and charm he uses to seduce the various members of his cast and crew into working long, sometimes painful hours for little or no recognition. Even if the film plays up the comedy inherent in some of the low points in Borchardt’s career, it ultimately rejoices with him upon the completion of his film and its positive reception. So while Smith occasionally adopts a somewhat mocking tone, one of the central themes of the film is how a "regular" working-class American can make a successful film on his own terms through patience and perseverance. *********** ROGER & ME Director: Michael Moore Producer: Michael Moore Editing: Jennifer Beman and Wendy Stanzler Year of Release: 1989 Running Time: 87 minutes Background: Long before Michael Moore resurfaced as an (in)famous commentator on the sad state of the nation with Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, he produced his grassroots breakthrough film, Roger and Me. A documentary about the social, economic, and cultural problems in Flint, Michigan, following the closing of General Motors, Roger and Me takes on serious economic and social issues with a strong sense of humor. As many critics have mentioned, the film contains an openly one-sided bias against the actions of General Motors C.E.O., Roger Smith, blaming nearly all of Flint’s complex dilemmas on the easy target of the plant’s closing. Yet the ingenious combination of humor, eccentricity, and unflinching focus on tragic urban decay propels the film past such political limitations to make it a successful directorial debut for Michael Moore. In fact, Moore’s witty, fast-paced approach to documentary filmmaking has had a tremendous impact on other documentarians, making the genre about entertainment as well as information. In making Roger and Me, Moore violated the rules of standard documentary filmmaking, blatantly neglecting fair and sober "objective" presentation in favor of a raucous diatribe against major political and social players. Few films are so openly political, and still less are considered worthwhile documentaries; but as this unlikely, satiric social commentary proves, sometimes films must go over the top to make their points effectively. *********** BREATHLESS (À BOUT DE SOUFFLE) Director: Jean-Luc Godard Producer: Georges de Beauregard Screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard, story by François Truffaut Cinematography: Raoul Coutard Editing: Cecile Decugis and Lila Herman Music: Martial Solal Principal Actors: Jean-Paul Belmondo (Michel Poiccard, alias Laszlo Kovacs), Jean Seberg (Patricia Franchini), Daniel Boulanger (Police Inspector), Jean-Pierre Melville (Parvulesco), Henri-Jacques Huet (Antonio Berrutti), Van Doude (The Journalist), Claude Mansard (Claudius Mansard), Jean-Luc Godard (An Informer), Richard Balducci (Tolmatchoff), Roger Hanin (Cal Zombach) Year of Release: 1960 Running Time: 87 minutes Background: Jean-Luc Godard’s debut masterpiece, originally titled À Bout de Souffle and alternatively translated as "Out of Breath," announced the French New Wave with a verve that made its nontraditional appeal practically undeniable. Breaking away from years of film tradition, Godard brashly employed unusual jump cuts and shaky handheld camerawork to convey an out-of-breath story full of hyperkinetic excitement, featuring an anti-hero with as much moral intransigence and as little attention span as the film’s form itself seems to have. The role skyrocketed Jean-Paul Belmondo to international fame even as it carried Godard to the benevolent and impressionable attentions of a whole generation of filmmakers and critics. Breathless defied expectations and traditions as it picked apart the common gangster film; the protagonist’s refusal to flee the apartment of his reluctant love interest represents the film’s disavowal of common movie stereotypes and boilerplates. Belmondo’s chain-smoking depiction of Michel Poiccard (if we can even assume that is in fact his name) draws obvious parallels to the roles played by Humphrey Bogart, but Poiccard seems to draw more from Bogart’s aura of cool than from any of his iconic characters’ virtues, as Poiccard is lazy, dishonest, unfaithful, and unambitious. Yet even while the film praised countercultural values to happily receptive audiences, it established an unusual heritage all its own to inspire countless other films in its wake. *********** MILLENIUM ACTRESS (SENNEN JOYU) Director: Satoshi Kon Producer: Masao Maruyama Screenplay: Satoshi Kon and Sadayuki Murai Cinematography: Hisao Shirai Animation Directors: Takeshi Honda, Toshiyuki Inoue, Hideki Hamasau, Kenichi Konishi, Shogo Furuya Original Music: Susumu Hirasawa Principal Actors: Miyoko Shôji (Chiyoko Fujiwara 70s), Mami Koyama (Chiyoko Fujiwara 20s-40s), Fumiko Orikasa (Chiyoko Fujiwara 10s-20s), Shôzô Îzuka (Genya Tachibana), Shouko Tsuda (Eiko Shimao), Hirotaka Suzuoki (Junichi Ootaki), Hisako Kyôda (Mother), Tomie Kataoka (Mino), Masamichi Sato (Young Genya), Masaya Onosaka (Kyoji Ida), Masane Tsuyakama (The Man with the Scar), Kôichi Yamadera (The Man with the Key) Year of Release: 2001 Running Time: 87 minutes Background: Although Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon’s debut project, was originally conceived as a live-action feature film project, the animation provided a unique complement to the actress protagonist’s saccharine naivete and the media artificiality she supported, making the movie bloom into a unique synthesis of form and content. With Millenium Actress, Kon takes that synergistic connection between animation and mediated levels of reality to an even more beautiful and affective project, exposing how the adolescent associations most audiences have with animation directly impact how they understand Millenium Actress’s commentary on memory and media artifice. The storyline of this anime feature provides a dreamlike panorama of Japanese cinematic history, touching on such filmmaking greats as Kenji Mizoguchi, Akira Kurosawa, and Yasujiro Ozu, in both the film’s visual composition and the movies within its larger narrative. Similarly, actress Chiyoko Fujiwara’s life and maturity parallel the last millenium of Japanese cultural history. Since the visual and narrative styles rely so much on the subjectivity of Chiyoko’s own perspective, as well as her two interviewers, the overall effect is immersive. This blending of subjectivities, styles, and narratives within narratives create a subtle, nuanced love letter to Japanese cinema, history, and culture, as well as to the pleasures of movie-watching in general. *********** ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER (TODO SOBRE MI MADRE) Director: Pedro Almodóvar Screenplay: Pedro Almodóvar Producer: Augustín Almodóvar Cinematography: Affonso Beato Editing: José Salcedo Music: Alberto Iglesias Principal Actors: Cecilia Roth (Manuela), Marisa Paredes (Huma Rojo), Candela Peña (Nina Cruz), Antonia San Juan (Agrado), Penélope Cruz (Sister María Rosa Sanz), Rosa María Sardà (Rosa’s Mother), Fernando Fernán Gómez (Rosa’s Mother), Toni Cantó (Lola), Carlos Lozano (Esteban) Year of Release: 1999 Running Time: 102 minutes Background: Pedro Almodóvar has made a career out of violating audience expectations, in terms of character, narrative, and visual style. His films often depict strong protagonists who, being somehow marginalized or disempowered, must rise above their social limitations. In the film All About My Mother, Almodóvar explores the social constructions and ideological underpinnings of what we mean by "femininity," creating characters who challenge the borders of what we consider to be "typical women’s roles." On top of this framework, the film compiles a rich symbolic order out of a variety of sources, combining subtextual and intertextual references into a satisfying, multi-layered whole. A note about some of the film’s textual sources: In All About Eve, the narrative focuses on a young woman named Eve who schemes her way to the top of the Broadway theater hierarchy by befriending, working for, and eventually serving as understudy to a famous actress. What appear to be coincidences to those around her are in fact her own manipulations, and at the end of the film, we see a young woman befriend Eve ... perhaps with somewhat sinister intentions similar to those with which Eve began. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Stella Kowalski regularly leaves her husband Stanley, only to return to him later and make up with him. After Stanley’s brutal actions drive Stella’s sister Blanche into an insane asylum, Stella states that she is leaving Stanley for good and taking their son with her. Stanley and his friends keep playing cards as though her behavior is nothing new, and the play ends with the audience never knowing if Stella’s departure is permanent or not. *********** MA VIE EN ROSE (MY LIFE IN PINK) Director: Alain Berliner Producer: Carole Scotta Screenplay: Alain Berliner and Chris Vander Stappen Cinematography: Yves Cape Editing: Sandrine Deegen Music Composer: Dominique Dalcan Principal Actors: Michèle Laroque (Hanna Fabre), Jean-Philippe Écoffey (Pierre Fabre), Hélène Vincent (Élisabeth), Georges Du Fresne (Ludovic Fabre), Daniel Hanssens (Albert), Laurence Bibot (Lisette), Jean-François Gallotte (Thierry), Caroline Baehr (Monique), Julien Rivière (Jérôme), Marie Bunel (Psychoanalyst), Gregory Diallo (Thom Fabre), Erik Cazals De Fabel (Jean Fabre), Cristina Barget (Zoé Fabre), Delphine Cadet (Pam), Morgane Bruna (Sophie) Year of Release: 1997 Running Time: 88 minutes Background: Upon its release in the United States, Ma Vie en Rose received an R rating, prompting many critics to challenge the biases of the ratings board, claiming that the film’s rating stems from the board’s prejudices against depictions of children’s sexuality. This episode in some ways mirrors the hypocritical microcosm the film itself explores: adults fearful of children openly expressing their sexual personalities, specifically in a fashion other than the traditional gender norms formally endorsed by society. With such a potentially inflammatory collection of issues, Ma Vie en Rose could have succumbed to the pull of a preachy, maudlin, or cynical message, but Alain Berliner keeps the film consistently buoyant with his warm, open settings, vibrant color schemes, and feather-light direction of the innocent-eyed Georges Du Fresne. The film comfortably balances the joyful childhood fantasies with the troubling dilemmas adults often force upon themselves through their repressive and frequently mean-spirited attitudes. The storyline’s frankness, combined with the effervescent hopes of its child protagonist, delivers a powerful emotional experience capable of challenging its audience’s static beliefs about gender even while it calls for understanding acceptance and active celebration that extend beyond mere multiculturalism and limited tolerance. *********** Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN (AND YOUR MOTHER TOO) Director: Alfonso Cuarón Producers: Jorge Vergara and Alfonso Cuarón Screenplay: Carlos and Alfonso Cuarón Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki Editing: Alfonso Cuarón Music Supervisors: Liza Richardson and Annette Fradera Principal Actors: Ana López Mercado (Ana Morelos), Diego Luna (Tenoch Iturbide), Gael García Bernal (Julio Zapata), Nathan Grinberg (Manuel Huerta), Verónica Langer (María Eugenia Calles de Huerta) María Aura (Cecilia Huerta), Giselle Audirac (Nicole Bazaine), Arturo Ríos (Esteban Morelos), Andrés Almeida (Diego "Saba" Madero), Diana Bracho (Silvia Allende de Iturbide), Emilio Echevarría (Miguel Iturbide), Marta Aura (Enriqueta "Queta" Allende), Maribel Verdú (Luisa Cortés), Juan Carlos Remolina (Alejandro "Jano" Montes de Oca), Liboria Rodríguez (Leodegaria "Leo" Victoria) Year of Release: 2001 Running Time: 105 minutes Background: After starting his career in Mexico and moving on to direct the Hollywood productions of Great Expectations and A Little Princess, Alfonso Cuarón returned to his native Mexico to shoot Y Tu Mamá También, a film based on a script he co-wrote with his brother Carlos. The decision to return to his homeland to create this film is clearly not an arbitrary or aesthetic choice, as the subject matter of the film itself concerns national identity, class structure, and specific subcultures that are inextricably bound to their geographical location. Critics often focus on the film’s frank portrayal of sexuality, but to concentrate solely on that aspect does a disservice to its scope in general. Cuarón unflinchingly examines poverty, elitism, and the hypocrisy that binds them together; the social issues are just as important as the sex and relationships he also scrutinizes. And, while the sensual nature of the film might in fact draw larger audiences than the dissection of Mexico’s class structure, the social commentary played out in Y Tu Mamá También ultimately outshines the film’s libido, making it both sexy and smart. *********** CITIZEN KANE Director: Orson Welles Producer: John Houseman, for Mercury Productions and RKO Studios Screenplay: Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles Cinematography: Gregg Toland Editing: Robert Wise Music: Bernard Hermann Principal Actors: Orson Welles (C. F. Kane), Joseph Cotton (Jedediah Leland), Agnes Moorehead (Kane’s mother), Everett Sloane (Mr. Bernstein), Ruth Warwick (Emily Norton), Dorothy Comingore (Susan Alexander), George Coulouris (Walter Parks Thatcher, Kane’s guardian), Ray Collins (Jim W. Getys), William Alland (Thompson the reporter), Paul Stewart (Raymond the butler) Year of Release: 1941 Running Time: 119 minutes Background: One of the greatest actors and film directors of the twentieth century, Orson Welles showed signs of superior talent and tenacity early in his youth. At sixteen, Welles left school and went to Ireland posing as a Broadway star. After performing in several plays under this guise, Welles returned to New York and made his Broadway debut at the age of eighteen. Along with John Houseman, he formed the Mercury Theater Company in 1937, and the group quickly gained fame. As a means of obtaining money for his Mercury Theater Company, Welles signed onto the financially ailing RKO Pictures to direct, write, and act in their films. After several aborted attempts at other projects, Welles settled on Citizen Kane, a film loosely based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, his career, and his affair with Marion Davies. At the age of 26, Welles was given complete control over the film. Although popular with the critics, the film failed to drum up sufficient funds from rural towns for RKO to maintain their faith in the marketability of Welles’s talent. The next film Welles directed, The Magnificent Ambersons was given a new ending without his knowledge or approval. From there, Welles’s career became ever more rocky, progressing only in fits and starts; Welles said of his involvement in the film industry: "I started at the top and worked my way down." Citizen Kane has regularly been voted the greatest film of all time in critics’ polls. Its success is measured not only by the film’s complex themes, complicated narrative, and exceptional acting, but also by its numerous innovative visual style. Some of the techniques Citizen Kane is famous for are its use of deep focus, layered sound montage, lap dissolves, ceilinged sets (coupled with extreme low angle shots), high contrast lighting, unique montage editing to illustrate the passage of time, and its flashback-centered narrative. © All material found on www.gregwright.info is copyright protected by Greg Wright and may not be reproduced or used in any way without his express, written permission. Thank you.