lets analyze this apocalypse now movie!

In my last film blog I talked about Apocalypse Now and my opinions on the movie. This time I want to talk about the film more from a cinematographically point of view rather than just resting on my personal opinion alone. As far as cinematography goes, I think Apocalypse Now did a pretty fine job. The use of color was fantastic because
it wasn’t random but the lighting used was symbolic and had meaning to it. Another good job done was with the framing of the characters in the movie.

One of the best parts of the movie that appealed to me was one of the first scenes. The scene shows a ravaged battle field in a moving frame but it had a faded in
background of Willard all in the same frame and I thought that was cool because the
cinematographer and director probably wanted to show us what he had been through and that his mind was kind of like that battle field. At least that is what I felt. The depth of field there was tight considering the closed room that Willard was in.

Another thing of similarity was when the boat they were in was near Kurtz’ domain and we see a faded in shot of two heads and we can see the boat entering the two heads signifying how near they were. In the end they do the same thing with the boat leaving the same way with the faded in shots of the two heads and I thought that was cool.

Another good use of different filming angles was the battle scene when the helicopters fought the villagers. There is a good use of high angle and also low angle shots. On the way there, there are some good overhead shots looking down at the village from the point of view of the helicopters and it was cool because it was an overhead shot but also a moving frame so we get to have the full point of view experience. We can also see the villager’s point of view as the choppers attack. Another cool thing I thought about this scene was the range of colors from the green smoke when the choppers land vs. the yellowy background of the battle.

Again ill reiterate the importance of color in this movie. The whole frame had specific colors in some parts of the movie for example when they go to look for mangoes, the whole screen seems blue and also after the death of one of the crew members, it’s all blue again. When Lance the surfer opens up the purple flare and calls it purple haze I believe it shows that their experiences are just feeding into their insanity like purple haze feeds ones addiction. Another part was when Willard finally confesses his destination to the crew, the sky and water become grey just like the feelings of the crew. They knew it was going to be darkness ahead so it was perfect the way it was visually portrayed.

Now that we are talking about color let’s move on to the use of shadows vs. light. I thought they did an excellent job with this because it was used to represent good vs. evil and sanity vs. insanity. Kurtz face is drowned in shadow when we first meet him signifying the insanity that has surrounded him. Come to think of this, in the earlier scene with the craziness that was going on where the soldiers didn’t have a commanding officer, their faces were smothered in darkness too showing their insanity and it was dark out, but a darker than usual dark showing insanity. Anyways after Kurtz gets killed, Willard is drowned in shadow as well showing how he becomes just like Kurtz except he leaves this behind when he exits the island in the end of the movie.

Wow Marlon Brando is so fat in this movie. Way to use the darkness to hide this fact. Good job because I would be embarrassed as well.

I liked the use of proximity in this movie. In one of the scenes they just killed a bunch of Vietnamese people and took a puppy and the puppy is showed out of focus in the next scene showing that the dog wasn’t the most important thing in the scene but was still pretty important because we wonder if they kept it. The bridge was also a good example because they used a long shot there so we could see what was going on and then the close up shots of the soldiers and the looks on their faces.

Overall I thought the cinematographer and the director did a pretty good job and I would not have changed much if it were me. Oh and by the way one thing I forgot to say is now that I think about it; I didn’t think the ending was all that spectacular apart from the colors used. Kurtz wanted to die like a soldier but he died like an ox, an animal. Or maybe there was more to that. What do you guys think?

Film Review on Apocalypse Now

So I watched Apocalypse Now and I thought it was a pretty good movie. I had a long day and started to feel my eyes close at the beginning scenes but then it gets more captivating and I was shaken out of sleep after the first twenty minutes. One thing I didn’t like about the movie was the extreme violence and also the fact that I feel like I was feeling the tension that they had in the boat, which I guess shows that the movie as a well directed one because of this reason.

The movie is about a Captain who is sent towards Cambodia to assassinate a former Colonel who has set himself up as a godlike figure to a village of mixed rebels. As he and a crew taking him there experience the hardships and tension of the mission, they have to battle the insanity that is slowly trying to take over. Captain Willard experiences the same thing that changed the former Colonel and slowly starts to see from his point of view as the movie progresses.

I like the movie as well because it wasn’t completely just a war story but more psychological towards the end as well. Why do I say this? Look at the mental state of the crewmembers of the boat as they keep moving closer towards Brando’s Character. They start yelling at each other, doing crazy stuff, smoking more; they even kill a whole Vietnamese peasant boat crew because they were so high strung. A girl made a sudden move and “clean” got so freaked out he started shooting and they only realize it was to protect a dog. Brando’s character, Colonel Kurtz is completely messing with their heads too it seems and the more Captain Willard advances to him and finds out about him, the more he becomes like Kurtz. Oh and it was cool to see a young Laurence Fishburne.

Another aspect of the movie that I liked was the color choices. There is a scene where cook goes to look for mangoes and Captain Willard goes with. The scene is in all blue, the sky, the jungle, everything and I thought it was really cool. I seem to think this represents depression because in the scene after “Clean” dies, the next scene is filmed in all blue as well. During the war scene involving the bombing of the enemy base there are a medley of different colors, brown green, blue and others. The use of darkness was very critical during the movie because it symbolizes evil and insanity that slowly spreads around to everyone.

In conclusion, I thought the movie was really good and I will probably watch it again when I feel the mood to do so.

lets float away as we dive into the cinematographical point of view of the diving bell and the butterfly!!

First of all something I didn’t mention in my first blog is that this is a true story.

One thing I loved with the movie is the point of view used. The diving bell and the butterfly’s cinematography definitely separated it from the movies we usually watch, even the one where the actors point of view is portrayed. The point of view is completely subjective when it is used as we experience his emotions, we can hear and experience his beliefs, feelings and opinions on various topics. I admire how the movie starts with the opening of his eyes. I could tell it was through someone’s point of view but I was impressed at how real it seemed.

The movie was fuzzy at first when Jean-Do first wakes up. The fuzziness at first just like someone would experience when they first woke up. This is amazing depth-of-field work because there were even scenes when we could see a watery kind of field or lens signifying how we see the world through watery eyes. After a bit his eyes get used to the light but the background isn’t as focused on as the people who are closely observing him. I loved it! When his eyes were sewn shut, we could see the red coloring signifying the brightness of the outside light against his skin color.

The other characters are in close proximity because everyone is near him, staring at him. A point of cinematographical genius was when the medical doctor told him to follow the light. The background was dark except for the bright fluorescent like light and when the light moved so did mine! Our eyes are attracted to light and so it was only natural for us to follow it as well. Did anyone else notice that? Later on there are more pans and tilts as he get stronger and is able to look around his environment.

The proximity got further and further as the movie progressed finally moving to an outside point of view, when we first start observing him from the outside. The proximity of the character compared to the audience was random as at first we might see him from far off and then we might see him sitting right in front of the camera.

I will write more when I think of more things to write!

the picture was from http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/photos/2007/08/butterfly_yellow-flowers_detail_01.jpg

film review on the diving bell and the butterfly

The movie that I am going to review is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. When I first heard the title of the movie and I heard the movie was going to be in French, I was pretty skeptical about watching it but I would soon be proved wrong. I absolutely enjoyed the Diving bell and the Butterfly and I am going to state the various reasons why I thought so.

The movie is about the experiences and tribulations of Jean-Dominique Bauby before and after a massive stroke that left him paralyzed from head to toe. He gives us his ideas and views on life as he lives with this condition he has called locked in syndrome. The only thing he can control is his left eye and eyelid which he uses to communicate. He ends up compose a book this way which I think is completely amazing. They reveal little things about his past as the movie goes on and people in his life that are important to him. Ten days after the publication of his book he dies of Pneumonia. I really liked the way the movie wasn’t softened and sugarcoated. Movies like this are usually used to aim for box office status or for those who want to have a good cry for the fact of just feeling like crying.

An aspect I liked about the movie was that for a long part of the movie, we could see through his point of view. They gave us the full scope of empathy in which to partake in seeing what he was going through. The opening of the movie was brilliant as it started with the opening of his eyes. We get to see his eye get sewn shut also from his point of view which was cinematically brilliant. I also like how they slowly transitioned from his point of view to the audience looking at him.

I think the strongest reason I liked this movie was the cinematical representation of Jean-Do’s imagination. I loved the butterfly as a symbol of his imagination because after the accident, his imagination bloomed from his previous closed cocoon view of life. The butterfly is free to fly anywhere and that is exactly what his did. I loved the part where he says the only two things that aren’t paralyzed are his imagination and memories and immediately we are given a flood of different scenes used with different kinds of film! AMAZING! One of the best scenes was the scene where they show his tube pertaining to the fact that he can’t eat. He crushes everyone’s sadness by stating that he can actually eat anything he wants and they show him devouring an amazing looking seafood dinner. The cinematography of his imagination was beautiful. I will talk about it later though.

The acting I felt was completely superb. The emotion portrayed through jean-do’s voice when he talks about the sadness he feels when his children come visit him, the emotions his father feels when he calls Jean-do in the hospital was so intense and real that I nearly cried (were in the safety nest so this stays here!). I would never cry at a silly movie like the notebook so it tells you how moved I was at their pain. These kinds of situations where people are suffering are really hard to watch sometimes and I liked how the movie portrayed his stress and pain without sugarcoating it at all.

What a movie! Ten out of ten

thoughts on the 1998 remake of psycho

My opinion on the 1998 remake of Psycho is that it wasn’t that badly done. It was pretty good on the contrary. I mean naturally it’s not as good as the original or actually let me rephrase that, it has its differences, but see the thing is I cannot say that for everybody because everyone has their own unique perception and when it comes to movies, everyone is different. People tend to say it is not as good as the original because they use the original to base the performance of the remake but some people see it as better because it is newer and by that I mean it is closer to the movies of today as it was made for today’s audience. It seems more realistic and it is faster paced. People of today see melodrama as corny and there were a lot of corny moments in the original that the remake does not have, for example, the famous hotel scene where Marion offers to lick the stamps in the original.

There were a lot of differences in the remake and as I said, this movie is much faster paced than the original. Let’s analyze the hotel scene for example. Marion seems much less caring and melodramatic in the remake and Sam’s personality is much different and in my opinion better and more believable. I like the fact that they updated little things like the money stolen for example from 40 thousand to 400 thousand, which today is more believable. Marion in the remake seems less nervous in her runaway scenes and I hope everyone agrees with me on this. Look at the original. Everything she did was completely nerve racking for her as well as for us from seeing her boss on the road going through the California Charlie scene till the hotel scene. California Charlie himself is different and he had a kind of sleaziness to him. He didn’t even notice the Cop at all and probably didn’t even care if he did after she left.

I would like to comment on the color scheme as well. The movie looked very orangish if I am not mistaken. She wore a lot of orange and the background seemed orange in comparison as well. To me I felt that the new director in a way was trying to commit the movie and still keep a black and white kind of view despite the fact that the movie was in color. Apparently I heard that green was the new color of evil. I mean even though it was a sheik, colorful movie (or so I thought), I would have still stuck to black because green is too bright a color for darkness but that’s just me. What do you guys think?

I just want to make a small comment about Vince Vaughn as a small tangent. In order to get the full experience I feel people should watch this before any of Vince’s newer comedic movies. Well because if you watch the movie with the mindset of Wedding Crashers or Old School then just seeing him will put a smile on your face and his laugh will set you bursting with laughter. I think Vince did a good job because even though he didn’t have the originality or the thinness of Anthony Perkins (I say this because Anthony’s bony, skinny face did worked better with shadows ads it made him look more mysterious and creepy whereas Vince’s shadow work just made him look like he’d been swimming in Twinkies), he did a really fine job to portray creepiness.

Now that were talking about creepiness lets discuss Anthony’s portrayal of Norman compared to Vince’s portrayal of Norman. I think Anthony Perkins did a much better job of course because not only was he physically perfect for the role, his acting was better too. Perkins made Norman seem so innocent like a child which made the movie scarier after our realization of Norman as mother. Vince didn’t do a bad job as I said earlier but Vince looks more grown up and manly than Anthony making him seem more threatening. We see Vince as threatening from the start whereas we saw Anthony as innocent and even pitiful. Marion in the original isn’t really creeped out but amused by Norman whereas in the remake we can tell that she is creeped out from the beginning. After their talk she doesn’t seem repentant at all but just wants to leave. The masturbation scene was pretty disturbing but today we need something that really creeps us out and that did the trick so well done.

I just wanted to say that the scariness of the remake is different because they wanted to go for the immediate scariness not the later scariness of realization that Norman and Mother are the same. The energy takes place in different parts in both movies so where one part would be slow in one, the other would be faster and vice versa. So in those ways the remake did well even though personally I think the original was much better. Please comment so I can see what you guys thought. i will update this after I have more time to reflect