Exploring Film Critique

Cinematography is a beautiful thing when done correctly. Actors, directors, and camera crews can make viewers feel emotions without even saying any words. Based on the way actors face in direction, do towards or away from the camera, and the angle and shot the camera makes, the viewer can be made to feel certain intentional things.

Harold and Maude:

              In this scene, we see a mother trying to match make for her son, who does desperate and dangerous things to himself (or other things) in order to gain the attention of his mother. In this case, we see the Harold, set himself on fire (or what it looks like), which makes the girl that his mother was talking to so she could set him up with Harold react in terror. However, it was just a fake and it was all part of Harold’s plan. In the scene, the camera angle is low, so we are put on the same level as Harold and his mother Maude. Harold then has a smirk on his face because he is proud of what he did, and then breaks the fourth wall and looks directly at the viewer and gives a very subtle nod to the camera. This brings in the viewer practically as a character into the film. Harold is seeking appreciation from the viewer in his nod. His mother in the meantime, is looking Harold up and down, almost like she is sizing him up. This allows the viewers to know that there is a battle going on between Harold and his mother. In the final moments of the scene, Maude locks eyes with Harold (almost like a battle) to let Harold know that he is skating on thin ice. Through the characters actions and the camera angles, the viewer is dragged into the scene as a character.

Bunny:

              The main goal from this silent animated film, is to use imagery and symbolism to convey a message. In the very first seconds of the short film, there is a moth buzzing around a light outside, and then finds its way inside which probably symbolizes death because moths and other insect usually die after buzzing around a light to long. We see an old rabbit cooking in its kitchen getting rather perturbed at the moth buzzing the light. The rabbit ushers the moth back outside, only for the moth to violently burst back through the window and buzz the kitchen light more. This probably symbolizes that no one can cheat death. After the moth flies back into the kitchen, the rabbit gets very angry and throws the moth into the batter, throws the batter into the oven, and begins cooking the batter and the moth. However, not long after, the oven begins to glow a blue light. The intrigued rabbit opens the oven to see a moth flying into some sort of blue abyss, follows the moth into the oven, sprouts wings, and flies away. The oven in the case can be interpreted in different ways. One, when the rabbit climbs into the oven, the oven became the “tunnel” that is often associated with people dying. Second, ovens transform things, and the rabbit was transformed into an angel after passing through the oven.

Northfolk:

              In these scenes, the film also uses subtle imagery to convey a message to the viewers. For example, all the buildings in the film are on stilts. This could mean that nobody is grounded to their homes or roots. Also, in the scene in the church, behind the minister are mountains which could symbolize eternity.

Paris, Texas:

              This film also uses characters, settings, and people to convey messages to the viewers. The first setting, the main character (Travis) is walking through a desert which could symbolize “vastness” while a Harris Hawk watches over him probably waiting for him to die. The main character is always following something (like a telephone wire railroad tracks) that extends beyond the horizon. This could possibly mean that he is looking for some sort of communication but either doesn’t know how or who to communicate to. The next scene, Travis’s brother finds him and is trying to bring him home. The important and subtle feature of the scene are the mountains behind the two characters. Behind Travis’s brother who was dressed in a nice shirt and khakis, there were smooth green mountains. Behind Travis, there were rugged brown mountains and Travis was wearing dusty older clothes. Throughout the rest of the movie, there were many scenes that had some sort of communication symbolism in it. Travis walked across a bridge over a freeway (which could also mean that he was getting better from whatever happened to him in the first place), he sat and watched planes come and go at a nearby airport, and he ate lunch with his son on the side of the highway under multiple overpasses. Later in the movie, Travis finds his wife in a brothel, but can only speak to her through a one glass. As se see them communicate, you can see her head fit perfectly in his outline ad vis-versa, as well as her sitting below him when she was speaking to him later. Travis’s wife also grabs the speaker in the room as a way of speaking directly to him because she can’t be in the same room as him. This helps demonstrate their moods torwards one another and their interactions while they were communicating. 

The Wall:

              This movie uses extremely graphic imagery to portray moods and feelings to the reader. Examples of this would be in the war scene when the husband and his troops were being attacked, he tried to call home but was killed in the process. It flipped back and forth to his wife and kids happily playing at home in the yard on a beautiful day and him dying in a warzone. The final moment of that scene was his hands sliding off the phone symbolizing he will never communicate with them again. The next particularly graphic scene took lace in a school. The kids where all wearing the same grotesque masks (symbolizing loss of individualism) while all marching in assembly lines. The song “Another Brick in the Wall” playing in the background as some kids were grounded into what looked like ground beef. This scaring scene probably symbolizes the lack in creatively schools allowed at the time. Next, the viewers watch two erotic flowers intertwine, but suddenly get very violent to one another and turns bloody. This may symbolize either the inability to find intimacy or the sign of bad relationships. Next, we see a judge, shaped like a butthole, singing an insulting and demoting song to a plain doll. The judge could symbolize the crushing and controlling government and the plain doll could mean that it is/could happen to anyone.