Citizen Kane...

I do believe that films can indeed be influential over individuals overall. film director's opinions and morals come into play when creating plots and stories, not to mention any biases they inject into it as well. For instance, war propaganda movies are made to sway opinion to one side's cause or the other, often depicting that the other side is not human, or somehow lesser than their own, and that it is necessary to kill and/or fight them.

Orson Welles' careful use of dialogue and scene setup throughout Citizen Kane definitely show off his knowledge of radio and theater. an example of this is how there are many interviews throughout, and even if you look away from the screen, you can still get a good sense of what is happening by the audio ques he leaves through all of his transitions, be it flashbacks or to a new scene altogether.

One example I can think of where low-angle shots were used heavily was then his ex-guardian goes to talk to Kane about his newspaper's campaign against the Public Transit company. At first the camera is angled down on Kane as he's kicked back in his chair, the other man coming in from the high point which seems to signify his supposed importance. the camera suddenly shifts though int he opposite direction when Kane begins to speak and the roles are reversed, the camera angle giving a sense of depth and importance to Kane as if he has won the argument.

A prominent example of how transitions were used in this film is the breakfast scene in the memorial hospital. first we start off in a small, fairly confined scene, but cuts to a larger dining room scene. This is done by use of a long fade-transition that blends the 2 scenes together until the first disappears and you are left with the later one. during this next scene of them at breakfast, use of a spinning camera int he room signifies the passage of time between different shot sin the same room, depicting their relationship deteriorating over the years they were together.

Early Sound and The Artist

The 2011 movie "The Artist" has alot in common with with older silent films which it is based off of, but introduces a few modern concepts here and there I think to make it appeal to a modern audience.Here are some of my observations form the film in regards to how it compares and contrasts to older silent films.

Camera Work
The camera angles in The Actor somewhat resemble earlier silent films by pulling the camera back in many scenes. the thing that makes it obvious this is a modern film in this regard (other than picture quality) is that there are alot of three quarter shots used in this. In early silent/voiced films, there still wasn't a solid concept of proper shot size, so full shots were still fairly the norm if i am not mistaken.

Sound and Music
The sound used in this film is somewhat reminiscent of the early synchronized sound films as it has orchestra playing different parts that are suited to the scene, not an overarching soundtrack like in ones of the silent era.

Dialogue/Speech
the speech and text dialogue confuses me a little bit honestly. Its obviously going for the silent film aesthetic as it has notecards that come up, and I assume having it in another language as the main writing is part of that effect, but the reason for it somewhat eludes me really. 

Editing
The editing in The Artist, is in my experience, much more up to modern standards than compared to the old style of editing. there are alot more cuts and transitions used here than in older works, which would have had alot more static or drawn out shots overall.

Special Effects
I feel as if they really tried to subdue alot of the modern special effects in this film to try and make it feel more authentic overall, and to pretty darn good effect. the part where he momentarily hears sound in the dressing room was a startling event int he movie and was definitely evidence of modern editing techniques.

Genre codes and Conventions
I'd say overall that The Artist uses alot of technical codes instead of symbolic ones. heavy editing from our modern era gives it a slightly different overall feel from its old predecessors and in that way goes against the conventions of the time. 

Acting
The acting in this film was pretty good overall for a silent type film, but I feel as if they forgoed some of the dramatization to differentiate between the film and the in movie filming scenes, and instead used alot more notecard prompts to indicate speech as well as just using more subtle actions.

Northwest film history - Scarecrow Video

Horror and Suspense

The movie "M" is usually categorized as a drama-thriller and not an outright horror film, and honestly i'd have to agree overall with that. After watching the film, I couldn't honestly point to anything int he movie itself that was scary or really enough to be "creepy" in any way. Even the scenes in the beginning where you couldn't see the murderer weren't really scary or suspenseful in any meaningful way.

The movie I chose to watch this week , "Aliens" I feels fall into 2 different horror genres. It would I feel classify as Action-horror as well as Science fiction horror. Its got all the run and gun/suspenseful action of action horror as well as the unnatural, creepy monster type creatures that would put it into the sci-fi horror genre.

In the movie "M", there is alot of use of sound effects and overall ambient sounds to flesh out the scenes. One use of it springs out to me however, and thats how the murderer's whistling comes into play in several scenes. Even before he is actually shown to us, the sound of his whistling is there, signifying his presence and trying to invoke suspense.

Contrastingly to how sound was used in "M", there is also a particular effect they used in "Aliens" to much the same effect, though to a much scarier and emotion inducing end, and that would be the sound of his alien itself as it is int he shadows near someone, even though it isn't outright shown to us. This is done to great effect as dramatic buildup throughout the film.

 The supposed "evil and "good" in Aliens is fairly easy to see throughout, with only a few main overarching themes overall. the aliens themselves are always portrayed as the evil and never as anyhting else, though there is a short part of the film where a "good" person turns to evil. the concept of good int he film is fairly light, as it applies to pretty much all the characters except for the one mentioned before and overall makes the movie a struggle for survival against a terrible threat.

Theories of Montage

The 1925 Russian film "Battleship Potemkin" was a great example of montage editing for many reasons. It conveyed subliminal messaging and abstract ideas of its time period into a movie without outright saying what thaw were, but making them firmly identifiable.

 In the images above, you see on the left the part of the movie where the doctor is examining the rotten meat.  On the image on the right, it shows him explaining in a joyous tone that the meat is perfectly fine and that there was nothing wrong with it. It demonstrates via montage the vileness leaders.

My last example of this is from shrtly later in the film when the firing squad is about to kill several of the crew for not eating the rotten meat soup. The film makes a point to show the piest several times along with the tapping of a cross in his hand, coincided with the tapping of a sword hilt on an officer. This was an abstract way of showing the corruption between the ruling party and the church at the time.

Early world cinema

The film we watched of Joan of Arc does focus solely only on the end of her life, and gives little reference back to the rest of her life except some very vague references here and there to her miracles and such. I think the director did this so there wouldn't be as much back context as to what was happening, and instead wanted to focus more on the emotions of the trial and subsequent actions therein, such as the trickery used to make her give in and answer their questions.

the film does make heavy use of close ups throughout to convey emotion, but it also uses a few other innovative techniques for its time, one of which is the tracking shot, where the camera pans and follows through a scene instead of being static.  This is used to great effect throughout the film, even starting fromt he beginning. It uses this tracking shot to show the judges in the trial, but doesn't let you get a good look at them like you otherwise would, instead, it just pans through them to give a sense of more of mass scale than of emotionalism, so the emotion is focused only on a few select characters in the film. In relation to "the subjective camera" idea, this fits perfectly, emphasizing particular scenes and actions while others are given less time to be focused upon, trying to evoke particular moods and feelings from what they present.

The use of light and darkness in Caligiri and Metropolis were used to spectacular effect for what they were trying to convey in each piece.  The light is used to create happy, more cheerful atmosphere, while darkness and shadow are used to give that gloomy, spooky feeling. This is used heavily in Caligiri to give that feeling of darkness and fright in its alleys and nights, and has become a classic of horror films for its spectacular use.

Griffith and Micheaux

The movie "Birth of a Nation" by D. W. Griffith is a movie about slavery and the freedom of african Americans before and after the civil ar. The story focuses mainly around 2 families who are from the north and south and how they handle the war and subsequent reconstruction phase of the south after the civil war. The movie is overall very racist, frequently depicting African Americans as the antagonist, while white individuals are given the role as the victim and are justified in their discrimination throughout.

The film "Within Our Gates" by Oscar Micheaux is a film made a few years after the previous mentioned one. The story follows a young African American woman who is trying to raise money for a school for her race.  It portrays racial violence at the hands of white individuals in the form of lynching and beatings and overall unequalness along with demonstrating people's prejudices.

Both fo these films deal with racism and discrimination quite a bit, but both of them take very different angles on the situation. In the case of birth of a Nation, white people are seen as the victim's of freed black people's oppression and depicts black individuals as uneducated and simple minded. On the other hand, Within our Gates" shows the mistreatment of black people after the civil war at the hands of white people and shows black people striving to better themselves.

The NAACP did their best to get birth of a Nation censored nationwide, but only met with marginal success from what I'e read. One article seems to portray its censoring as a big threat to the film, while another seems to almost all but dismiss it as a footnote. I find it difficult to say which is true, but after reading all the material and seeing the film myself, I can surmise that they did at least have some success in getting the film either censored or edited in some locations, and it most likely laid a more solid foundation for getting other films censored afterwards.