MYST Post #2

Inception:
       There are so many things about this movie that make it so great, the mind blowing concept, the intense actions scenes and unbelievable acting cast, but not many people really look into a movie like this and take a deeper look into things like the cinematic aspects. An example of this would be the editing. There are not many movies that can compare to this one when looking at the editing work. Christopher Nolan really out did himself on this film, especially in the scene where Joseph Gordon- Levitt was being chased down a hotel hallway and all of the sudden the room completely flips upside down as they are battling while trying to keep their balance with the constant atmosphere change. The scene continues to Joseph struggling to get into his room to reach the device that helps them transport from level to level, when all of the sudden in the real word, s friend is pushed into the water making his level lose control. The slow motion scene of his friend being pushed into the water was one of the most dramatic scenes throughout the entire movie. As he was falling, the viewers could tell that something wrong was about to happen.
       This is hands down one of the most interesting movies I have ever seen. The overall concept absolutely blew my mind to the point where I had to watch it multiple times to fully understand what was going on. This movie honestly doesn't compare to many, but if I had to pick one movie I would have to compare it to Momento. I pick this movie not because it exactly has the same concept, but the way the movie was portrayed can be relatable to Inception. Momento is another movie I had to get a second glance at because I didn't fully understand what the director was trying to do, but once again I viewed it another time, I understood and like inception, but very pleased and intrigued.
       There where many heart pounding scenes in this movie, but if I had to pick one, it would be the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio is face to face with his wife who is on the edge of a ledge about to jump. They exchange words but its no use, she jumps to her death as Leonardo can only watch helplessly. This scene though, was in another level, in other words not real time. So the interesting part is when she died, she just moved into a deeper more dangerous level that no on dared to go in.

      

 

Mometo Blog Post

This was hands down one of the most interesting films I have ever seen, and with that said, the cinematic aspects were very impressive to me. If I had to really focus on one of the aspects it would definitely be the unique way Christopher Nolan used the black and white scenes as a flash back. While watching this movie, I honestly didn't understand what he was trying to do with it while I was watching the movie, but once I really looked into it I realized what he was trying to piece together. As we all know, the movie wasn't exactly put together from start to finish and that itself made the movie very intriguing, but throughout the movie, it would cut back to a black and white scene usually with Lenard talking on the phone with an unknown person. This was meant to be a flash back and show us Lenard piecing together his thought process of this "story" that he was trying to understand himself, when in reality, it was him telling this person all about his own life without him evening knowing it. With his difficult condition, he isn't able to remember much of anything since his accident, so throughout the coarse of his life, he was able to train his brain to think that what he did actually happen to someone else, so he wanted to be able to relate to it and figure out how he dealt with this condition and help himself out. I also feel that the black and white scenes had a hidden message, telling the viewers that something wasn't exactly right with Lenard's story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Formal Film Study (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, The Thin Red Line)

2.) Style: The three movies I watched are from a very impactful time period in the United states past, with that said, it was very important to capture every key moment in each movie. Steven Spielberg was the director for two of the movies that I watched(Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List), and I personally thought that he did a wonderful job with the cinematic styles throughout both movies. In the first scene of Saving Private Ryan, the United States storm the enemy beach and take a heavy hit. I found the camera angles were very impressive in this scene. When a bomb went off by Tom Hanks, his vision began to become blurry and the angle they were filming at perfectly portrayed Hanks distress and also showed the faces of his men under his command in complete fear. In Schindler's List, I thought it was very creative to make the entire movie in black and white. I felt that this was a message to the people viewing this as showing them the horror during the Holocaust and really brought the movie to life without having it filmed in color. The third movie I watched was The Thin Red Line, I thought that the aesthetics were very key in this film. They really captured the beautiful atmosphere of the Guadalcanal when the soldiers would wait back for any signs of enemies up ahead. There were scenes that just overlooked the land and in a stressful and fearful scene, somehow was able to portrayed peace.
Politics/History: All three movies are about an extremely important period of time during World War Two. The Holocaust is looked at as one of the biggest tragedies to ever happen in man kinds existence. Millions of people did under the wraith of Adolf Hitler. Schindler's List did not hold back on the horrible things that took place and personally had an effect on me. I caught myself becoming very emotional throughout the film, can not even imaging what it was like to be those poor innocent people during that time. At the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, it started out on the very well known day during WWII known as D-Day. This was a key battle during the war for us and helped us gain further into enemy territory.
4.) My Biggest Discovery: After watching all three movies , I found that the changing of the tempo in all three movies was very interesting. What I mean by this is that in a war film, we expect much violence and saddening and depressing scenes, which was true for all three, but I thought that the more calming scenes in the movies were brilliant. In The Thin Red Line, they had so many scenes where everyone would be peacefully gazing over the field and a ray of sunshine would reflect off of the grass perfectly, then just like that, gun shots were fired and people were dropping left and right. For a second, it almost was like I wasn't even watching a movie about war, as if it was some kind of nature documentary and I was viewing the beautiful landmarks of an island. In Schindler's List there was a scene of a party with plenty of happy people having the times of their lives, looking as they don't have a care in the world. Then it would immediately jump into the next scene of the German Soldiers torturing the poor Jews.
5.) A smaller interesting detail about the films I watched were that all three very good soundtrack. I thought that they did a great job capturing an important scene with the right kind of music. In Schindler's List when the man with one arm is taken away by the Germans to be executed, they begin to play soft music that builds up as the poor man gets closer to his death. Also in Saving Private Ryan, when Tom Hanks is left wounded on the bridge and helplessly shots at the enemy tank, the music starts to set in indicating to us that he is inching towards his last moments.
6.) http://evanerichards.com/2009/55 (Saving Private Ryan camera angles/shots)