Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Film. Show all posts
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
FINAL COMPLETE GRADES (Happy Summer) Any questions must be asked now, or (as they say in the marriage ceremony) "forever hold your peace"!
(as they say in the marriage ceremony) "forever hold your peace"!
Happy Vacation.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
A PLACE IN THE SUN (Study Pictures; NOT REQUIRED)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Subtext in WALKING DISTANCE
SUBTEXT IN "WALKING DISTANCE"
Directed by Robert Stevens in 1959 for the Twilight Zone television series, "Walking Distance" presents interesting issues for subtextual analysis based on dialogue, mise-en-scene, Bernard Herrmann's underscore, and editing. It also teaches a careful attention to all elements of a film.The dialogue emphasizes years and ages several times in this brief episode. Yet the years don't add up.
Martin Sloan is 36 years old (2:2), but he hasn't been back to Homewood in 20 years! That means he left at 16 and hasn't returned to see his parents in all that time.
These years cannot be ignored since they're repeated throughout the film: to the gas station attendant, to the counter clerk, by the father, by the host and narrator (Rod Serling.
Sloan's driver's license expires 25 years after he sees his father, in 1960. Hence the date of his meeting with his father in the past is 1935. Since Sloan hasn't been back to Homewood in 20 years, the current date is the Rock 'n' Roll era, 1960.
So the dialogue suggests Sloan's happy childhood was an illusion. But the mise-en-scene shows this too. In no scene is either parent shown to be sympathetic people; their reaction to Sloan is one of either hostility (when they don't know who he is) or cold indifference (when the father does learn who he is). In fact, the parents slam the door in Sloan's face (1:4); to slam the door in one's face is a common idiom of rejection ("he slammed the door in my face").
We assume this fantasy is a Freudian repetition of past rejection. (Note the similarities to "Little Girl Lost," another in the Twilight Zone series, also with a subtext of parental [specifically, maternal] rejection.)
Related to this motif of rejection is the motif of lost identity, emphasized in the mise-en-scene. Four times the issue of identity is developed. In three of them, Sloan tries to prove his identity (who he is) by showing his name on his identity cards, as if one's identity is not in one's person but on a card. Twice his claim to being who he is is rejected by others (the boy; the parents: 1:1-2; 2:1). Neither the boy (Sloan as a child) nor his mother cares about the identity on his cards.
The point is, true identity is based on love, not on laminated cards issued by the government. This is especially shown in 2:2, when the father knows for certain Sloan is his son; yet it doesn't change his stern attitude in the least: the father shows no sign of love at all, reflecting the real state of affairs in the past, despite Sloan's apparent nostalgia for the past.
In fact, Sloan's nostalgia for the past is never expressed in terms of parents but in terms of park bands, merry-go-rounds, etc. as if they were an escape from an unhappy childhood, not a fulfillment of an unhappy childhood: or why revisit the past? As the father tells Sloan, "you have been looking behind you." We assume Sloan is longing for a good relationship with his parents that never was and that can never be, now that his parents are dead.
As Freud taught us, we revisit the past (as in a repetition compulsion) because the past (the family melodrama) has been unresolved in the present. People with good relationships in the past can live in the present; Sloan is haunted by the past because he has had an unhappy past, as is shown by the fact that he lived with his aunt each summer and he hasn't revisited his parents in 20 years!
So the name of Homewood is not only a pun (on "homeward") but a paradox: because there IS no home to go back to!
Moreover the illusion continues in the present, as the form cut from the merry-go-round to the spinning record in the jukebox shows (2:3-4): the circle of illusion continues in Rock 'n' Roll as it did on the merry-go-round: both are escapes from an unhappy childhood.
The quest for identity is poignantly shown by the scene in which the young Sloan carves his name into the wood (1:3). Who Martin Sloan is is the main theme of the film, which shows us that now, in the present, all he is is a name on identity cards. (The name Martin Sloan is repeated throughout, including by host, Rod Serling, as if to emphasize the theme of identity—or the lack of it.)
Finally, Bernard Herrmann's great score is elegiac throughout, as if in mourning for a childhood that in fact never was. (Herrmann's elegiac score is similar to the elegiac viola solo in "Little Girl Lost," another Twilight Zone episode that Herrmann scored.)
The ending of "Walking Distance" is similarly elegiac. Sloan is as unlikely to find happiness in the present as he was in finding it in the past. But in being rejected by his father once again (the father tells him sternly he is not welcome), Sloan accepts the fact of his failed relationship to his parents and, to this extent at least, has achieved some kind of catharsis, or purging of his unhappy past.
This catharsis is a kind of wisdom, shown by Sloan's present limp: a symbol (as in the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the angel in the night) of Sloan's night journey into his past (the cathartic scenes in "Walking Distance" occur at night). The limp suggests a loss of innocence as well as a gain in wisdom.
Is this analysis of subtext and theme in "Walking Distance" "over reading"? After all, it's "only" a television show.
I don't think so. The dialogue is too insistent and carefully worded to be mere coincidence; the mise-en-scene (the showing of identity cards, the cold parents) is too evident; the underscore elegiac, not merely nostalgic. All these cannot be accidents, but carefully designed elements to dramatize a subtext that, in this case (unlike the case of "Little Girl Lost"), rises to the level of a theme.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Assigned film for 12 June 2009 (Final film of the year.)
BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE
ON JUNE 12,
Except for Shep's Theme and several incidental music cues, the score is essentially monothematic: one main theme that undergoes numerous variations.
The main theme does double duty, as both a bewitching theme (associated with the witch, Gil, and her familiar [witch's cat], Pyewacket) and a love theme, depending on its orchestration. The theme itself is in two segments, the first segment being either grave or jaunty (depending on tempo and orchestration), the second segment being more plaintive, especially when played by the strings.
Attached are Study Pictures.
Musical Underscore: Required Home Viewing Assignment for this week (June 5-12).
Bernard Herrmann's Underscore in "LITTLE GIRL LOST"
"Little Girl Lost" Herrmann's underscore is built mainly on a harp ostinato* figure heard at the beginning; an elegiac (sad) viola solo, suggesting the lost girl; and harp glissandi* evoking the sci-fi theme of the 4th dimension. There's also a soft harp arpeggio* as host Rod Serling appears (introduced by a pan shot); and a low harp figure as the father runs to phone his friend. For the sequence when the father enters the 4th dimension to find his daughter (not shown in this segment) Herrmann uses a staccato flute chorus in octaves (that is, flutes attacking the same pitch at different registers).
From these basic elements, Herrmann establishes the credibiliity (believability as sci-fi drama) of the mise-en-scene. To prove this, view the sequence with the sound turned off. The father waking up, putting on his slippers, then searching under the bed might be a scene in a funny sitcom (situation comedy). It's the music that tells us how to "read" the mise-en-scene.
Note that the underscore stops during the "rational" sequence when the friend arrives and plans how to find the girl (lifting the bed, etc.).
To motivate you to study this sequence in depth (several times), I am only assigning the first part of three. But I may base an exam question on this sequence, so study it carefully.
At the same time, do not ignore the wonderful camera tilt-pan-dissolve-dolly combination in the opening sequence; the dolly-in on the girl's picture on the table; the sound effects of the girl crying, followed by another pan to the parents' bed linked to the girl's cry "Mommy," along with Herrmann's ostinato harp figure: all establish with economy the subject of the story. But camera movement and impact cutting (such as when the parents explore under the bed) are vital throughout. There's the pan shot as the father discovers the girl's empty bed; the tilt shot as he visually checks under the bed (the camera following his action, but not his point of view), etc.
Subtext
(NOT REQUIRED)
For those students who wish to explore the subtext, you can go more deeply into the show's narration. But you must view all three segments (not required): (NOT REQUIRED)
The girl cries for her "mommy," but it's the father who gets out of bed (the mother shows no interest in doing so), suggesting the child's unsatisfied relationshp to her mother. The dog is shown trapped behind a glass door in several shots until he's finally let out; the girl is similarly trapped, behind the 4th dimension.
Both dog and girl are part of an alienated family: the "girl lost" is already lost: not in the 4th dimension but in the 3 dimensions of ordinary family life: that is, she is alienated from her family. The dog, with its animal instinct, can easily run to the child, but the parents are puzzled. (Dogs can be trained to sense when its owner has depressed feelings and instinctively nuzzle up to the owner to comfort her.)
The mother who refused to get out of bed for her child is punished later in the drama by being forced to frantically search all over the house for the child she had previously been shown to be indifferent towards. Later the child asks, "Where are you, Mommy" and "Will he [her dog] take me to you?" At show's end, the mother hugs her child close to her as she races out of the room, presumably to her own bedroom, which is where the child wants to be in the first place.
The resolution of the sci-fi drama restores the child not only to the three dimensions of ordinary life, but also into the arms of her mother, which was the goal of the child's first cry for "Mommy." In this sense the show has been resolved not only on the level of sci-fi, but on the level of the domestic (family) drama of the show's subtext.
This may seem like "over-reading" of a simple sci-fi tale; but Rod Serling always preached social messages underneath a sci-fi disguise in order to bypass commercial censorship. Admittedly, in this case the message is not a theme but a subtext, yet still worth exploring.
Musical Terms
*An ostinato figure is a repeated short musical motif. "Ostinato" is related to the English word "obstinate." Thus an ostinato figure obstinately repeats itself.*A glissando glides across several notes of a musical instrument quickly. Herrmann uses this effect to suggest the girl's slipping into the 4th dimension. The glissando is especially evident in key moments, as when host Rod Serling speaks the word, "the Twilight Zone," or when the dog disappears into the 4th dimension.
*An arpeggio (arpeggiation) is the sounding of the notes of a chord in succession instead of at the same time, as a harp does; hence "arpeggio."
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Assigned Film for 5 June 2009
GODSPELL
For June 5, 2009
Godspell (David Greene, 1973) is a film musical based on the Gospel of Matthew. Music and lyrics are by Stephen Schwartz, who was only 22 at the time the original Broadway show opened. Schwartz would later win an Oscar for "When You Believe" (The Prince of Egypt) and shared Oscars as lyricist for "Colors of the Wind" and the song score for Pocahontas.For June 5, 2009
Godspell as a film has some interesting ideas in its modernization of the Gospel story. But it runs out of steam and loses inspiration in its last half, where it seems more like filmed street theatre than filmed drama.
Nonetheless the film can be studied from several angles, including costume design, music, cinematography, editing, and the sound track. The sound track can be divided into human voices, music, and sound effects.
Through intercutting, the opening sequence shows John the Baptist calling Jesus' apostles from their social routines one by one. (In the gospels it is Jesus who calls the apostles.)
This opening sequence is nicely staged and cut, showing, through diverse personal mishaps (a novel being defaced by coffee, etc.), how worldly concerns are not fulfilling, evoking St. Augustine's famous words addressed to God: "You have made us for Yourself and our souls are restless till they repose in You."
Montage is also used in several parables, notably "The Parable of the Seeds" and "The Prodigal Son," which intercuts a simulated Silent Film with Jesus' apostles telling the story.
Cutting on action is most visible in the sequence of hostility among the apostles, when each assaults his neighbor, until Jesus arrives to halt them.
The songs cover a wide variety of musical styles, most notably the vaudevillian soft shoe style used in "All for the Best," with its comic counterpoint of fast and slow melodies. "On the Willows" has an especially haunting melody, while "Day by Day" became the show's only pop hit.
Some of the lyrics are taken directly from, or are paraphrases of, Scripture; while some arrangements use a rinky tink piano style consistent with the pastiche approach of the musical as a whole.
Stop-motion photography is used in the opening intercut sequence, showing John appearing to Jesus' future disciples; it's also used during the vaudevillian sketch with Jesus and John the Baptist, when Jesus shows John how to make a dancing stick materialize out of thin air.
Costume design evokes the 1960s Hippie (youth) generation in its colorful patterns, setting Jesus' disciples apart from ordinary (worldly) reality (a point already made in the opening sequence) and by having the disciples and Jesus the only people we see through most of the film. By face painting his apostles, Jesus symbolically anoints them with new identities. Their new particolored outfits suggest Jesus' saying that one cannot put new wine in old bottles. These youth need new clothes for their new identities.
The design for the evil Pharisee is mechanical, in order to oppose the human freedom of Jesus' apostles to the machinelike mechanism of his Pharisaic opposition, representing the dead letter of the Law, which is itself spoken mechanically.
Stage props of discarded items suggest that the world has been superseded by another reality ("the former things have passed away"). The old things of the world remain, but for new uses (mainly to illustrate Jesus' parables).
The world has become a junk shop of discarded things ("a heap of broken images," to quote T. S. Eliot), including a hollowed automobile, making more effective the arrival of a real automobile to arrest Jesus after Judas (played by the same actors who plays the Baptist) has betrayed him.
Even so, specific symbolism is used, as when Jesus lays down a door as a table for the Last Supper, suggesting the Gospel of John's saying, "I am the door."
Jesus' Superman costume is consistent with the film's generally irreverent costume design. But it also uses the letter "S" on the costume to suggest "Savior" as well as "Superman." In fact, in the comic book design of the production, the two are really one.
But the most notable cinematic element in the film version of the musical is the use of sound, including dialogue and sound effects. The different voices that characters assume throughout evoke both cartoon and film characters (Donald Duck, Mae West, W. C. Fields, Peter Lorre of M, Afro-American preaching, etc.). It is, after all, Jesus' voice (his call) that is the main subject of the gospels, and his voice is heard as one among a diversity of voices, all familiar to our culture. Different voices also evoke Jesus' different temptations and give meaning to an otherwise weak sequence.
Another noteworthy use of voices is the apostles' successive denials, in humorous accents, since they think that Jesus is only joking when he warns that one of them will betray him.
Sound effects, vocal cries, and instrumental accents (toots on toy horns) are used throughout to underscore the meaning of, or human reactions to, Jesus' parables. The opening ambient sound of car horns and subway trains contrasts against the film's initial quiet. Finally, the clanging metal of the fence on which Jesus is crucified evokes the evil behind the Crucifixion (and barbed wire fences of military prisons and concentration camps) while also referring back to the earlier use of the fence in a more benign context.
Silence is creatively used after the scene with the Pharisaic Machine when Jesus retreats to solitude and while his apostles look on.
New York City locations, including the Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Towers are used throughout. Baptism becomes real child's play in water, consistent with the youthful reading of the New Testament as a message of joyous freedom ("Behold, I make all things new").
Conveniently, the Statue of Liberty in the background suggests true liberty. In this way, New York represents the world though also freedom from the world following Jesus' "new" Testament.
The movie moves symbolically (as does the Gospel of John) from day to the night of Jesus' betrayal, as it is written in John's Gospel: "As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night" (13:30). After Jesus' death, his apostles awaken to a new day of promise, for Jesus (as John's Gospel asserted) is "the light of the world." The new day also refers to the show's pop hit, "Day by Day," evoking St. Paul: "Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day" (2 Corinthians 4:16). In fact, the song is heard in the medley that is sung afterwards.
Though the apostles return to New York's bustling streets at the end, we assume (using the phrasing in the Gospel of John), that they are now in the world but no longer of the world.
Because one cannot illustrate sound with images, there are no Study Pictures this week and this brief essay takes their place.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Scheduled film for 29 May, with focus on editing, sound, and music.
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
Directed by Mel Gibson
Directed by Mel Gibson
Friday, May 22, 2009
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