Friday, 9 March 2012

Films that conform or subvert Hollywood/Mainstream Filmmaking Standards & Techniques

A typical movie that conforms with the Hollywood mainstream filmmaking is 'You've Got Mail' (1998). 

A typical genre of a chick flick aka comedy romance starring famous star duo Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, who already gained high recognition value with their onscreen chemistry that the audience could connect to in 'Sleepless in Seattle' in 1993.   So, the money was already in the bank knowing the stars already appealed to the mass audiences specifically targeted at the female cinema goer which could include dates to the cinema with their partner although most guys would hate chick flicks. 

Budget : $65,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend:  $18,426,749 (USA) (20 December 1998) (2691 Screens)
Gross:  $115,731,542 (USA) (25 April 1999)  (IMDB Box Office Figures)

You could say there is some typical feminist theory here with Hanks character, Joe Fox being the stronger gender being the owner of a large bookstore chain, Fox Books who falls in love with Ryan online through email and instant messenger.  Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly is portrayed as the weaker gender who runs a small independent bookshop that her mother left to her when she died called 'The Little Bookshop Around the Corner' that Fox Books is trying to shut down.   Kelly hates Joe Fox and is unaware, he is her online buddy but Fox finds out her identity.  Of course, they fall in love with each other and have a happy ending when they finally meet up and Kelly is hoping it was Fox (Cook, 1985 p353). 

Source : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128853/
http://rgucinemasociety.blogspot.com/search/label/Lecture  (Counter Cinema)
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0IJZAAAAMAAJ&dq=the%20cinema%20book%2C%20cook%20and%20bernink&source=gbs_book_other_versions

A film that subverts Hollywood's mainstream filmmaking is Thelma & Louise (1991) who fight back with the feminist theory of  'the cultural practice representing myths about women and femininity' and 'giving negative impact on the female spectator' who fought back to get better images of women in cinema (Cooks, 1985 p353).

Laura Mulvey's 1975 essay ' Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema', says Hollywood only cater for the 'male gaze' where the main character is always male and women are just a visual impact for erotic pleasure where the bad girl gets punished.   Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise show the role reversal. In the beginning they are portrayed as weak women and some of the men are portrayed as untrustworthy, violent or abusive monsters. 'But what stands out more than anything about Ridley Scott's epic of estrogen empowerment is how transparently one-sided it looks at male-female relations which remains 12 years later'  (Schager 2003) .

Thelma & Louise stars Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Brad Pitt and Harvey Keitel.  Thelma and Louise decide to escape their lives and go on a road trip but when Louise kills a man in a car park attempting to rape Thelma, they go on the run and head for Mexico causing a full scale car chase across America by the police 'which made them feminist icons for a generation of women'  and 'made the cover of the national news magazines for tweaking the gender politics like no movie had done before' (Schager 2003).  Of course, it ends with them driving off a cliff at the Grand Canyon but before they do this, they kiss each other on the lips causing the gay and lesbian critics suggesting the female friendship or female buddy as the unspoken lesbianism show a source of strength and inspiration (Cook, 1985 p360).

Source : http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/thelma-and-louise/539
http://rgucinemasociety.blogspot.com/search/label/Lecture  (Counter Cinema)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thelma-Louise-DVD-Susan-Sarandon/dp/B00004CX4X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1331257641&sr=8-2
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0IJZAAAAMAAJ&dq=the%20cinema%20book%2C%20cook%20and%20bernink&source=gbs_book_other_versions

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What makes a Filmmaker an Auteur?

Since the 1950s, there has been various studies on auteur theory and 'who was the sole author of the finished product'. (Cook, 1985 p235)  Recently, Sally Phillips, comedian actress best known for 'Smack the Pony',  'Bridget Jones Diary' and 'Miranda' has wrote her first movie 'The Decoy Bride', which is released this Friday (09/03/12).  She was interviewed on 'Something for the Weekend' and openly said that the time the director is through filming and editing, the original story does change as its his final decision. 

Alfred Hitchcock
(13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980)
One master storyteller director is Alfred Hitchcock, who was very controlling to make sure he made that perfect film.  Cook says 'he is a master of cinematic mise-en-scene who created an unmistakable and homegeneous world-view, controlling his audience so that they were completely at the mercy of this intention' (Cook, 1985 p246).  Hitchock follows the Peter Wollen auteur theory with recurring themes and motifs throughout all his movies so that you know it is a Hitchcock movie.  For example, most of his leading ladies are blonds for example, Grace Kelly in 'To Catch a Thief', Tippi Hedren in 'The Birds' and 'Marnie', and Doris Day in 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' she starred with James Stewart, another recurring theme he also appeared in  'Rear Window', 'Vertigo'. Other recurring themes include, the build up of suspense over time, birds, falling, betrayal, disguise to name but a few.  Donald Spoto talks about how 'the leading ladies achieved international stardom because of their Hitchcock role' (Spoto 2008 Pxvi), and he always took the credit for the film.  A quote at the back of Spoto's book 'Spellbound by Beauty' fits Hitchcock to a tee, 'Hitchcock's art imitated his life and mentality with disquieting closeness'.



Guy Ritchie

If there is one director's films that I avoid, that is Guy Ritchies because it is a typical bloke film that will always contain violence which I am not interested in.  He always seems to do the same thing, a typical gangster film using well known hard man actors like Vinnie Jones and Jason Stratham and set in London's East End with the cockney accents with comedy thrown in.  Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) was also written by Ritchie so he would be the overall author/auteur.  Andrew Sarris values social realism (Cook, 1985 p256) and that fand says its the distinguishable personality of the director that is important and that he has technical competence, style and interior meaning and Ritchie does fall under this theory as he was born in London where most of his films are set including the recent Sherlock Holmes movies although its seems more of a Hollywood Blockbuster which I actually did enjoy.  He also has a working class background so would have a good knowledge of the history and location.

Source : http://rgucinemasociety.blogspot.com/search/label/Lecture  (Lecture 3)
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0IJZAAAAMAAJ&dq=the%20cinema%20book%2C%20cook%20and%20bernink&source=gbs_book_other_versions

 

Tim Burton

Helen Bonham Carter
in Alice in Wonderland
Tim Burton's films intrigue me and I have definitely watched a lot of his films including Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, Sweeny Todd, Batman, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Edward Scissorhands.  He seems to capture my attention throughout the whole movie with perfect story telling that I am memorised and left wanting more and stands out from any other director.  Burton follows the Peter Wollen auteur theory with recurring themes and motifs throughout all his movies so that you know it is a Tim Burton movie.  Most of his films have set stars of Johnny Depp and Helen Bonham Carter in starring roles and the films are always quite dark, quirky and both actors are versatile with their changing image for each role.   Burton also follows the Barthe's Theory of discourse analysis, meanings of film and surrealism with dreams and sub-conscience. Burton seems to like cartoon characters and this is evident from with the various strange characters which are dark figures of his imagination and supernatural comedy horror.


 

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Early Cinema Pioneering Moments


The following will show five pioneering moments in early cinema pre-1930s including Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, the first narrative film, D.W. Griffiths the competitve director and two of the first most famous silent movie stars, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin. 


The First Moving Picture
Thomas Alva Edison
February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931

It is hard to believe that the first movie was in the form of silent moving images in a wooden box which could only be watched by one person at a time at funfairs.  The Kinetoscope was created by an American born inventor Thomas Alva Edison (Thomas_Edison) and launched in 1894 in New York and he opened the first filming studio costing $700 but soon made this back by charging $200 per kinetoscope which became popular filling arcades.  The video below shows the inside workings of the Kinetoscope and 'The Serpertine Dancer' movie. It was filmed on a single reel, approximately 50 feet long and lasting 1 minute on 35mm film still industry standard today.  The Lumiere Brothers (Lumiere Brothers), Paris were the first to project images onto a projection screen in 1895.

Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011k4vx
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0IJZAAAAMAAJ&dq=the%20cinema%20book%2C%20cook%20and%20bernink&source=gbs_book_other_versions (Page 1)



The First Narrative Film
The Great Train Robbery was the first narrative film in 1903, a milestone in film history.  It was produced by the Edison Company, directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter (Edwin S Porter).  The film was 10 minutes long with 14 scenes, shot at various locations in New Jersey including Edison’s film studio.  It was based on a true event in 1900, with the Butch Cassidy 'Hole in the Wall' gang who stopped a train in Wyoming, Dick Turpin style forcing the uncoupling of the carriage with the loot, escaping with $5,000.  This film used many new techniques for the first time including ‘parallel editing, minor camera movement, location shooting and less staged camera placement.  The film also included jump-cuts, cross-cuts, sophisticated editing techniques, showing 2 separate lines of action or events happening continuously at identical times but in different places.' (Film Review)

Sources : http://www.filmsite.org/grea.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011k4vx





Competitive Directors

D.W. Griffith
(January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948)

D.W. Griffith (D W Griffith) was the most competitive director of his time who always wanted to be the first to create any new innovations in filmmaking.  Griffith was an unsuccessful stage actor and playwright who stumbled into directing in 1908 when a director at Biograph Films never turned up and Griffith shot his first film 'The Adventures of Dolly'.  At Biograph, Griffith was restricted to 12 minute films and was jealous when Cecil B DeMille (Cecil B DeMille), Hollywood's famous director made the first feature length film of 80 minutes,'The Squaw Man' in 1913 (BBC2: The Birth of Hollywood). 

In 1915, Griffith filmed his first feature length film 'Judith of Bethulia' but is more famous for the very controversial racist film. 'Birth of a Nation' in 1915.  At 3 hours long, it was based on the 'The Clansman' by Thomas Dixon (The Clansman), the American Civil War and slavery which caused a huge outcry in the African American community being left feeling 'uncounted' and it led the to revival of the Kuk Klux Klan which was dorment for a decade.

Sources :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011k4vx
http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_clansman.html?id=5vbDqpn8maoC&redir_esc=y
http://www.filmsite.org/birt.html





Mary Pickford
(April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979)
 Mary Pickford
The first famous silent film actor was Mary Pickford who helped to shape the film industry. In 1909, she started work with Biograph in New York where she became famous but no one knew her name, she was only known as the 'Biograph Girl'. Mary was quite a good business women and knew she should be paid more money ($5 per day) and recognition. Biograph did not agree and in 1911, Carl Laemmle tempted her away to Independent Movies receiving more money and recognition on all advertising (BBC2 : The Birth of Hollywood).  In 1910, D.W.Griffiths took her to Hollywood with him and made 42 films together paying her $10 per day which included  the 'New York Hat' (1912) which gave us some of the first close-up shots.

Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011k4vx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Pickford




Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin
(16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977)

Charlie Chaplin must have been the most famous silent movie actor pre-1930s with his slapslick comical skits and his baggy pants, big shoes, derby hat, moustache and twirling walking stick which although was created for a previous film, Chaplin used the same costume for 'The Tramp' in 1914 (The_Tramp). Chaplin was not happy with having no creative control as actors were seen as expendable in those days.  So in 1919, Chaplin, along with D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, and her husband to be Douglas Fairbanks made history by forming the independent film production company, United Artists giving them creative control of their movies and became world famous millionaires (BBC2 : The Birth of Hollywood).


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