In the Mood for Love

Film movements have influenced the stage of the film industry today. The two most important elements in film movements are films that are produced within particular period and nation and that share significant traits of style and form. Next, the filmmakers who operate within a common production structure and who share certain assumptions about filmmaking. (Bordwell & Thompson, 2009)

World War I has destroyed the French film industry and caused American films began to enter the French film's market in 1915. The local film industry tried to reborn in the market by referred the style and genre of Hollywood films, however, this move has deferred the perception of young French directors with their predecessor. Their predecessor treats filmmaking as commercial tools, unlike younger generation, create the cinema to be an art which able to compare with poetry, painting, and music.

French Impressionism happened in 1919 until 1928. The younger directors love to explore the psychological emotion because they think that cinema was an art of emotion. They have a huge interest in the inner action of the actors rather than physical behavior. On top of that, the directors love to play the concept of manipulating plot time and subjectivity hence flashbacks are very common. Impressionism focuses on the personal emotion to give the film narrative.

To display a unique style of the films, the filmmakers developed different types of cinematography and editing such as masks and superimposition to trace the actors' thoughts and feelings. For example, point-of-view cutting to show a character looking at something, then change the shot to that thing from an angle and distance which are in the same position of the character. This method is using to show what the character looking at. Besides, the filmmakers will use visual to show the characters' situation such as when the character is getting drunk or dizzy, the camera will shake to show dizzy or the filmmakers will use the distorted and vertiginous camera movement. Additionally, Impressionists also developed the rhythmic editing which means the pace of editing will increase as the mood of that particular scene was excited to create the climax. The filmmakers think that they can do more on the camera hence they tried to develop the frame mobility such as strapped their camera on the cars.

In the Mood for Love, 花樣年華 is a 2000 Hong Kong romantic film produced, written and directed by Wong Kar Wai. The story happened in Hong Kong in 1962 when Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan move into the same place and become a neighbor. Their spouse often leaves them alone because of career purpose. Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan found out they are in the same lonely situation and their spouse has an affair with each other. Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan often dating together to imagine and rehearsal their spouse how to betrayal them. They even always hang out together to write a martial-art series of novel. They actually fall in love with each other and Mr. Chow asks Mrs. Chan to follow him to go to Singapore because he got a new job offer over there however Mrs. Chan is too late to join Mr. Chow. Three years later, Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow go back to the old place where they used to live there but they do not meet each other. The film ends at Mr. Chow whispering his little secret into a hole in a ruined wall.

This film is attractive because the formula was unfamiliar for us. The ending actually makes me felt sad because Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan did not being together although they fall in love with each other. The elements of French Impressionism can be found in this film especially the term of exploring psychology causes. There is a plot in the film where Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan buying and having their dinner at the same noodle stall. The BGM and the scene are similar and repeat for a few times. The director is trying to show they are do everything alone, having their meals alone. The expressionless of the characters shows they are used to the loneliness. When Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan found out their spouse having an affair, they imagine the scene of betrayal and rehearsal on it for few times. This shows the director apply the manipulating plot time effects in the film. The characters repeat the rehearsal but in a different dialog.

After Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan getting know each other better, they aware that they have some chemical between them. But they are struggling because they do not want to be like their spouse. They have a conversation about what if they haven't married. Both of them agree that they will be happier if they do not have married. Mr. Chow backs to his office and having a lot of smoke after the end of the conversation. The smoke, dark lighting and Mr. Chow expression show he is thinking and struggling. The smoke represents cloudy, his mind actually is crowded. Besides, time lapse effect can be found in the film. The time lapse effect makes the world is moving but not the character. This created the characters depress emotion.

Additionally, fast cut editing appears on after Mrs. Chan picks up the phone call from Mr. Chow and she is invited to the hotel to meet with him. Mrs. Chan arrived the hotel but she is struggling meet or not to meet with Mr. Chow. The confuse and excitement from Mrs. Chan match with fast pace editing elements to create the climax of her mood and the film. During the tutorial, we had a discussion about the director used freeze frame in certain footages such as Mr. Chow decided to go to Singapore but the frame is freezing at the moment he wants to leave and without Mrs. Chan's appearance. Mr. Joe said that it was a technique from director Wong Kar-wai as he wants to leave a memory on that particular scene. In my opinion, the freezing scene represents maybe Mr. Chow wants to wait for another moment to wait for Mrs. Chan. In this whole film, we can't see their spouses' faces and this makes the audiences very curious. But, does it important? Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan also can't see their betrayal so it is not necessary to show them to the audiences.

Frech impressionism ended in 1929. But it brings a huge influence on today's film industry. The concept, psychological narrative, cinematography and editing are not going to disappear. By the way, Maggie Cheung in the film is so beautiful!!!

Dark City

A film movement, German Expressionism happened in 1919-1926, after the World War I.
The filmmakers start to apply the human emotion and sexuality in the movement to express their modern art. The films' themes in German Expressionism are the revolt, self-analysis, madness and primitive, sexual savagery. The concept of the films is to present the true essence of people and things into visible form to make the film be more realistic and familiar to the audiences.

German Expressionism is far different from Surrealism. Surrealism present the content which let the audiences find the hidden message from unconsciousness but the German Expression is not. German Expression aligned with the terms of narrative, set and mise-en-scene. This film movement has different critics in the different era since the interpretations vary. Some viewed German explore the mental issue on the brink of madness, obsessed with death and fatality and ready to encompass fascism.( Hayward, 2013) (Kracauer, 1992 & to some extend Eisner, 1969), and others viewed the films as an attempt to escape even into horror from a dreadful effect of the economic crisis and inflation (Manuell and Fraenkel, 1971).

The German expressionist film has unique style such as diagonal camera angle, distorted body image and the setting with incongruous but Gothic at the same time. The lighting will have a very high contrast between light and dark (also known as chiaroscuro) to create the dramatic shadows. In the elements of the mise-en-scene, actors' performance has a very important role as the actors' body is as much a producer of meaning on that particular scene. In German expressionism, the filmmakers start to concern about the cinematic equipment with technology hence one of the technique in editing which is called 'montage' has been created and impacted on German films in the mid-1920s.

Dark city is an America neo-noir science fiction film in 1988 and directed by Alex Proyas. The story starts with a naked man lying in a bathtub and he noticed that he is in a hotel room with a female half-naked dead body. He is suffering from lost memories and suddenly receives a phone call from Dr. Schereber who asks him to escape from a chasing by a group of unknown men (known as strangers). The man realized his name was John Murdoch from his lost wallet. In the journey of finding his memories and escaping from the unknown men and police force, he actually found out he got a mind power which is called 'tuning' and the Strangers also possess. In every 12am, people will fall asleep and the strangers will rebuild the whole city while Dr. Schereber will change people's memory by injected new memory for them. Murdoch finally able to investigated the whole city actually is a space habitat and controlled by the force field which operated by the Strangers. The purpose of the Strangers to build this city is to investigate how to get the human 'soul' for them. At the end of the story, Murdoch uses his tuning and new memory to defeat all the Strangers and control the whole city. Murdoch meets his wife Emma on a pier but she already injected a new memory and new identity as Anna. They plan to walk to the Shell Beach and start their new relationship.

The main element of German expressionism can be found in Dark City is self-analysis. John Murdoch suffering from memory loss in the hotel and desperate to know who is him. He realizes his name was J. Murdoch from the hotel registration book and he is non-stop questioning himself what is his full name. When he met Dr. Schereber. he asking his true identity and leads his anger approached until shows his tuning power. Next, the lighting of the whole film is dark and with high contrast visual. This lighting effect will provide a sense of mystery to the audience and able to enhances the investigation nature of the film. The Strangers try to kill Murdoch as they are worry Murdoch tuning power is too powerful and might lead a threat for them. The weapon they use to kill Murdoch is a knife and this is a primitive sexual savagery behavior. The mise-en-scene of the film is surrounded with gothic and stylized buildings. Distorted bodies occur on the Strangers as they actually are aliens but they appears in a human form.

In conclusion, the film movements in the different generation have built today's film industry. We still can see today's film with the concept of German Expressionism. The technique and knowledge are very important to every filmmaker as a guideline to produce a great film with originality principal but aligns with the creativity by a new concept.

Paranorman

ParaNorman, an American 3D stop-motion animated horror-comedy film which directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler and released on 2012. This is the first animation movie I enjoyed in Film Studied tutorial class and the film has different genres such as Comedy, Horror, Action, and Melodrama.
In previous blog post, I've posted about how to categorize film genre by Rick Altman's theory which is the Semantic and Syntactic theory.

Semantics: list of common traits and attitudes, bringing us to very much the visual aspect.
*Which means that mise-en-scene: lighting, costume and makeup, actor's performance and movements, setting and props become a building block of the genre.

Syntactic: a constitutive relationship.
*Able to define a genre through a structure with deeper meaning. For example conversation between actors, types of character, ideologies, etc.
Genre can be analysis and better understanding through combining these two components.

Nowadays, the genre is still important for audiences and filmmakers for categorizing, marketing purpose and even filmmaking guideline.

ParaNorman is about an 11 years old boy who able speaks to the ghosts and everyone around him treat he like a freak. However, Norman still finds a best friend named Neil, a fat boy who also always being bullied. One day, Norman's uncle, Mr. Prenderghast's spirit tells him to read a book beside Witch's old grave before sunset today to prevent the Witch's curse happen. However, Norman reads the book in the wrong venue and attracted five male and two female zombies chase after him and Alvin, a school bully. After few obstacles, Norman finally finds the truth of Witch's curse and he decided to solve the Witch's curse trouble which always repeat every year.

How to define ParaNorman as Action film?

Action film often requires high tempo, continuous high energy and a lot of physical stunts. The pace of editing will be fast and a lot of fast cuts with non-stop motion. They are few chasing scene appear in the film such as the zombies chase after Norman and Alvin but luckily Norman's sister Courtney, Neil and Neil's elder brother, Mitch is searching for Norman by driving. During the escape, they pass by a policewoman with high-speed driving. Hence, the chasing between car, zombies and police motorbike happens. Besides, the zombies have been attracted to go to the town where Norman lives. However, the people in the town do not afraid of the zombies even a little girl who very brave to fight against the zombies. In my opinion, maybe they are influenced by the modern technologies elements which often show violent and horror genre media contents. 

Next, Horror genre often makes audience frighten and panic. Although ParaNorman's horror element is not so strong but Horror is the main genre in this film since it appears zombies and witch which consider as unnatural horror subgenre. Horror film often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. In my opinion, the most exciting horror part in ParaNorman is when the zombies chase after Norman and Alvin until Mr. Prenderghast's house. This is because when Norman and Alvin are hiding from the zombies, I'm very nervous that they will be found by the zombies or safely escape from them. On top of that, the design of the zombies makes me feel uncomfortable as their limbs or ear will tear apart easily from their body. Mr. Joe stated that horror genre always creates a threat to normalcy, it always wants us to move apart from American Dream.

Comedy is a genre which totally different from the horror genre. The comedy genre humorously exaggerates the situation, the language, action, and characters. Comedies observe the deficiencies, foibles, and frustrations of life, providing merriment and a momentary escape from day-to-day life. They usually have happy endings, although the humor may have a serious or pessimistic side. In my opinion, the main character who able to bring comedy atmosphere to the audience is Neil. For me, he is a very cute fat boy who is very optimistic and cares about his friend. Every time he appears, he definitely will bring a smile to the audience. In the scene where Norman and his gang want to find the location of the Witch's graveyard in the town hall. They are very nervous to find and read a ton of book in the town hall but Neil is not panic at all. In worse, he just read the page number the book. After Norman reads a lot of books, Neil only completes his mission which is discovering the page number of the first book. He might not smart and with a good looking but I can refuse to fall in love with this character. His innocent brings a lot of funny moments in the film which able to release the tension in the film.

In conclusion, postmodernism has made the genre transform and expand in different key concept. For example, ParaNorman is one of the famous and success hybrid genre film. It blends two film genres together which is Horror and Comedy. The filmmakers often want to be creative and always want to break the rules however film must possess universal or general semantics.





Reference
Filmsite. N.p., 2016. Web. 22 June 2016. Retrieved from: http://www.filmsite.org/roadfilms.html