Movie Review: Trainspotting

  

“I chose not to choose life. I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who need reasons when you've got heroin?" – Mark Renton

Mark Renton is one of the main characters of the movie Trainspotting along with his so-called friends who, as the movie depicts it, are a bunch of losers, psychos, thieves, and liars. Spud, Sick Boy, Tommy and Begbie are Renton’s friends in the movie that complete the circle of junkies. The story narrates the breakdown of their friendship as they proceed apparently towards self-destruction. This film was released in 1996 and is directed by Danny Boyle (I'm not particularly sure of other works of Boyle but I'm pretty sure he's a good one).

The film’s setting is in Edinburgh, Scotland (which reminds me the scene about the “Worst Toilet in Scotland”). That’s right, it is a British satirical drama movie that talks about heroin junkies. It talks about drugs, sex, and violence. Yes, basically all the elements of classic cinema are present in this one. And it can also be considered as “black film” since most of the doings in this film are underground or not in accordance to the norm (if the norm is defined and considered as principle of right action and acceptable behavior). It may be one of the most realistic and honest portrayals of illicit drug abuse in film.

the worst toilet in Scotland

I’m not sure exactly what to say about this movie. (Together with my classmates, we watched this in our Cinema class but honestly, I had to watch it again at home for me to be able to come up with a decent write-up.) All I know is this movie keeps me interested as the story progresses since it tackles an awfully serious topic, at least for me. Seriously, how many movies out there dealt with heroin addiction? Undeniably, this film messed up with my mind a bit. It’s as if everything about being a dopehead is just normal. That’s how this film make it looks like. Also, I know that I’m not supposed to laugh at the “shite” but I can’t help it. Oh shite, I find the Scottish accent very amusing. I love their accent already!

As for the camera angles used, there are lots of different shot types and camera angles used in this film which portray the feeling and mood of the scene. Low angle shots, close up shots, medium close-ups, and point-of-view shots were utilized from one scene to another.

The opening scene of the film starts off with low angle shot as Renton runs past the camera. The shot also gives emphasis on his feet and the environment he is running in. It is also noticeable that the road he is running down is somewhat busy because of the number of people in the background. But despite of that, there appears to be a clear space for him to run.

Then it cuts to plenty of medium close-ups, low angle shots and even hand-held running shots as the scene shows that Renton and his friend are running away from a group of men. The fact that they are running implies that they have done something wrong or have a reason to be running away.

The POV (point of view) shot is when Renton runs into a car which gives the audience a sense of danger. This made me feel nervous for a split second or two. This shot somehow created a feeling of empathy in me since I would be able to experience things with this character. The blood spreading in his hands though is what boggles me. It’s as if he’s guilty of something.

There is also that scene wherein Renton and his friends are playing football during which shots show the action scenes by using medium close-ups, low angle shots, full shots and close-up shots. These catch my attention again. And these are just the opening acts of the film. I will not be a spoiler. The rest of the film shots are for you to find out.

And if you’re asking what the connection of “trains” is or being a “trainspotter” or doing “trainspotting” in the movie, I can’t tell you. Because I, myself, am not sure if I was able to deduce it correctly. I was able to see a couple of actual trains in the movie which I don’t find any relevance in the film. Or maybe I was just so into the movie that I missed that part. So you better watch it yourself to find out. But if you are sensitive to stuff that I mentioned above, I suggest that you should probably just cross it out of your must-watch-movie list. Otherwise, I strongly suggest that you do.

Mind you, what this movie does have is a sense of style. There are some good monologues; some interesting camera angles and lighting; various symbolisms; comical and dark scenes; and some truly shocking moments apart from the nudity and violence. And on top of them all, this movie will make you think, although for me, there is no explicit moral to the story. I mean there lots of morals in this story, it's just up to you on how you perceived it.

(Credits: photos from Google.com)

Here's a trailer that I got from YouTube. Enjoy! :)

Now, if you feel like watching the movie and you got nowhere to go to acquire one, feel free to shoot me a message. I do have a copy of this movie. :)

Abracadabra: Now You See Me

“Come in close, because the more you think you see, the easier it’ll be to fool you.
4 amazing magicians. 3 impossible heists. 1 billion dollars. This is no illusion.
Look closely, because the closer you think you are, the less you will actually see.
…Now you don’t.”

That’s the tagline of the movie I watched recently entitled Now You See Me. I only watched it at home on a 720p resolution a few weeks ago (yep, I downloaded it online. Thanks to Yify! *winks*). A few weeks before I watched the movie, I’ve been reading the hashtag post “I see you” on my bestfriend’s wall. I thought it was nothing. But it has been repeatedly posted. I finally realized it was a movie, or a part of a movie title, when I saw his post about “last full show” or something. As of writing, I am too lazy to find that post.

So anyway, to make the story short,  I Googled the phrase “I see you” and the IMDb page of “Now You See Me” came out of the search engine results (along with an actual “I See You” movie starring Resse Witherspoon. But that one’s back in 2006 so I slashed it off my options). Voila! It really is a movie. So I downloaded it. It was only just recently that I had the time to watch it. J

Anyway, for those who are too lazy (haha!) to change screen to Google it and at the same time too eager to continue reading this blog, let me give you my movie review of this one.

NOW YOU SEE ME is about four magicians, three men and a woman, who were brought together by a mysterious benefactor to put up a Magic Show. They call themselves “The Four Horsemen.”

During one of their shows in Las Vegas, as the final act, they were able to “magically” heist a bank in France in a concurrent manner with the help of one of their audiences, who seemingly teleported to a Parisian Bank, and activated the air duct which vacuums up the money and showered it onto the crowd in their show in Las Vegas. 

Because of this, and knowing that the money is really missing from the bank vault, they become “hot items” to the eyes of FBI. The exciting part of the story begins when an FBI agent and an Interpol detective were trying to prove that the bank heist that the “Four Horsemen” did during the show has nothing to do with magic. They even set a meeting with an ex-magician who makes money by exposing the secrets behind other magician’s tricks. Moreover, the mystery of the Four Horsemen’s benefactor also adds up to the spice of the storyline. Something that an audience, who was so into the magic tricks already, cannot easily predict who.

Personally, I find the movie entertaining. Well, besides from the fact that magic tricks shown were amusing, the plot of this movie is wildly clever and dubious. It’s like a box of chocolate (Forrest Gump), you’ll never know what you’re going to get. And it is like “Ocean’s Eleven” of the magic trick world. The movie combines the pleasure of well-engineering heist, ambitious thriller, but surprisingly witty approach throughout the plot. 

In every film I watch, there would always be “The First Impression.” In this one, I find myself entertained for the first seven to eight minutes. This is crucially reasonable since this is where characters were introduced. Though I was impressed by the hologram effect, which they called “Blueprints” (shown when the four characters finally met and assembled in a distinguished room or apartment) I find myself yawning at the conversation scenes at different occurrences because they were too long. Oh forgive me. I was just expecting that this film would show me more actions scene, interesting characters and smart dialogues because of the fact that its summary plot in IMDb contains the word “FBI” and “heists.” I know I was being stereotypical. But hey, that was just my expectation.

Eventually, my expectation was met at the second half of the movie. But don’t be dismayed, it wasn’t that bad. It was just me expecting more action scenes. Along the way, there were some scenes I enjoyed. Then I realized this is a more tamed, non-violent way of showing bank-robbing in a context of a fiction film with the experience of magic. So I guess, that’s just fine. What else can I expect from a David Copperfield-ish film, created with tricks of some higher level of cynicism and audacity? That’s narrative drama. But uh-ah, if you think this is a movie way too boring, no.

I suggest that when you have the attempt to watch the movie and experience the same predicament as mine at the early part of the film, then you better watch it ‘til the end. Like I said, there’s much to enjoy along the way. If I yawned at the first half, I heard myself laughing in bits at the second half of the film.

So, I will go back to my first comment: I find the movie entertaining.

Here’s the trailer from Youtube. If you haven’t watched it, then this may help you decide to watch it very soon. J

French Impressionism and Surrealism (1918-1930)

From the same e-book Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson 
pp. 450-453

What you’re about to read are, again, my notes from the said lesson. Just like in my previous entry, I don’t take credit for mostly of the wordings used here, as these are mostly from the book mentioned above. I don’t mean to copy word per word as written in the book however it’s quite difficult to come up with something of my own especially when it’s about history. What I’m after here is the summarization of the lesson. So, here are my notes. :)

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Impressionism was a French avant-garde Film movement that was made by French Film Industry and proved financially successful.

sample of an Impressionist painting:
Claude Monet's Nympheas

Surrealism was made independently of the French system and did not prove finally successful. Allied with the Surrealist movement in other arts, these filmmakers relied on their own means and private patronage. France in the 1920s offers a striking instance of how different film movements may coexist at the same time and place.

sample of a Surrealist painting:Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali

IMPRESSIONISM

World War I struck a serious blow to the French film industry. After the war, French filmmaking never fully recovered.

In the 1920s, French audiences saw eight times more Hollywood footage than domestic footage. The film industry tried in several ways to recapture the market, mostly through imitation of Hollywood production methods and genres. Artistically, however, the most significant move was the firms' encouragement of younger French directors: Abel Gance, Louis Delluc, Gernraine Dulac, Marcel L'Herbier, and Jean Epstein.

These directors differed from their predecessors. The previous qeneration had regarded filmmaking as a commercial craft, but the younger filmmakers wrote essays proclaiming cinema was an art comparable to poetry, painting, and music.

Cinema should, they said, be purely itself and should not borrow from the theater or literature.

Between 1918 and 1928, the younger directors experimented with cinema in ways that posed an alternative to the dominant Hollywood formal principles.

Intimate psychological narrative dominated their filmmaking practice. Interactions of a few characters, usually love triangle, would serve as the basis for the filmmaker's exploration of fleeting moods and shifting sensations.

As in the Hollywood cinema, psychological causes were paramount, but the school gained the name impressionist because of its interest in giving narration considerable psychological depth, revealing the play of a character's consciousness. The interest falls not on external physical behavior but on inner action.

• Impressionist films manipulate plot time and subjectivity.
• To depict memories, flashbacks are common; sometimes the bulk of a film will be one flashback or a series of them.
• Even more striking is the films' insistence on registering characters' dreams, fantasies, and mental states.          
• Impressionism's emphasis on personal emotion gives the films' narratives an intensely psychological focus.

"Another period arrived, that of the psychological and impressionist film. It would seem stupid to place a character in a given situation without penetrating into the secret realm of his inner life, and the actor's performance is explained by the play of thoughts and of visualized sensations." - Germaine Dulac, director

Below is a video clip from YouTube. Germaine Dulac's The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923)

CINEMATOGRAPHY AND EDITING

In Impressionist films, irises, masks, and superimpositions function as traces of characters' thoughts and feelings. To intensify the subjectivity, the Impressionists' cinematography and editing present characters' perceptual experience their optical impressions.

The Impressionists also experimented with pronounced rhythmic editing to suggest the pace of an experience as a character feels it, moment by moment. During scenes of violence or emotional turmoil, the rhythm accelerates – the shots get shorter and shorter, building to a climax, sometimes with shots only a few frames long.

Impressionist form certain demands on film technology. Gance, the boldest innovator in this respect, used his epic Napoleon (1927) as a chance to try new lenses (even a 27 5mm telephoto), rnultiple frame images (called Polyvision), and widescreen ratio (the celebrated triptychs).

The most influential Impressionist technological innovation was the development of new means of frame mobility. If the camera was to represent a character's eyes, it should be able to move with the ease of a person.

Such formal, stylistic, and technological innovations had given French filmmakers the hope that their films could win the popularity granted to Hollywood's product. But by 1929, most foreign audiences had not taken to Impressionism; its experimentation was for elite tastes.

Impressionism as a distinct movement may be said to have ceased by 1929. But the influences of Impressionist form-the psychological narrative, subjective camera work, and editing were more long-lived.

SURREALISM

Surrealist cinema was directly linked to Surrealism in literature and painting

"Surrealism [was] based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of association, heretofore neglected, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought." - Andre Breton

Below is another video clip of Germaine Dulac's The Seashell and The Clergyman (1928). Thanks to YouTube!

Influenced by Freudian psychology, Surrealist art sought to register the hidden currents of the unconscious, "in the absence of any control exercised by reason, and beyond any aesthetic and moral preoccupation."

Automatic writing and painting, the search for bizarre or evocative imagery, the deliberate avoidance of rationally explicable form or style became the features of Surrealism as it developed in the period 1924-1929. In due time, painters such as Man Ray and Salvador Dali and writers such as Antonin Artaud began dabbling in cinema, while the young Spaniard Luis Bunuel, drawn to Surrealism, became its most famous filmmaker.

from the film Un Chien Andalou

Surrealist cinema is overtly anti-narrative, attacking causality itself. In Dali and Bunuel Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog, 1928 - see illustrations on the left and below. Photos from the internet) the hero drags two pianos, stuffed with dead donkeys, across a parlor.

Many Surrealist films tease us to find a narrative logic that is simply absent. Causality is as evasive as in a dream. Instead, we find events juxtaposed for their disturbing effect.

An Impressionist film would motivate such events as a character's dreams or hallucinations, but in these films, character psychology is all but nonexistent. Sexual desire and ecstasy, violence, blasphemy, and bizarre humor furnish events that Surrealist film form employs with a disregard for conventional narrative principles.

The style of Surrealist cinema is eclectic. Mise-en-scene is often influenced by Surrealist painting. The ants in Un Chien andalou come from Dali's pictures; the pillars and city squares of The Seashell and the Clergyman hark back to the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico.

from the film Un Chien Andalou

Surrealist editing uses superimpositions, continuity editing and some devices of the dominant cinema. However, discontinuous editing is also commonly used to fracture any organized temporal-spatial coherence.

The fortunes of Surrealist cinema shifted with changes in the art movement as a whole. By late 1929, when Breton joined the Communist Party, Surrealists were embroiled in internal dissension about whether communism was a political equivalent of Surrealism. Thus, as a unified movement, French Surrealism was no longer viable after 1930.

German Expressionism (1919-1976)

                                                                                            

From the e-book Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
pages 447-450

What you’re about to read are just simply my notes from the said lesson. As a student who takes up Cinema class, it is my honor and pleasure to read this part of the book that tackles about the humble beginnings of film. I don’t take credit for mostly of the wordings used here, as these are mostly from the book mentioned above. It’s quite difficult to come up with something of my own especially when it’s about history. What I’m after here is the summarization of the lesson. Let’s see what we’ve got. J

“German Expressionism” is an artistic movement in Germany before the World War II (1920s). This is a form of art that shows emotions and experiences through theater, paintings, architectures, sculptures and films.

But since this is for a Cinema class, let’s talk about German Expressionism in films.

                                                                                            

At the start of World War I, the output of the German film industry was relatively small, though some impressive pictures had been made there. Most of the films being shown in German movie theaters are of French, American, Italian, and Danish in nature. To scrap the competition, as well as to create its own propaganda films, the German government began to support the film industry.

It was after the success of Russian Revolution in 1917 that rebellion tendencies increased, widespread strikes and antiwar petitions were organized. To promote pro-war films, the government, the Deutsche Bank, and large industrial concerns combined several small film firms to create the large company UFA (short for Universum Film Aktiengesellschafi) in late 1917 which was able to build the best equipped studios in Europe. Soon enough, these studios attract foreign filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock.

In 1918, German film industry concentrated on three genres. One of which was the internationally popular adventure serial detective film.

As an avant-garde movement, Expressionism had first been important in painting (starting about 1910) and had been quickly taken up in theater, then in literature and architecture. Apparently, consent was given so that Expressionism can be tried in the cinema, believing that this might be a selling point in the international market.

This belief was justified when the inexpensive film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) directed by Robert Weine created a sensation in Berlin and then in the United States, France, and other countries. Because of its success, other films in the Expressionist style soon followed. Hence, this resulted to a stylistic movement in cinema that lasted for several years.

Here is a trailer video, courtesy of YouTube, of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. (If you feel like watching the film, I believe there's also an available full-length movie on YouTube. Cool, right? :)

In contrast to French Impressionism, which bases its style primarily on cinematography and editing, German Expressionism depends heavily on mise-en-scene.

• Shapes are distorted and exaggerated unrealistically for expressive purposes.
• Actors often wear heavy makeup and move in jerky or slow, graceful patterns.
• All of the elements of the mise-en-scene interact graphically to create an overall composition.
• Characters do not simply exist within a setting but rather form visual elements that merge with the setting.

photo from Film Art e-book

In Caligari, the Expressionist stylization functions to convey the distorted viewpoint of a madman. We see the world as the hero does. This narrative function of the settings becomes explicit at one point, when the hero enters an asylum in his pursuit of Caligari. As he pauses to look around, he stands at the center of a pattern of radiating black-and-white lines that run across the floor and up the walls. The world of the film is literally a projection of the hero's vision.

Nosferatu

Later on, as Expressionism became an accepted style, filmmakers didn't motivate Expressionist style as the narrative point of view of mad characters. Instead, Expressionism often functioned to create stylized situations for fantasy and horror stories such as with Waxworks, 1924; and Nosferatu, 1922; or historical epics as The Nibelungen, 1923-1924.

The rampant inflation of the early 1920s in Germany actually favored Expressionist filmmaking, partly by making it easy for German exporters to sell their films cheaply abroad.

In 1924, Expressionist film budgets, however, were climbing. The last major films of the movement, F. W. Murnau's Faust (1926) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1921), were costly epics that helped drive UFA deeper into financial difficulty. This led Erich Pommer to quit and try his luck briefly in America. Other personnel were lured away to Hollywood as well such as the major actors Conrad Veidt and Emil Jannings; and cinematographers such as Karl Freund. Even Murnau and Lang left the country too.

Trying to counter the stiffer competition from imported Hollywood films after 1924, the Germans also began to imitate the American product. The resulting films, though sometimes impressive, diluted the unique qualities of the Expressionist style. Thus, by 1921, Expressionism as a movement had died out.

“An expressionist tendency lingered on in many of the German films of the late 1920s and even into such 1930s films as Lang's M (1930) and Testament of Dr Mabuse (1932). And because so many of the German filmmakers came to the United States, Hollywood films also displayed expressionist tendencies. Horror films, such as Son of Frankenstein (1939), and film noirs have strong expressionist touches in their settings and lighting. Although the German movement lasted only about seven years, expressionism has never entirely died out as a trend in film style.” – Georges Sadoul

(credits: photos from Google.com)

Film Noir: Cynical and Sleazy

Film Noir (pronounced as \nwar\ ; IPA key /nwaʁ/ literally translates to “black film.” It was the name used by French film critics.

These films have their own looks, such dark stories that are uniquely American. But actually it was believed that this style was influence was German Expressionism since they have a lot in common. They were black and white. They were dark. They were often raw. It has the rule of fate that primarily describes Hollywood crime dramas wherein almost everybody dies. This is your type of detective-slash-crime movies of a man in loose suit emerges from a smoky dark alley and would walk right to you with his mysteriously somber stare.

frame by frame shot of  film noir character emerging from smoky entrance to a dark alley

In cinematography, low-angle, wide-angle, skewed and Dutch tilt shots were widely used. Some devices were also used for disorientation purposes such as shots through curved and frosted glass. Moreover, flashbacks and voice over narrations were frequently involved in a film noir structure.

Since this is a black film, lights and shadows were metaphorically used in a creative way. They do big tricks. Low key lighting schemes associated with shadows, contrasts and people reflected in mirror/s became iconic visual elements. Just like what John Bailey mentioned, a cinematographer interviewed in the video American Cinema: Film Noir, it was after the war when the development of cameras, smaller dollies, and more contained lighting units made it more possible for the filmmakers to go out at night on the streets using the lights in a very controlled dramatic way. 

This type of film is also stereotyped as those with tales of deception and seduction. True enough, it always includes shady, seductive femme-fatale with hidden motives. According to Paul Schrader, a writer and director, this sensibility about female characters in film noir may have originated from the fact that when American male soldiers came back to America from their so-called warzones in Europe, American females had changed their position in the society. She’d worked during the war, became more independent. She may have had affairs during the war. And that’s very threatening to a lot of men.

Indeed, this is a type of movie that comprised of sex, money and murder. This style was also associated for having roots from German Expressionism (which I’m about to tackle in my next entry). These cynical and pessimistic films seemingly demonstrate angst, corruption and urban decay that were happening during the war.

So here are my notes about the video American Cinema: Film Noir. Much of which I learned a lot. Hope you learn from them too. As usual, italicized comments inside the parentheses are my two cents and is not part of the video. Feel free to leave your comments if you want to say something.

• It was in the 1940s right after the war when film noirs started to circulate in movie theaters. (This explains the dark and mysterious emotions displayed in this type of film.)
• Told stories were about life in the streets, shady characters, crooked cops, twisted love, and bad luck. (sounds very dark and dangerous, but mind you, these scenes also happen in real life)
• It’s about the darker side of human nature.
• Examples of these films are THE FORCE OF EVIL (1948), DETOUR (1945), DOUBLE INDEMNTY (1944), CROSSFIRE (1947), MEAN STREETS (1973), CHINATOWN (1974) and BODY HEAT (1981).
• According to Abraham Polonsky, the writer and director of movie The Force of Evil, “You make the film according to your mood, the circumstances. The way the story is written is the influence of the writer on you, the actors on you and so on. And it is reflecting the general sense of jeopardy in life which exists in all film noirs. Then it’s a correct representation of the anxiety of the system.”
• Film noir poses the question, “Why me?” and its most acceptable answer is “For no reason. For no reason at all.” (it’s as if you’re fighting with a force in nature but for some reason, you just can’t defeat it because it’s out of your control)
• It is concerned with errors and confusion. We don’t know what’s going on but we do know that some bad is out there controlling events. (That is why, most of the time, this type of film will leave us hanging after watching.)



shady character

• The more that the film noir character struggles, the deeper he becomes more entwined in nightmare, the better the film will become. It hits eople so hard because it’s the core of them all. They’re tales of survival.

• Psychiatry was just being discovered in this period. (which explains why film noir has psychological elements)
• According to Edward Dymtryk, director of Crossfire and Murder My Sweet, “One of the things about Detective stories, murder stories, is that no matter how bad they are, I’ve never seen anyone [from the audience] walked out on one. Because it’s a riddle, a puzzle, and they want to puzzle it up.” (It’s the thrilling experience that would make you want to continue watching the film as if you’re a detective yourself putting the puzzles together only to realize that you got the wrong piece with you.)
• The censorship in a film noir allows one’s imagination to take over where the material is not completely exemplified. (this explains the shots used during sexual scenes wherein a camera will give us a shot of a lady showing some skin while a man will go for it then the camera shot will stay at the woman’s face capturing her sensual expression and leaving us with our imagination on what happened)
• What you really see in film noir is the emergence of a more psychological phenomenon which is that men would’ve always been endangered by a strong sexual female.
• Females were extremely driven, selfish, and ambitious characters which are generally characteristics associated with male characters. (Sounds like the famous quote “Behind every successful man is a great woman.”  Whew!)
• Throughout the ages, female is considered as a powerful dangerous figure. (Okay, I’m buying this. LOL. Sounds exciting to me!)
• Female character in film noir used her sexuality to get what she’s after. Something for herself but definitely not the man.
• Being a woman in a film noir can be identified in a lot of ways: long hair, tight clothes, long fingernails that are actually often composed as claws, often smokes as sign of loose morals.
•  An example of showing women controlling the composition by being shot in low angle then cut to a shot of a man from a high angle so that they have a visual dominance. (Now, this is very interesting. Shots were creatively used to show women as dominating characters.)
  
  

  

  low angle shot of a woman

  

  high angle shot of a man

  
  
• A classic femme-fatale is a woman usually getting a man to bed then to trouble, which the kind of character that people never forget.
• There’s an element in film noir the way lights and shadows were used in such an extreme contrast that is almost religious, spiritual or philosophical.
• The lighting complements the film as if it is a part of a scene. (Well, for the most part, I think that’s because that’s the only resource they got. Back in the 1940s, colored films are not yet introduced so basically they had to make full use of what they have – which are the lights and shadows.)
• The sense of the frame, the world, being essentially black became the signature of film noir.
• Deep focus, foreground, and background focus are equally sharp to add a tremendous wide visual field opening up behind the actor gave a tremendous wide environment.
• This is a historical genre which was done in a specific time.
• We don’t make film noir anymore. – Paul Schrader

There you have it! So out of all those bulleted points mentioned above, which do you think still applies to modern film noir? Or do you even think we still have film noirs nowadays? Personally, I do think so. So yes, I basically disagree with what Paul Schrader said at the latter part of the video that we don’t make film noir anymore. Well, the films we have in the modern times may not be exactly the same black and white type of film just like the ones in the 40s but we still have detective-slash-crime-slash-melodrama-femme-fatale type of films. The only difference is that, film makers no longer have to stick with the fixed black-white-shadows-contrasts elements because audience of today, well I, personally, prefer colored films with dialogues and less voice over narrations. I mean, I prefer to see the action instead of just listening to dialogues ad narrations.

So before I leave you with your boggled minds of what a film noir really is, let me leave you a classic film noir, right from YouTube, so you could have better grasp of it. This one is entitled "Detour." Enjoy!

A Good Look at an American Star

“Some people say the star is the greatest invention of American cinema. You can’t have American films without those big names and bright lights.”

That’s how John Lithgow started the episode of American Cinema: The Star. It was the video we watched in our Cinema class that tackles about American movie stars and how their control and power has changed over the decades.

Based on the video, in the old days of studio system, there was a structure for developing stars. Players were owned body and soul, signed to long term contracts. With the powerful publicity machine owned by the studio, they can reach an audience of millions. That’s how Star System started and so I guess that’s where the word “star” came from. Literally a star because thousands, if not millions, of people look up to them. They’re kind of hard to reach and too good to be true. But just like what Lithgow mentioned, the problem of the studio is to find that one persona out of many possible character roles who can boost an actor to stardom.

Humphrey Bogart

Many young hopefuls came to Hollywood seeking stardom but only a lucky few were ever introduced to the public as potential stars. Humphrey Bogart, for instance, had to go through many different minor roles before he was considered as Rick in the movie Casablanca (with the beautiful Ilsa Lund played by Ingrid Bergman as his leading lady).  But then with the collapse of the old Studio System, stars catapulted to power and became the most bankable commodities in Hollywood.

This video took a good look at how reversal of roles came about starting with how an old fashion star will be shaped by the Studio System. Therefore, since this video is seemingly informative, instead of writing my review, I’d rather jot down notes of what I interestingly learned and discovered (well, I had to re-watch it at home for better grasps of the words used since I don’t want to misquote anyone.) The inserted italicized comments inside the parentheses are mine and not part of the video. Please take time to scroll down further as this may also help you answer that elusive question:  WHAT MAKES A STAR? (Or better yet, WHAT MAKES A HOLLYWOOD STAR?)

• It’s the name on movie marquees that drew the audience in, like moth to a flame.
• Movie stars exist in luminous beauty that transcends time. It’s like mythic or no one you’ve ever seen moving around on your daily life.
• America invented the star in 1910.
• From the early days of motion pictures, stars have driven the stories told by Hollywood.
• The launch of a star career signals the start of a love affair between the public and a movie persona. For the public, it’s a new infatuation. For the star, it’s the end of life as they’ve known it. (Even Julia Roberts had to say “Oh sh*t!” during the interview, emphasizing that it’s like ebb and tide, it’ll come and it’ll go sort of thing. Okay, let’s hold on to that.)
• The greatest stars were often the ones that lasted a lifetime (sounds like a supernova without black holes of stellar mass within the region, to me). They’re extraordinary individuals who refined their personas as they aged.
• Audrey Hepburn, as what Julia Roberts given as an example as one of those greatest star, is incredible and brilliant. (I couldn’t agree more. I’m a fan myself. You understand why I included this in my notes, right? J) 

  

  Audrey Hepburn

• The old kinds of stars were trained; went to (drama) school regularly held within the studios. (True enough, it was shown in the video how two ladies were being trained to walk properly in front of a human-sized mirror.) Once they’re good enough, they will be turned over to Directors and used on movies. (Phew! Sounds like puppet dolls, eh?)
• Each one [of the stars] is an individual. They’re all different. They become stars because of their very difference. They don’t match the crowd at all. (Or maybe because they opted to be different.)
• A STAR, in the old days, was someone taken up by the Studio; trained, processed, etc. (In short, everything about the Star was controlled by the Studio then.)
• Stars made so many movies, like 4 or 5 movies a year. And there was a straight 7-year contract in which an individual is owned, body and soul.
• The investments studios made in individual stars had to last long enough for the largest possible pay-off. (Very business-like indeed.)
• Studios’ goal with their iron-clad contracts was to test market potential stars in roles the public might buy. (And if the public didn’t buy it? That leads us to the next bulleted point…)
• Casting is a very, very important thing. Because there will be some actors that are better for that part.
• A star image is only an image. Yet we know there is a real person. And that knowledge about the real person makes us believe in the image. (Because the real person behind the image is intriguing enough that public had to hold onto something they believe.)
• During the Golden Age of Hollywood, studio certainly did control the image of the stars, to determine what films they would make; how that would be advertised; what they would wear; and even what stories about them would get to the press.
• They would bring two people together that worked at the studio and insist that they date each other and send a photographer along and report it in a fan magazine. (Very showbizness. I think I know now where that phrase originated.)
• They (stars of opposite sex) went along and did the fake dates once a week.
• In the 50s, when studio systems begin to collapse, stars cannot be protected by the machinery of the studio any longer. They’re out in the streets getting interviewed that aren’t controlled and television is picking them up and showing them to people. So they become more known for who they really are.
• The star system is dangerous because it takes a tremendous toll on the minds and emotions of people (this one is something I really like from the video, quoted from Henry Rogers of Public Relations Firm, Rogers and Cowen).
• When the Studio System went down, the studios lost their power and gave it to the artists as independent contractors so the artist in turn would give it to agents while enabling them to do it. (To do what? To be able to get that offer, may it be movie or TV offer, for their clients.)
• In Hollywood today, the Stars, not the Studios, make the major decisions. Stars are no longer employees but independent artists operating to powerful agents.
• Agents though, are believed, not to have the power in themselves. The power is given to them by who they represent.
• Nowadays, studios themselves have no security because there’s nobody they can count on.  They’re just waiting on the line with the absence of a contract, letting the actors take a look at the script (way way different from the old studio system in which an actor needs to be bonded first to a long-term contract before he/she could read the script of a film that’s of the studio’s choice. Now, that’s evolution.)

There you go. Why do I have this feeling that I went down memory lane as I was writing down my notes in this blog? It’s as if I was part of the old Studio System that was reincarnated to the new Hollywood and I felt offended for being used, masked, and locked up onto something just to create entertainment to people, up to a point that my personal romantic relationship had to be at stake.

Oh well, I’m glad I’m not by any chance an actress like Jane Russell or Eva Marie Saint or even Joan Crawford that had to go through the extra level just to be a movie star. You see, it was mentioned in the video that you cannot see these people walk into the drugstore (or malls, for the recent times) because the ones that you do aren’t stars. They’re actors. Talking about the difference between the two!

Lithgow was right; stars today are still a unique match of individual flair and audience aspiration.  They maybe too veracious or fibbing about themselves, at times. But at least they’re far from the fake faces and characters seen from 1910s to a couple of decades more.

Below is a video clip of "The Star" from YouTube that includes a discussion about what makes a cinematic star.