A Reflection

This semester we have seen quite a spectrum
1. Sherlock Jr. was very heart warming, and i felt very attached to him as he concurred his world.
2. M wasn't my favorite for the reason that it was thick with sub titles and a drawn out plot.
3. Double Indemnity showcased how powerful a woman could be in a film
4. The Hitch Hiker made me feel like its still unsafe to travel anywhere
5. Seconds i didn't find as interesting as i thought, after reading a review.
6. El Topo scared the shit out of me.
7. Do The Right Thing was probably my favorite of the semester because of its message.
8. The Piano reminded me of a silent film to a degree with all the noise of an angry bitter man.
9. The Devils Backbone was very graphic.  I liked it.
10. Zero Dark Thirty was very long but needed to be to make sure you understood the reason for      Osama's death

Blancanieves

     This film is a spin off of snow white and the seven dwarf's,  but the snow white is the banished daughter of a paralyzed spanish matador, and whose mother died in childbirth.  From her birth she was followed by miss fortune.  Her grandmother (who looked after her because of her fathers remarrying) dies of a heart attack very early on in her life.  She is then taken back by her evil step mother.  Who puts her to work in the house as if she was one of the maids.
      Her father was kept in a room, in a wheelchair away from everyone else.  Carmen is isolated from her father.  She is not even told where he is or reintroduced to him.  Her crazy step mother is a very erotic.  She wants to marry Antonio because he is extremely rich and the greed makes her cold and distant to the man she married.  Carmen is shunned from spending any time with here father because of her crazy step mother.  An when Encama gets onto Carmen about it she has her taken into the woods and killed or so she thought.
      When Carmen is saved by a band of traveling dwarf matadors she has lost all memory of her past life.  Until she discovers that she is actually a natural when it comes to bull fighting when she saves one of the matadors lives in the arena who falls in love with her.  The others become debunked with their behavior and want her for them selves.
       Carmen is drafted to a large bull fight in a local city.  This being such big news it is published in magazines and thats when we see her step mother has discovered that she is not intact dead anymore. very cross about this she goes to the fight to take maters into her own hand.  When there dressed in black she offers the poisoned apple to Carmen.  She eats the apple and falls into a deep sleep and the dwarfs seek revenge for her.  She is cornered and left to the bulls.  From there Carmen is put on display, deeply asleep and waiting for her true love to come wake her with the loving kiss that she had found once before.

The Bloody Knife

 The Devils Backbone  is a very odd Spanish horror flick.  In one scene Conchita is in the middle of a beautiful field with rolling hills behind her and in front of her is Jacinto and his partners driving down this beautiful road.  He gets out and says "look who's here" to his buddy, and she rolls her eyes and sighs.  This leaves me thinking that she might be saved.

Then Jacinto walks up to her and demands that she apologize for what she has done and then she can get into the car.  But she is at ends with him.  Conchita takes charge of the situation and controls Jacinto.  He sees this and is very cross with her.

Jacinto takes the situation back into his hands quite literally.  He pulls out the knife he stole from the children back at the orphanage.  The tension builds now.  The camera angle and the position of his hand on the knife is very suggestive that it will get bloody.  

She Doesn't give in.  He looked her in the eye takes her behind the head and plunges the knife deep.  She dies with her pride and in a beautiful place in the worst way by the harshest man around.  The shock is then comforted by the beauty.  

The Piano

    In this shot we see the daughter of Ada: Flora in great shock from what she has just witnessed, and a hint of what could have possibly happened is on her shirt and face.  We can clearly see that she is dressed up as an angel.  She is wearing all white, however she is  now covered in blood, dirt, and mud.  It is grim looking and dark in the background.  The rain is coming down heavy.  The fear on her Flora's face is chilling.
   Reading deeper we can start to relate things in this shot to the entire film and what just occurred.  First we see Flora dead center with a medium close up.  Along with that there is a major resemblance between Ada and Flora, Ada's daughter is dressed up in white clothes and angel wings.  This could be a possible metaphor,  this could represent Ada's guardian angel.  Who has just been struck with the blood of the one she is to look after.  This blood has tainted her dress and covered her face.  This is symbolizing that Ada has just lost her purity; signified by the mud on her blouse and the blood on her face.
    The back ground has an impression on Flora's impact on the viewer.  The dark browns and blues bring forward Flora in her white costume.  The sound of the heavy rain brings Flora's cry out from a white noise and sends her chilling scream down the whole body.  Seeing the petrified look on this child's face, the fear in her face and how alone she looks makes you sink inside and feel the pain she is experiencing.

Spike Lee, The Right Thing

    In the film Do The Right Thing the small block in New York is torn by racial ideas and preconceived ideas.  The films constant theme is said by almost every character.  "What is the right thing?" and every character reacts to it differently.  Mookie (Spike Lee) is at the center of this whole block.  He is the go to man along side Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) the two of them are trying to get everyone to do the right thing and be respectful and stand for whats right.  

     In my opinion the "right thing" in this movie tho was that they people had to be hateful towards someone of different heritage or color.  We see the monologs of the police man, Sal, the korean, and Radio.  Each one of them is going off about the last one and how they are F*&$ this and he's always been a Mother F*^%$ that.  that seemed like the right thing to do at the time.  To hate the person for being Black, Italian, Korean, or a Cop.  

    

     Talking in a derogatory way and belittling them as who they are or what they are was the only way to fit into whatever group they were characterizing themselves into.  The cops always beat the black people up first in the film, and the black people were the first to talk shit to the cops in the film.  An if you didn't you would stick out like a sore thumb.  So the "right thing" to do back then was to characterize the other person as less than you because of his color or heritage. 

El Topo

       In El Topo, the bloody film we see El Topo's son watch as his father lays waste to many people and sees a great deal of death.  This chaos is what i believe to be driving him to take revenge for all that have wronged others.  We can see in this scene that El Topo's son has been shot many times in the torso by the rich towns people.  These people have laid waste to all his disabled friends who came back to town for revenge.  

      We can see that there has been a fight in this little town from the blood stained on his shirt to the over turned wagon off in the distance.  There has been a great amount of pain felt in this town from the look of El Topo's son he has suffered through life and all that has been thrown at him and still soldiered on to get revenge for all that have done his people wrong.  

     The scene above is very close to the end it is saying perhaps that he has leveled the playing field.  He has righted the wrong.  There will be another day but he is committing suicided so he dose not become like the ones he has killed.  So this hate, the tension, all the murder may die with him and others future can be brighter.  

Seconds

  In Seconds we see Arthur singing what looks to be a very long list on a very long piece of paper, while the man in charge of the whole operation glares at him like a child who just got away with something dastardly.  From there we go strait into the surgery with lights, gloves, masks, and enough tools to reconstruct Frankenstein.  They are filming these sense with no tripods or stabilizers.  With that they make the camera almost one of the surgical utensils in the operating room.

Since we dont see the actual reconstruction of the mans face we instead are shown many hand drawn pictures of what his face looked like before hand and after as to avoid the actuality of cutting the mans face to pieces on camera.  This is a friendlier Segway into his transformation.  With this almost seamless transformation happening in almost 2 minutes they were rather quick with the operation in general and showed little of what they actually did, mostly just tracking shots used by hand held cameras, along with extreme close ups of scars and surgical instruments  to create the illusion that he was actually cut open. 

The first time we actually see Arthur (now Tony) we are with them as they remove the bandages we are at his perspective as they are congratulating the work of the surgeon.  We then track with Tony as they show him what has happened to him.  When he opens his eyes to this new face he is shocked.  His movements slow and his face tells it all.  With his bandages still on his hands he brings them up to his still scared face and begins to weep and what has just happened while they two men comfort him, he leans forward in disbelief