Class; 18th May

We watched 2 films in class today,

a.  The Great Train Robbery

b.   Birth of a Nation

I’m beginning to feel that I’ve not really been thinking when I watch a movie, whenever I’m in class and Rey points out and asks all these questions about the film, I began to notice how much I miss out on when I watch a film and when I actually start noticing these things, I realize I’ve been learning a lot even though it’s only been the first few classes of the semester.

Rey pointed out stuff that had to do with Genre and the first division of genre;

Comedy                                                                                  Tragedy

Between the two films that we watched; I would have to say that I paid more attention and was more interested in Birth Of a Nation. The Birth of a Nation was the show that started cinema back then, as DW Griffith attempted and used techniques that have never been used before and compared to the other films shown in class from back then, this film shows a newer, more modern and sophisticated way of filming. As Rey said, the director paid a lot of attention into making sure that it was historically relevant, and reproduced a lot of the backdrops and scenes. I personally thought that it was contradictory to a certain extent because if he was so particular about making sure that everything was historically correct, all the scenes and how he depicted the black people was the total opposite of what actually happened, and people know that, so obviously it came out extremely racist. He totally switched the roles of the white and blacks, ‘white minorities?’ -made not sense to me because if I’m correct, the blacks were the slaves at that time and THEY were the minorities. When I read the review by James Agee, where he said something about the director understanding the blacks and that’s why he depicted them in that way- feet on the tables, eating and drinking during meetings, and even the subtle but strong facial expressions, I was wondering to myself on how can he say that the director understood them? does that mean he understood them as savages? or the lower class? I agreed more with what Jane Addams had to say and since DW Griffith was a southerner and practiced slavery, I would assume that he was absolutely fine in the whole idea of slavery. Even though it was a great piece of art, I don’t think it should have been made with such a strong racist incline. For me, that was probably one of the few things that stuck in my mind from the entire film and it kind of destroys part of it’s beauty (this is similar to my comment on Rey’s blog as I felt that it said exactly what I felt when watching and this exact explanation was enough)

I must say that there were parts of the film that made me bored, but I really sat up and paid attention to the film at parts such as when the film started to incline towards racism and when Lincoln was shot. 

Class; 16th May

Class was interesting today, we got to watch the two films once again but this time, we analysed it instead of merely watching. It was something new to me because I've never tried to look at a film critically in that way before. I came to know that when you really pay attention and look at the different aspects of how it's shot and look at the film as one whole, one can see the beauty of the story and why the plot was in the way that it was. I came to appreciate "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' much more than I did during the first time I watched it. I noticed a whole lot of things as well, and I could somehow picture the vision that the director had when he was making the film, it was very interesting. For example, when the main character was running and running and running, if you look at my post before this, I honestly thought that repetitiveness in the film made it incredibly boring but right now, I began to see the purpose in the scenes and how important it was to create that effect of a dream for the audience. As for the film, 'Night and Fog', I wasn't looking forward to Rey playing the film again, and I was glad that he didn't. I don't think I could have sat through the film again. 

I did feel brain drained during class though, it was something different because I could answer some of the questions but there were also questions that left me dumb founded, I had no answer and I felt stressed out. My shoulder's ached and well, I just couldn't think at times. Overall, I think the class was amazingly interesting and it did show me a different perspective of watching films. 

ET 2: Yourself as Audience

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

          Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a French film set in the 1950s and was adapted from an American story by  Ambrose Bierce.  Unlike the other films that I have been exposed to, this is the first black and white film that I have watched, and I must say that it was a rather interesting film and definitely not something that I expected it to be. Nonetheless, it showed me a side of cinema that I probably would have been ignorant to see before this. This film affected me in various ways, especially through the emotions and thoughts that stirred inside me throughout the film. I’ve heard of the Twilight Zone series and I must say that the intro of the whole thing- which carried the non -diagetic elements played a very important role in setting the overall emotions of the audience. I, personally felt scared, as if I was about to watch a horror movie because honestly I had no idea what the genre of the film was and the intro was enough to make me feel all tensed up. I was actually EXPECTING some monster to pop up in the beginning of the film.

           The beginning managed to capture my attention though, starting with the scene before the hanging. I mean, it was the beginning of the film and therefore I paid close attention, I was squinting my eyes while watching actually and wondering why this guy was standing on the plank. Reminded me of those planks on pirate ships. When the guards started to put the rope around his neck , it became clear that an execution was about to be carried out and I felt so uncomfortable. I personally don’t like watching people get killed or executed in this case, and I was very fidgety, moving my body around . If you’re talking about a physical manifestation of any emotion, it would have occurred right at the beginning where the soldier fired a gun shot. My whole body sort of jolted off my chair for a second, and my heart was pumping really hard.  I did get bored in the beginning as well, I mean, the attention to detail of every aspect of the situation from the facial expression of the man about to be executed to the attention to his whole surroundings was very well thought of but for me, it was too elaborate and I got pretty bored after a while. I began to look around at everyone else. I looked at the ceiling and started rubbing my nose. I have this habit of rubbing my nose when I’m bored. When he had his flashback of his memory of his wife and family, I did feel slightly sad, but not sad enough to want to cry and I knew he had a family that he was going to leave, which then followed by his tears.

       

             My reaction changed after the gunshot and as he fell into the water. I began to pay a lot of attention and I still remember my exact thoughts at that moment when he fell in and started to untie himself. I was wondering how on earth he could have fallen into the water in the first place because he was supposed to be hanged, and the main point of the rope around his neck was for him to remain hanging and not fall into the water, so that was weird to me.  Then, as he started escaping and swimming and swimming and continued swimming, my emotions changed from being tensed up to bored again. There was just too much of the same thing going on and on and I do understand that it was done to create suspense but I may have felt more interested if it was in colour instead of black and white but through this film, I’ve seen a different side of film that can affect me differently even by the small difference in colour. There was a scene when the officer was speaking loudly and I wasn’t sure whether it was supposed to be in slow motion but his voice came out weird to me. He sounded like an alien and I was going to laugh, at first I noticed that my eyes opened wider than usual and my facial expression probably looked pretty hilarious. When he got himself on shore and started laughing and rolling around in the sand, I REALLY wanted to laugh out loud, I just found it so extremely funny and I did let loose a few small giggles in class. I then realized that somehow no one else was laughing, so I tried my best to tighten my lips together and not make a sound. Till now, I still find it extremely funny. I thought the man was crazy. Then he started running, and once again, I felt bored and started looking around again, my body was uncomfortable so I bent forward and rested my head on both my hands. He just continued running, but I must admit that the non diagetic elements such as the drumming as the background music which accompanied him as he ran helped cause that excitement in the audience and I could feel my heart beat in accordance with the drum beats. When he FINALLY reached this huge house, I was silently thanking God that all the running stopped, yes, I was quite bored.  The first thought that came into my mind as he reached this huge gate and white house was that he encountered a haunted house in the middle of nowhere. I just expected something like that to happened because of the whole Rod Serling introduction that just gave me the impression that it was going to be an eerie, horror movie. I have to admit though, I felt rather disappointed that it wasn’t a horror movie. When he saw his wife and the whole running in slow motion into her arms moment got me bored again, I was waiting for him to finally reach her because it seemed to take forever.  When he reached her and touched her, and you could hear the snap sound, I just went “WOW’. I think my heart stopped beating when he dropped down from the plank and was hanged. I remember my eyes were so wide opened, and I cant even remember whether I was breathing during those few seconds. My jaw dropped open, and I stared at the screen, stuck in my position. I felt so disturbed. I remember looking at Jon and he looked as freaked out as I was. To me, this was THE most powerful change of my emotions throughout the entire film.

             At the end of the film, all I felt was disturbed. The only part of the film that kept replaying itself in my mind was the ending. It’s like the feeling I got when I watched Inception, only this was ten times more disturbing because I realized that the whole thing about him running and escaping was just a figment of his imagination and this, although wasn’t real, but it IS something that can happen in reality and for humans in general, we always wonder what goes on in a persons mind before we die, what we see right before we die, and to see that on screen in such a way, I still feel disturbed. It’s like a mixture of feeling weirded out and disturbed. Due to being in a class in ADP while watching this film, I made sure that my emotions were kept controlled to a certain extent, for example, when I really wanted to laugh, I didn’t because firstly I didn’t want to be disturbing the class and secondly, was due to the fact that nobody was laughing and I didn’t want to seem crazy. It would have definitely been different if I was watching it by myself or outside the confinement of the classroom . I would have laughed out loud when I felt like it, I would have yawned and been more expressive when I felt bored and I would have been talking a lot throughout the show. Up till now, the one thing I still remember vividly was the rolling around in the sand and the ending. I think the reason I remember both of these events so clearly is because it stirred my emotions much more compared to the rest of the film. One part made me want to laugh so bad and the other which still sends shivers down my spine.