“The Do-Over” is a comedy only released on netflix about a year ago starring Adam Sandler as “Max Kessler” and David Spade playing “Charlie McMillan”. This movie is mainly about two high school friends reconnecting at a high school reunion and making their lives much more interesting than it is at that point in time. Max plans to fake both of their deaths and start from scratch. A new life… Literally!…
In the 1953 western-musical parody Calamity Jane the butch heroin, Jane Canary (Doris Day) undergoes a makeover, by imitating Katie Brown (Allyn McLerie), to become a feminine female; thus engaging into a heterosexual romance with Bill Hickock (Howard Keel) (cf. Mizejewski 185). Katie Brown an aspiring, burlesque singer and dancer, whom Jane mistakes as the famous hyper feminine Adelaid Adams (Gale Robbins), helps Jane to transition from a masculine cowboy into a real and proper woman, by confronting Jane with her own inadequate gender performance. Bill Hickock as the embodiment of a hyper masculine male authenticity shames Jane “to consolidate [a] normative, ‘feminine’ identity” (Savoy 169) in order to shape her character specifically to a “gradual conformity to heterosexual expectations of the feminine”, according to “what her culture regards as the ‘real woman’ (Savoy 165). I claim that Jane Canary’s object of affection is an arbitrary choice, according to gender normativity and that in fact Jane’s secret love is Katie Brown.…
In 1943, James M. Cain wrote one of his most selling novella “Double Indemnity”. A year later, Billy Wilder, a movie director, with the help of Raymond Chandler, a screenwriter, took the book and adapted to the big screen while keeping the original title. Eventually, the movie became very popular and nowadays, “Double Indemnity”, widely regarded as a classic, is often cited as paradigmatic film noir and as having set the standard for the films that followed in that genre. The movie adaptation is significantly more effective in creating and building the mood of suspense and making the movie tenser through the use of changes made to the main characters, namely Walter Huff, Barton Keyes and Phyllis Nirdlinger. First of all, the first obvious change made to Walter Huff played by Fred MacMurray, is that in the movie adaption he is called Walter Neff.…
Before I actually watched Double Indemnity, I asked myself, “What is the dictionary definition of double indemnity?” I wanted to know, based on the movie title, what the premise of this film would be. I wanted to be able to have a sense of what I would be watching before I actually watched it so that I would not be lost throughout the whole movie. So, I opened up google, typed “double indemnity definition” into the google search bar, and found the answer to my question. To my surprise, after reading multiple definitions from different dictionaries, I found that double indemnity is essentially a stipulation in a life insurance policy where the insurance company that is supplying the policy is required to pay a certain amount to the policy holder…
The definition of a black film would seem to be an easy standard to mutually agree on. Films about the people and culture of the African diaspora would satisfy most definitions, but issues arrive when black people are poorly represented and stereotyped or when the definition excludes other cultures from discussing black culture when they could also give a fair and thoughtful representation in Black Cinema. Thomas Lott argues that it can be hard to identify what makes quality black films because there must be an analysis of the separate concepts blackness and cinema. In his article “ “A No-Theory Theory of Contemporary Black Cinema,” Lot provides a compelling reason why his no theory approach provides a satisfying and open-ended approach to defining Black Cinema. Lott references Thomas Cripps’ Black film as Genre, Cripps to discuss a proposed definition of Black films to be defined as movies produced, written, directed, performed by, and performed for black people.…
Double Indemnity, a film based on fraud and betrayal in regards to insurance money, carried out by Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson. This film is a perfect classic example of film noir, as the film has various aspects of depicting characters in an ambiguous manner with the addition of dark shadows, moody aesthetics, intense music and mis-en-scene to express the shots well. In particular, the opening scene of Walter entering his apartment building to his room is divided into five simultaneous shots that display all of these cinematic (word). The very first shot filmed objectively at the eye level appears to be a medium long shot initially but then turns into a medium shot as the characters enter the elevator, and the frame getting closer…
Critical Assessment of a Work by Gary D. Rhodes Gary D. Rhodes of Queen’s University Belfast challenges many current conceptions about Hollywood in his work “ ‘Movie’: How a Single Word Shaped Hollywood Cinema.” Specifically, Rhodes argues that the audience has power over the corporation in this industry. He explains how the word “movie” is a major representation if this idea. Rhodes presents this argument because he has seen how common it has become to accuse corporate Hollywood of finessing it’s viewers. However, Rhodes pushes the idea that the audience is responsible for the way that Hollywood cinema works today.…
Billy Wilder is an American film maker who has produced more than 30 films in his lifetime. Three films in particular though have caught critic’s eyes everywhere. Double Indemnity, made in 1944, The Seven Year Itch, made in 1955, and Some like it hot, made in 1959. Billy Wilder’s style in his films could be described as comic in most of his films but some of them like Double Indemnity could be described as dark as it is a film noir.…
The 1939 screen adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by William Wyler, tells the story of two troubled souls destined for a life of failed happily ever after. The story opens with Mr. Lockwood, the new garage tenant, appearing at Wuthering Heights to take Shelter from a storm. While there, he encounters the haunting spirit of Cathy, calling out to her love, Heathcliff. Unnerved, Mr. Lockwood tells his tale to Ellen, the housekeeper, who then recounts the story of the ill-fated lovers. Heathcliff, an orphan boy, is taken in by the father of Cathy and Hindley Earnshaw while on a business trip to Liverpool.…
The cinematography throughout this opening sequence is nothing special, but it is a brilliant start to how the film is going to progress. You are shown the whole courtyard from the point of view of someone looking out of Jeff’s window. It shows the audience how little privacy people living in this apartment have and how easily one tenant can see to another. This sequence sets up the film perfectly, giving you a little taster of what the film will contain and also by introducing two of the main characters though one we have yet to meet in person. The mise-en-scene throughout creates a real urban environment, the placing of the potted plants outside or the pictures on the walls inside some of the apartments give them a more homely feel and allows…
The american action adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark directed by Steven Spielberg does an amazing job utilizing Cinematography, Mise-en-scene,Camera movements, and editing techniques to make the film an effective action movie. The first aspect that is utilized well in the movie is Cinematography. Cinematography is the art of Motion-Pitures. Spielberg uses a variety of different shots and angles to give the movie a more appealing feel to the viewer. Camera angles and shots let the viewer perceive the movie in many different aspects and points of views.…
I. Introduction Darkness is an empty word. At least it is until it has context and meaning thrust upon it. Film noir is a name given to a series of films which originated in the United States around the 1940s. These films often followed a formula involving darkness, mysterious and troubled characters, nihilistic undertones, and a confound unfolding of the passage of time. Breathless, directed by Jean Luc Godard, was somewhat of a French-made parody of these American films, for instance, the main character, Michel, attempting to molding himself after Humphrey Bogart, and his lover, Patricia, encompassing the role of a femme fatale.…
When our generation today thinks of “black and white” movies, we think of the movies that our great grandparents and sometimes even our grandparents always have playing on the television in their homes. Or at least, I do. I remember the long, boring, two hours that I would sit on the couch and try to watch those movies with my grandparents. The movies always disinterested me because they did not have any dialogue. If movies came out today in our generation without any dialogue I have a feeling that the companies would lose money on them because of the lack of interest people would have in viewing the film.…
After the Great Depression period, people needed a new beginning. The United States experienced a rise of prosperity where big cities such as Los Angeles were in the center. The American Dream was revitalized. In the late 1930s, the hard-boiled novel became increasingly popular, but when hard-boiled novels were later adapted as films, the films were regarded as works of Noir. The term Noir was adapted by French critics because the films featured techniques such as black and white coloring and peculiar camera angles.…
Orson Welles’ first film, “Citizen Kane,” richly realizes the full potential of excellent craftsmanship. Every perceivable element of cinema is expertly utilized to drive the story, themes and tones that “Citizen Kane” present. This is especially apparent in the scene that follows Susan leaving Kane. This scene’s manipulation of mise-en-scène, editing and sound bring together all of Welles’ ideas and drive them beyond the finish line. Mise en scène is what appears in the frame, what the viewer sees.…