Alfred Adler

To manipulate one’s audience, one must “give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.” Award-winning director, Christopher Nolan clearly portrays this in his films through his trademark directorial style of editing with specific use of non-linear narrative and mise en scene to create tension for his audience Through closely analysing the open scenes of Nolan’s Memento (2000) and Inception (2010), the audience can understand Nolan’s directorial style and the…

Lino Brocka’s best-known film, Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag, is arguably the most complicated work in Philippine cinema. Translated as “Manila in the Claws of Neon” and “Manila: in the Claws of Darkness” to foreign audiences, the film made it in some international critics’ lists as one of the most important films ever made. The indecision in providing a more accurate translation sheds light to the uncertainty of the film’s characters, their fates bounded by Manila’s luminescence and…

In the play “A Doll House”, Henrik Ibsen utilizes bird imagery to represent the characters in the play and the obstacles that hold them back in everyday life. Birds are amazing animals that have the ability to fly wherever they want, giving them absolute freedom. However, it’s still possible to place limitations on these creatures through the use of cages, and other forms of restriction. We as humans are similar to birds, as every individual has the potential to accomplish great things, however…

Abbas Kiarostami was an Iranian filmmaker whose films are so uniquely his they are in a genre of their own. Smart and profound films that offer many polysemic viewpoints and are full of ambiguity. Throughout his career there have been many different techniques, styles, and changes Kiarostami has tested and implemented. His movies all have a certain distinctive quality to them, but starting with his 1987 film “Where Is the Friend's Home?”, he settled into a style that is now uniquely his own.…

Released in 1955, To Catch a Thief was one of three films director Alfred Hitchcock produced within an eighteenth month period and was the result of a collaboration with rising screenwriter John Michael Hayes, whom he had previously worked with on Rear Window. Quickly written and produced, the film is about retired cat-burglar John Robie, who after being framed for a ring of jewel thefts in the French Riviera, seeks to find the real culprit, while evading the police and the romantic advances of…

• “Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm”: Sigmund Freud’s theory that a woman has not achieved sexual maturity unless she’s experienced sexual pleasure in her vagina. Enforces heterosexual views of sexuality and enforces the belief that women need men to achieve orgasm; a myth maintained deliberately by men. He also mentions that “if a woman is unable to achieve sexual pleasure even though she has an adequate partner, shows her frigidity and her need for psychiatric assistance”, this statement enhances…

Georgia O’Keefe was born the second of seven children near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin on Nov. 15, 1887 (“Georgia O’Keeffe: About the Painter”). From the age of 13 (Stabb), she knew she wanted to become an artist, and she began her art career in 1905 by studying at the Art Institute of Chicago. She continued her education a year later at the Art Student’s League of New York. After working in Chicago as a commercial artist for a while, she moved to Texas to teach art (“Georgia O’Keeffe: About the…

The collaboration needed to make a film, much less a quality film, is enormous. Many people are needed to make a production work: screenwriters, cinematographers, composers, etc. The director is one of the most important elements and his or her interpretation of a screenplay can make or break a film. As stated in Persistence of Vision: An Introduction to Film Appreciation, “An auteur is a director that has garnered enough influence that they have total artistic control over the entire…

Christopher Nolan’s Memento is organized in a way that the story and character development is presented to the audience backwards and with the same amnesia as the character. We experience scenes out of order and backwards. In the film Leonard talks with the motel manager about his memory condition (Memento 8:00). However, this has happened before, we the viewers are just know seeing the exchange between the characters for the first time. This can help the audience have a connection with Leonard…

In the Alfred Hitchcock Film “Psycho”, Norman Bates, a motel desk receptionist, is living with his “mother” in a giant house close to his family’s motel. The lovely Marion Crane, who is very disturbed and looks as if she has a dirty secret, greets him one stormy night. In the “parlor scene”, Norman and Marion are talking and eating dinner late at night. This scene shows the first clues of how crazy Norman actually is by showing a glimpse of his anger. Marion comments on his mother saying he…