In the classical Hollywood area and beyond there is a clear and obvious depiction of the male gaze in film and it has become particularly synonymous with the work of Alfred Hitchcock, most notably in his 1958 film Vertigo. In many of Hitchcock’s films the male gaze is not only evident but is what contributes largely to the storyline. It is used to highlight the importance of the men and objectify woman to only be seen as an object of male desire. This is successfully done in Vertigo through…
JJ Abrams is a very popular director in today's cinema and widely considered as an auteur. He has helped rejuvenate the Sci-Fi genre in many ways. First off if you have seen any of JJ Abrams movies or TV series’s they all have one major similarity which is; whatever you think is going to happen next, something entirely different will happen, as the case in Lost. Also all of JJ Abrams work have been strongly character driven something that doesn’t always appear in movies, especially in the…
From the films we watched this semester Vertigo and Bicycle Thieves Vertigo somehow seems to transcend these concerns and instead offers a compelling psycho-drama that has complex layers of meaning and employs carefully crafted film language to present a narrative that aligns the audience so completely with the protagonist.Perhaps the simplest application of this idea is to suggest that Scottie represents us, the audience, the spectator and the constructed version of Madeleine represents the…
Night of the Living Dead, released in 1968, directed by Gorge A. Romero and Carnival of Souls, released in 1962, directed by Herk Harvey, are two popular movies in the horror genre. Both low budget and filmed in black and white, captivated audiences with their filming techniques and psychological impact. Night of the Living Dead better represents the horror genre than Carnival of Souls because of its use of characteristics, stereotypes and technical components throughout the film. A typical…
Throughout the film industry, Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho has revolutionized the horror genre with his ways of merging the obvious with the mysterious. Alfred Hitchcock, ‘Master of Suspense,’ is known for his filming techniques which made his film stand out compared to other horror films during his period. Hitchcock used these techniques throughout the film Psycho to allow the viewers to get an insight of what is happening in the film. One of the most important scenes, where Hitchcock used…
Universal Pictures is One of the biggest movie producers out there,and they have made and remade many of their most iconic movies since their beginning in 1912. One of those movies is the 1932 Horror Film “The Mummy” starring one of the greatest actors of all time, Boris Karloff. It even won an academy award for best film in science fiction, horror, and suspense. Due to its success, a remake was bound to happen. In 1999 universal studios did not disappoint when it released “The Mummy” starring…
Dayo. 9-2 Casablanca From caterpillar to butterfly, you can undergo drastic changes, even within a short period of time. Film Noirs are Hollywood crime dramas that use lighting and deep dark shadows to portray the complicated moral nature of the subject.Casablanca in a great example of this, with many lighting techniques, this movie aids in making the audience cognizant of each character's transformation. First of all, as usual, when the lead female actress comes on scene for the…
Tracking shot from The Shining’. How the director creates suspense? The director of “The Shining” Stanley Kubrick creates suspense throughout this scene. He uses many cinematic devices to do this. These devices include sound effects, distance between Danny and the camera and close ups of facial expressions and body language. One of the ways in which the director portrays suspense in the scene is using sound effects created by the contrast between the complete silence when Danny cycles on the…
The opening scene of Rear Window (1954), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, acts as a prologue of the film: we are introduced to the space where much of the narrative will take place, to the protagonist, his background, and his neighbors through entirely visual means. Hitchcock created an entire film from the rear window of a Greenwich Village apartment symbolizing a certain “movie-watching” experience. Hitchcock uses mise en scène to show how the film is going to progress, uses camera movement…
Every now and then after watching a certain amount of movies you’ll come across one that has an undecipherable meaning, but certain parts of the movie will stick with you for a while. Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising is a good example of that. The story revolves around One-Eye, a silent ruthless Viking warrior who had been enslaved for years by a chieftain He sets out on a quest to regain his own freedom and cleanse his own soul by helping a small group of Christians crusade to Jerusalem.…