The Royal Tenenbaums

William Weathersbee

Amanda McClain

12/1/15

Intro to film

                                   

                                               The Royal Tenenbaums

In this scene of the movie Royal Tenenbaums pretends he is sick and gets a doctor to come over to scheme the family to believe he is sick. In the sequence of the movie the director framed  the characters in this scene. Margot seems to be detach herself from the rest of the family and this is probably to reinforce herself feeling like she wasn’t his daughter because she was adopted and how he treated her. Also she is shown behind her movies back this could symbolize how she was only really to her mother throughout her childhood and didn’t really connect with Royal Tenenbaum.

The scenes in these sequence are more complex than they seem from character placement to even every other minor detail. The character placement can represent  their feeling towards Royal or even just adds to their character traits. What I found particular interested about the composition is that you can tell the importance Royal is to each character by their placing in the sequence.

For example Richie is right by Royal bedside one could definitely tell Richie holds special importance to Royal compared to the rest his family.Another interesting thing in the scene was Chas children placement in the scene one could definitely tell his children are concern about royal and hold him dear while Chas looks skeptical and thinks it's a ruse.Moving forward the director shows a composition of scenes of Royal bonding with Chaz kids. This could respect the attention he wanted when he was child but he only gave it to Richie.

Do The Right Thing

William Weathersbee

Amanda McClain

Intro to Film

11/20/15

Do the right thing Produced in 1989, written and directed by Spike Lee.  The story takes place in a Brooklyn neighborhood and the racial tensions reside within.The main theme of this movie is peace and conflict battling against each other. For instance the opening scene the female dancing aggressively in a boxing outfit while “ Fight the power” is playing in the background,this sets a intense tone. A tone that the  audience will think about throughout the movie because  of this opening scene.

Another instance of how the movie portrays this power struggle between peace and conflict is the two characters “Mister Senor Love Daddy” and  “Radio Raheem”, These two characters represent the conflict in physical form. Mister senor love Daddy is peaceful and calm,tries to resolve any conflict and  reduce tensions in the neighborhood.While Radio Raheem is a source for the tension throughout the film, the complete opposite of Mister Senor love Daddy.

Mookie acted as the mediator or ethnic backup for Sal so he would ask him to handle  ethnic controversial happening at the store.Toward the end of the movie,the event that take place was related to this. After Radio Raheem’s murder by the New York City cops; Mookie, Sal, and his sons are standing in front of the pizzeria with a angry mob. mookie walks over to the mob,picks up a trash can, and throws it through the pizzerias window. Mookie breaking the window symbolize how he doesn't want to be the mediator between Sal and the black Community.As  mookie breaks the glass window with the trashcan, it sets off the rest of the crowd to destroy Sal’s Pizzeria.This respent the peace being trampled over by hatred.

Another form symbolism seen in the movie was the use of black and white clothing.For instance Sal’s sons Vito and Vito were dressed in black and white clothes according to their beliefs. Pito is a racist and detests Sal’s shop because of their area,wear white.While Vito who is friends with mookie which is black,Wear black colored clothing to show he isn’t a racist like his brother.

Another use of symbolism used in the movie is the heat. The symbolism the racial tensions.The rising heat in the movie shows the audience racial relations in New York at the time the film takes place.The character and environment are a sort of ticking time-bomb. The tensions keeps building and building until it gets to it’s boiling point.Once the boiling point is reached chaos breaks loose and runs rampant.

Spike Lee employ many film techniques to make the audience believe the racial tension  happening in the movie.

Jaws Shot Analysis

William Weathersbee

Intro to Film

Professor Mcclain

10/20/15

                                  Jaws Shot Analysis 

    The movie, “Jaws”, directed by Steven Spielberg, is a thriller about a great white shark wreaking havoc on a small island, inevitably terrorizing the community. Jaws was a success in the box office because of the many cinematic techniques Spielberg incorporated. For example, Spielberg uses the camera to create suspense in the film, utilizing several different camera angles. Spielberg integrated establishing shots, displaying the chaotic atmosphere of the beach goers reacting to discovering a great white shark. The close imagery emphasizes the distress on the characters’ faces; this technique aids in presenting detail, as well as highlighting the importance of the scene. There are also moments of ambient sounds, during shots of the beach and ocean, setting a calm, relaxed mood for the audience. The film also includes non diegetic music when the shark appears, in efforts of building suspense. There was close ups on Chief Brody mostly to signify the importance of his character. Spielberg also places us in the shark’s perspective by showing us underwater POV shots of the beach goers in the water,to show us how they are clueless prey for the shark.

The Graduate

William Weathersbee

9/11/15
Intro to film

Professor McClain                                                     

                                                  The Graduate

I watched the ‘’The Graduate’’ and it was a very remarkable movie. I find it intriguing how a movie made so long ago is still relatable when much has changed in society. I can personally relate very much with relate very much with Ben,how he doesn't know what exactly he wants to do with his life and also the expectations of others hanging over his shoulders.

A theme I seen in the movie was confusion.Ben kept getting asked what he is gonna do next and never had an answer.He also seemed frustrated and in a state of distress in the movie.Another theme I saw was innocence. This theme could be easily seen by how mrs.robinson seduced Ben.She took advantage of Ben,he was confused and didn’t know what to do.You could think of it as a adult swaying a child toward a course of action.

A symbol I seen in the movie was Mrs.Robinson.I seen her as representation of the future.I thought so because of how Ben setting and situation. He didn’t know what he wanted to with his future and didn’t want to confront it.So Mrs.Robinson confronts him and makes him make choice.This action show how she symbolize the future and he gotta make choice that will change his life forever.

The shining

William Weathersbee

Professor McClain

Intro to Film

9/24/15                                                    

The Shining

Jack becomes a caretaker for a hotel. Subsequently, he and his family move into the hotel, where Jack soon becomes possessed by a spirit in the hotel and descends into madness.Wendy concludes that Jack has gone insane,when she discovers what he was writing on the typewriter, leading her to think he has gone mental. Jack exhibits several signs of madness. One sign that shows that Jack has gone insane is when he is standing over the model maze; the maze symbolizes that he has lost his mind because mazes have a connotation of confusion and mayhem.

    Another scene in The Shining exhibiting Jack’s road to chaos is when Wendy stumbled upon  Jack screaming while asleep. Jack says he dreamed that he murdered both Wendy and Danny in his dream. This foreshadows Jack’s upcoming rampage. An additional manifestation of Jack’s possession in the movie that shows Jack's dive into upheaval is when he checked room 237 after Danny said he saw a woman in the room. Jack checks the room and sees a ghost of a woman, however, he tells Wendy that he saw nothing. This was another forewarning that Jack has gone mad because an average person would have been extremely anxious and would have expressed their distress toward someone about it, but instead, Jack merely shrugged it off, acting as if nothing happened. All of these events indicate that Jack has stepped out of civility.