Do The Right Thing (For class after spring break)

Spike Lee’s, Do The Right Thing, is an interesting movie that examines not only the external social/racial problems, but internal problems as well. I thought that this film showed a lot of prejudices and stereotypes that people still use against each other are today. In the film we are shown different ethnic groups of New York and in one particular scene, each group uses common stereotypes to describe a certain race/ethnicity. I feel that this scene holds a lot of importance for the rest of the film. What Spike Lee tries to convey is that we all have these preconceived notions, but when we closely examine the lives of these people, they turn out to be no different from one another. With these external problems, then comes fighting within the communities. We see each group argue with each other internally. Specifically, each group judges on whether they are employed, or not. I feel Spike Lee was trying to show that racial stereotypes exist, but there is also an internal fight among communities that occurs.

The last scene of the movie when Mookie throws the trashcan into the window is another interesting scene. Spike Lee gives two perspectives. The first perspective is that this was a blatant act of violence. However, it does question that this act was to save Sal. By putting the emphasis on Sal’s store and not Sal, Mookie can be seen as a hero, who in the end saved Sal’s life.  http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://nicekicks.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2009/08/sneaker-shots-do-the-right-thing-3.png&imgrefurl=http://www.nicekicks.com/2009/08/sneaker-shots-do-the-right-thing/&usg=__3cGSMNcwTA9KtKYhQzfyE4n8ocs=&h=358&w=620&sz=261&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=uhGC6BRpIgQPlM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=174&ei=GTZrTZDcIpO4sAPhgd2oBA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddo%2Bthe%2Bright%2Bthing%2Bsals%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D609%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=335&oei=GTZrTZDcIpO4sAPhgd2oBA&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0&tx=87&ty=97

Citizen Kane

I thought that the most interesting aspects of Citizen Kane was the use of isolation. It seems as though even in childhood, Charles is always isolated from everyone else in the film. For example we saw Charles playing alone in the snow and then when he is being taken away he is isolated once again. I think that this adds to the anti-american dream message that Citizen Kane tries to convey. This is one of the only movies where you see a rags to riches go wrong. All of this comes from the central theme of the difficulty predicting life. This movie shows the viewers that it is not always how it seems no matter how wealthy you are. I thought that the imagery of the snow globe really contributed to all of the messages above. The globe was never really what it seemed (switching from outdoor to indoor, to switching scenes). In the end it also breaks signifying his death, but more importantly the death of the last time he was truly happy.    

Citizen Kane

After hearing Citizen Kane be hyped up as the greatest movie of all time, I was expecting a bit of a let down; however, I was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the movie. From a technical standpoint, this movie is as close to perfection as any movie I think will ever come close to. The camera angles, the camera moves, and the cinematography is all spectacular, everything seems to have been done with great care and meticulously planned out. That being said, the story while interesting and told in a very innovative way, in using flashbacks and others' opinions of Kane, is probably considered boring to a lot of today's audiences who love movies by Michael Bay that consist mostly of explosions and giant robots (which I actually enjoy). However for me, one of the most interesting points of the film was the subtle technique of never showing the reporter's face. by either shrouding him in darkness or using camera angles behind the actor. This for some reason stood out a lot to me and seems to have metaphorical implications. It seems that in doing this, the view of the reporter is obstructed much like his view of Kane and his quest for the meaning of Rosebud. Also, because the reporter is in the dark on Kane, consequently so is everyone else because they are unable to get the information to truly understand the man. To me, this seems to be the whole point of the movie, that Kane, while prolific and influential was truly misunderstood. Kane just wanted be to loved by others and have a positive effect on people but in the end ended up alone and disappointed. All in all, Citizen Kane is truly a great movie and enjoyable. I feel that anyone who is a fan of movies should see it at least once because of how influential it is on almost every movie that we watch.

Modern Times

Having watched only one other Charlie Chaplin film, Gold Rush, I went into this movie with some knowledge of Chaplin's style and familiarity with his famous character the tramp. I have to say that I was very pleased with the movie, it kept with the silent film style and I loved Charlie's performance. Every little nuance he puts in the performance has meaning and seems very deliberate, it adds to his acting and improves it overall. Also in watching Charlie in this movie, many people would characterize his character as off-kilter  and clumsy. That being said, while the character is clumsy, I realized that Charlie is in fact extremely graceful and in control of all his motions. I find it impressive, as well as one of my favorite parts of the movie, that Charlie can make the audience perceive him as spastic and out of control when in fact he is in complete and total control and creating a facade of clumsiness without it seeming artificial. Another aspect of the movie that I liked was the fact the movie wasn't played at 24 fps and at 18, giving it the very sped up and comical feel. The higher rate of speed just seems to make everyone's actions more chaotic and funny. As for the themes of the movie that I felt were most prominent, I found recurring examples of people being self-involved and people being on their own; as well as a backlash against the steps toward becoming industrialized and reliant on technology. Chaplin's character as well as the gamin, for the most part seem to be on their own and trying to survive by their own means, be it being overworked in a factory, or stealing bananas and bread to feed yourself. They are alone until they have an encounter with one another, and at that point it seems they are the exception to the idea of being alone and they become exemplars of what the audience should want to be. They begin to try to work together and strive towards the American dream, often with some success coupled with defeat immediately after. In the end, the gamin says that trying is useless but Charlie's character says to buck up and never give up because there will always be something ahead of them. As for the technology aspect of the movie, I feel that Charlie's personal views on technology had a huge influence on its depiction in the movie. Charlie was trying to hold off on converting to sound in movies and used it very strategically in the movie. He mostly used it for little background noises to accent actions as well as the musical score. All of the actual talking in the movie is shown in a negative light, but in a subtle way. Almost all scenes with speech, the dialogue is being spoken through some technological means, the screen that the boss talks to his workers out of, the record player for the sales pitch, and the radio in the tea scene; the one exception being Charlie's song which he does in gibberish. Having all the dialogue be done in this manner shows Charlie's idea that we need to be weary of technology because if we just accept and embrace technology in all facets of our lives, things will become very inhuman and sometimes less efficient, defeating the initial purpose. And also him singing the song in gibberish only further proves his point, his expressions and motions tell the story just as well, if not better than if he were to directly tell it to the audience. In summation, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, Charlie's acting style and choice to keep this movie mostly silent makes for a better movie and also proves the point that the film is trying to convey about becoming reliant on technology.