Movies In Your Spare Time: My Les Miserables Experience

My Experience Watching Les Miserables

As you may have seen from previous blog posts, I am a very big fan of romance movies and dramas.  I just love all passionate, twisted, tragic, love stories.  I love watching movies that actually are dark and sad.  Don't ask me why.  I don't know why.  For some reason I like crying at the end of movies.  Anyways, if you combine compassionate love stories with a dark, depressing turn of events and a little singing (I like the singing too) you get Les Miserables.  

The title, Les Miserables is French for "The Miserables".  If this isn't an indication to you that this is a depressing novel, musical, and movie, then you need to get your brain checked.  So, Les Miserables was originally a French novel from 1862 by Victor Hugo and then was turned into a musical, and now recently, a movie/musical.  It is an incredible long and detailed story about a group of people who are all connected by either blood, love, or complete misfortune.  Not only will this be the most depressing movie you will watch in a while, but it is one of the most beautiful movies you will watch in a while.  In addition to it being a very sad story, it is a story of love, triumph, courage, morals, and hope.  Each and every scene and line in this movie is just gorgeous poetry.  I unfortunately can't really explain to you what I mean by gorgeous poetry through this blog, so I suggest you go and watch the movie for yourself.  

Les Miserables could easily be compared to Shakespeare plays in that they have similar themes, and that their plots are very involved and confusing.  I could go into depth of all the characters and how they are connected but that would far too long.  Basically, the story revolves around a former criminal named Jean Valjean.  Once Valjean serves his long sentence for stealing a loaf of bread (how French right?) he gets out and starts his new life.  The story takes off from that point and finishes at his death at the end of the film.  Through the whole movie, you learn about the type of person he is and how his experiences have changed his identity.  Hugh Jackman does an incredible job tackling such a complex character.

While we are talking about the amazing Hugh Jackman, I might as well mention the great cast that was chosen for this monumental movie.  Of course, Hugh Jackman plays the main character Jean Valjean.  Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried costar in this movie as the other characters that are somehow connected and affected by Valjean.  Other actors and actresses include, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks and Isabelle Allen.  Although not all of these actors and actresses are known for their singing, they get the job done throughout the whole movie and do a very great job of it too.  Together this cast makes a phenomenal movie.  This film could have easily gotten silly because of the movie/musical genre, but the actors are so good at what they do that they make this movie what it deserves to be: amazing.

For one of these MIYST posts, it is required to go into one particular scene that is very crucial to the film itself.  Generally, I immediately think of a scene that I wanted to write about.  This is not the case with Les Miserables.  This movie has so man ground-breaking and influential scenes, that is is very hard to come up with a single one that stands out.  After putting much thought into it, I have chosen to talk about the "Red and Black" scene.  This is a scene where yes, the cast sings the song Red and Black.  This is the scene where all of the young revolutionists gather together in their clubhouse where discuss (sing) their motivations and revolution tactics.  During this particular scene, the men are all noticing that Marius has fallen in love.  They tease him a little, and then go on about convincing him that his love does not matter and that their cause as a whole means more than their "insignificant" lives.  They talk about how they were put on earth to fight for their rights and the revolution against the French monarchy.  They believe it would be selfish of Marius to leave the group and run away with his new-found love.  Towards the end of the song/scene, Marius is convinced to leave his love behind and to give his life for their cause.  It is a really beautiful song as well as scene.  As usual, I will include a link to this scene down below, along with the trailer.  

This movie has so many qualities about it that make it different from a lot of other films of its kind.  Les Miserables has a lot going for it in terms of the way the director decided to film it, the way the lighting is supposed to depict certain messages, the accuracy of the costume/makeup design and of course, the singing.  This movie tends to use a lot of bird's eye view shots.  The camera will often zoom out of the scene from the sky and show the city as a whole.  Also, the camera uses zooming out to include everything in the massive sets that Tom Hooper (the director) decided to have.  Since the movie is incredibly dark and sad, the lighting is as well.  There is not a single scene where you will see completely blue skies, or a completely lit up room.  Everything is very dismal and dim when it comes to the lighting.  I believe that this was very necessarily considering the tone of the movie.  Lastly, the costume and makeup in this movie is great.  It is historically accurate as well as plain.  Plain can seem like a bad adjective to describe costumes but in this case, it is a compliment.  A lot of times the characters are so numb from all the hardships they have endured in their lifetimes so their clothes tend to reflect that.  Also, the whole movie is about the people that are striving for a revolution because they are starving.  All the characters do not have a ton of money.  When you do not have a ton of money, you aren't buying fancy clothes that you wear around to walk the streets of Paris.  There is a scene where the use of makeup is very important.  During the "Lovely Ladies" scene, there are lots of starving women that are lurking around this back alley.  They are all malnourished, beaten and run down.  The makeup does a fantastic job highlighting this. 

To sum it up, Les Miserables is a fantastic movie.  I am so glad that I decided to watch it again after seeing it in the theatre.  I do not have a single negative comment about it.  I suggest that every teenager should watch this movie.  Even though the film is set in a time of revolution in France, the themes that are displayed are very relevant in today's society.  The biggest theme of this movie is to always be hopeful and to be thankful for the things and the people that you have in your life.  I give this movie a 10 out of 10 stars.    

                    

Formal Film Study: The Shining, The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project

For my formal film study, I wanted to make sure that I chose a topic and 3 movies that would push the envelope for me.  I wanted to watch movies that I never would have watched if I had not taken this class.  In other words, I wanted to watch films that would "mind blow" me.  As a movie watcher, I have pretty much seen every single type of genre of film besides one genre in particular.  I have never seen any horror movies.  To be honest, I have avoided horror movies like the plague.  I am that girl that is easily startled by someone sneezing in class and the girl that gets creeped out by stupid ghost stories told at campfires.  So what better way to push the envelope than by watching exactly the opposite of what I thought I would like?

Since I had never really seen horror movies before, I wanted to make sure I chose carefully which ones I would watch.  I wanted to see three classic horror films to give me the idea of what the horror genre is based on.  Off the top of my head I came up with the most well-known horror films.  These included The Shining, The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project.

The first movie on my list to watch was The Shining.  From what I have heard, this is the most infamous horror movie of all time.  Even though I had never seen this movie prior to this project, I still had seen the bathroom scene somewhere on the internet before.  For anyone reading, The Shining is a 1980, "psychological film".  Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson is a father and husband who gets the job to watch over this massive hotel in the mountains during the whole winter.  Torrance takes his wife, Shelley Duvall and his son, Danny Lloyd to the hotel with him for this job.  This family is all alone in this haunted hotel for a whole three months.  Basically, Jack starts to go crazy with all of the alone time in the hotel, and ends up becoming violent and dangerous towards the end of the movie.

The second movie that I watched for this project was The Blair Witch Project.  Made in 1999, this movie was known to be the first of the "personal documentary" style horror movies.  The film is meant to give the viewer the idea that the characters are actually filming their real experiences for you to see.  Heather Donahue's character and a couple of her friends go into a forbidden part of the woods in seek of finding out more information about "the blair witch".  Of course, something goes wrong and the group ends up in serious danger and complete fear for their lives.

The third and final movie I watched was the original version of The Exorcist.  The Exorcist was made in 1973 and is still one of the creepiest horror movies out there... or at least so I have been told.  Ellen Burstyn plays a single mother of her daughter Reagan, played by Linda Blair.  Reagan begins to show symptoms of being possessed after she played with a Ouija board that she found in the back of the closet.  Eventually, Reagan is in desperate need of an exorcism.

All three of these films have much in common, but also differ very much in a lot of different ways.  In order to compare and contrast the three films, I have decided to analyze everything about these movies and put them into five categories: style, industry, technology, culture, and politics/history.

The style of a film is very crucial to the film's identity.  I believe that all three films have the same sort of style for the most part.  One of the biggest elements in these horror movies is the element of suspense.  Every single one of these films have at least five moments in them where I noticed myself putting the blanket I was using up to my face because I knew something was going to pop out at me or something would be scary on the screen.  I did expect this style element of course.  Suspense is the biggest objective that horror movie directors strive for.  All of these films achieve that objective.  The Blair Witch Project had more suspense in it than the other two movies.  I think the Directors of The Blair Witch Project, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez obviously intended this to be a suspenseful movie because it did not have the psychological aspect that The Shining and The Exorcist did.  It was more of a movie where things popped out at the viewer to startle them and keep them on their toes the whole time.  All of the movies did not emphasize color or scripting much.  The Shining had some very memorable and impacting lines like during that bathroom scene where Jack says, "Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. Not by the hair of your chiny-chin-chin? Well then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in" (Nicholson 1980, The Shining) but none of the movies had tons of dialogue in them.  As far as the look of each movie, The Shining and The Exorcist looked the most alike.  The Blair Witch project was made quite some time after both of those movies, and it was a documentary styled film.

The type of industry for each of these films are very interesting and actually very similar.  All of these movies were groundbreaking for their time periods.  Every single one of these movies were the first of their kind.  The Shining was the first, big, psychological blockbuster, The Exorcist is known for being very explicit and known for using special affects/makeup for the characters, and The Blair Witch Project is known for its documentary styled look.  Even though these movies are very different on the horror movie spectrum, they are similar in the way that they opened up new avenues for the genre.  When it comes to production companies, Warner Brothers distributed The Exorcist and The Shining.  Haxon Films produced The Blair Witch Project.

These three films say a ton about the culture and time periods of each of these movies.  Each movie was from a different decade.  Based on the type of horror movies these represent, we can see what style popular culture was interested in during that time period.  For example, the 80's had to have been a time for psychological horror movies.  Based on how well The Shining did, people were very afraid of this type of movie.  It wasn't your typical scary movie.  The Shining brought the concept of "you cannot trust anyone" to surface and that really shocked people to the core.  The 90's were when the trend of startling and special effects.  Horror movies became more of a visual entertainment than cognitive entertainment.  Obviously, this is a similar to how The Blair Witch Project is filmed.  The 70's were a time where any movie that had anything that broke social code would be successful.  If you watch The Exorcist, you will recognize the several things in that movie that were considered shocking.  Excessive swearing and disgusting gore are just two examples.

No matter how far you go back in time, people have always gotten a kick out of being scared.  There is something about that uneasy feeling of suspense or the thrill of not knowing what is going to happen next that draws millions of people to the theaters.  Most of the time, horror movies are strictly to entertain.  They aren't generally used to inform or to get a political point across.  Horror films aren't meant to be movies that give a message at the end.  If I had to say one message that these films display, it would be the notion that you cannot trust anyone like I had perviously mentioned.  I do not believe that these films were made to say something about the current events of those times.

Each one of these films are slightly different in how they were filmed (camera angles, use of lighting ect...) and what each director tried to highlight in each shot.  The Shining and The Exorcist were very similar in how they were filmed.  Most of the time with these two movies, there were extensive uses of a close up shot.  Going back to that famous bathroom scene in The Shining, Shelley Duvall has several close ups of her screaming and moving about the bathroom.  This type of shot in this case is supposed to highlight the true fear going on in that characters face.  Jack Nicholson has countless close ups in this movie as well to show the viewer the insanity that he is experiencing.  This same technique is used in The Exorcist (as well as many horror movies) to give the same affect.  Much like the classic movie, Citizen Kane, The Exorcist used a foreground, middle-ground, background type of shots.  For example,  there are many times where Reagan is closest to the camera in the foreground, the priests are in the middle-ground, and Reagan's mother is is the background.  This is used to portray the balance of power in that scene.  Reagan is possessed and has therefore obtained super strength and is telepathically moving objects around the room.  She is considered the most powerful character in this scene, so she is put first in the shot.  The priests are shown in the middle-ground because they do have power when they are giving Reagan the exorcism.  Reagan's mother is stuck in the background because she is completely powerless.  She has no control over the situation and feels helpless.  The Exorcist and The Shining are also filmed similarly because of the Directors' use of camera panning.  Constantly the camera is on a track and is using the Dolly technique.  The camera is always panning to show the whole scene and what is going on.  Also, the camera is steadily zooming in and out in The Shining and The Exorcist as transitions.  During the Exorcist, I noticed there would be this zooming in and out when the infamous Exorcist song is playing.  Neither of these two movies seemed to put any emphasis on lighting or shooting with different types of lighting.  The Blair Witch Project is a completely different story.  This movie was completely shot by handheld shaky cams by the actors themselves or camera men that made it appear the actors were filming themselves.  The whole point of the movie is that the film itself consists of found footage that these investigators made themselves of their experiences.  The movie never uses a steady cam or anything to give a smooth shot.  This is obviously very different from The Shining and The Exorcist.  I believe that Myrick and Sanchez wanted this different type of documentary-like technique to set this movie apart from anything else that has been done.  Even though The Blair Witch Project is very different from the other two movies, the directors have said that they were inspired by The Shining and took its inspiration in a new direction for their film.  You can see The Shining's influence in this movie through its couple close up shots.  Lastly, The Blair Witch Project uses lighting to convey different feelings in the viewer because of its documentary style.  A lot of times there are random shots in the dark where the viewer is waiting for something to pop out or scare them.  Aside from that, there are moments where particular objects or people aren't shown in full darkness or light to create more suspense.

 This is just an example of a great close up shot from The Blair Witch Project

As I have mentioned several times, there is an overlapping theme within these three movies.  It is the theme of trust.  If these movies can drill any idea into a viewers mind, it is that you cannot trust anyone in this world.  For example, in the Shining Jack becomes insane and tries to murder his wife and child.  A dad and husband is supposed to be one of the most trust-worthy people in a families' life.  In The Exorcist, Ellen Burstyn's character has a daughter that is possessed.  Being a single mother, she only has one person to trust in her family and that is her daughter.  In The Blair Witch Project, each one of those characters trusted themselves to not fall to the Blair Witch, however at the end of the movie, they all do.  This is just how horror movies work.  Humans depend on trust to get through their daily lives.  The lack of trust is something that is scary to all of us, which is why it is such a prevalent theme in horror movies.

After seeing these films, I have confirmed my preconception that I wouldn't like horror movies.  I do not plan on watching any more of them anytime soon, considering I did may or may not have had a hard time sleeping the nights after watching these movies.

Movies In Your Spare Time: My Fish Tank Experience

My Experience Watching Fish Tank

First of all, I have to say that I am so happy that I decided to watch this movie.  I have for sure put it on my list of my favorite movies of all time.

Like I had mentioned in my other MIYST post, I was really excited when we were given this assignment.  I was so happy to give myself a reason to sit down on the couch and watch a couple new movies.  Of course, my last MIYST experience was not great... Alright. That was being nice.  It was awful.  This second round of MIYST was the polar opposite.  I absolutely enjoyed every second of this movie.  I liked it so much, that I am sure I will re-watch Fish Tank over and over again until I know every line of the whole thing.  This film makes you think, it makes you feel, and it will for sure leave a long lasting impression on whoever watches it.  I am sure this blog post will be somewhat of a mess because there is so much that I want to say about this movie, that my mind is running a mile a minute.  I can promise you that I will try my best though.

One night I was looking through Netflix trying to find something to watch.  Immediately I thought of the actor Michael Fassbender.  I absolutely adore Michael Fassbender.  He is so talented and has been great in every single movie that I have seen him in so far.  He always seems to play really complicated and misunderstood characters.  I really admire him for this reason, only because these roles are typically very ambitious.  Fassbender has starred in several movies in the past few years, but most of them aren't films that most people would have heard of.  Most of his well-known movies are films that he has not starred in.  The movies that I have seen and the films he has starred in are Jane Eyre, Fish Tank, Hunger, Shame, Angel and A Dangerous Method.  The most popular films where e has ben a supporting actor in are Inglorious Bastards, X-men: First Class, 12 Years A Slave and X-men: Days of Future Past.  He is known to be "that Irish guy in the X-men movies".  Anyway, I was really hoping that I would be able to find a film that he was in that I hadn't seen yet!  That is where I found the movie Fish Tank.

Fish Tank is a 2009 British film that was written and directed by Andrea Arnold.  It is a drama that takes place in East London in a somewhat underprivileged area.  Mia, a 15 year old lives with her mother and her sister in an apartment. I will try to avoid going into detail about the plot but basically Mia's mother get involved with this man named Connor (Michael Fassbender).  As the story goes on, Mia and Connor develop a really and I mean REALLY twisted relationship that is really messed up and complicated. I will leave the trailer to the movie below in case you want to see what I mean by messed up.

There were a couple very important symbols in the movie that as a viewer you need to notice.  The biggest symbol I would have to say is the chained up horse.  In the movie (this is another example of why this movie is beautifully weird) there is a chained up horse that is placed right at the entry way of a trailer park.  Mia is very persistent on freeing this horse and comes back a second time to let the horse go free even when she was assaulted from her last attempt. I believe this horse can represent a couple different things.  I think it represents Mia's dream of being free from her harsh life, her image, and these feelings she has for her mom's boyfriend.  Overall, the use of symbolism in this movie is really amazing. 

Not only did I fall in love with the characters and the plot of this movie, I also fell in love with how it was directed and filmed. I think it was such a unique movie. I really do believe that it is art.  A lot of times the movie is filmed with lots of discontinuity shots.  A lot of times the director will be focused on one scene, and all of a sudden, he will cut to a different setting.  There are also scenes in this movie where the shaky camera technique is used to further show the rawness of the film.  Also, the lighting in the movie is very complex.  A lot of times there are characters that are kept in the darkness for various reasons depending on that specific scene.  There is one scene that I believe captures the tone of the movie perfectly, as well as displays different filming techniques.  This is where Mia breaks into the abandoned apartment alone, and does what she loves the most in her world; she dances.  Although her dancing could be comical to some, her dancing skills aren't the point of the scene.  I will put a link to this scene below along with the trailer.

Obviously I could not be happier with this choice in film.  I really appreciated the several themes and artistic aspect of this movie.  I highly recommend Fish Tank to anyone who is interested in a different, artistic and bold film.  I give Fish Tank a 9 out of 10 stars.

    

Delvecchio '35 (1935 Film Blog Post)

For class this week, we were assigned to get together with a group and create a 1935, post-code film. We needed to create a plot based on the genre, the film studio, the scale and the casting.

The movie we came up with ended up being titled, "Delvecchio '35" because of the political aspect that was put into this film. This movie is about four members of the Delvecchio family.  They are a mob family that has so much power, money and influence in the United States that they basically run the poles.  They decide who is any position of power anywhere in the government.  This particular mob family is made up of George Raft, Jack Carson, John Garfield, and Julie Bishop.  These four characters are all siblings that run the mob. 

The type of style my group was going for was a sort of action, thriller an political movie.  We wanted this movie to have real substance to it and not just another gangster movie where a bunch of people get shot for no reason and they are all surrounded by drugs. This film is more about the political aspect of the mob.  The mesage we are trying to convey from this movie is obviously political.  We are trying to make a statement that unfortunately nothing or anyone in life can truly be trusted completely. 

We picked to do a ganster film soley because we believed we had a lot of options and directions we could take the film.  Also, I think my team and I can agree that it is an interesting subject.  The cast and crew fit in perfectly with their roles in the movie and the poltical statement.  George Raft, the main character is picked because he has a big background in gangster movies and would feel comfrotable playing the part.  Jack Carson is known for being a comic relief character in other films so we decidedto go with him for a supporting actor. This is a very dark adn serious movie, so we thought it wouldn't hurt bringing in a character that could lighten up the tone and keep it from being TOO dark.  John Garfield was picked because he is a tough looking individual and had just previously made a very popular movie.  We thought he would bring a bigger audience to the theatre to watch the film. Lastly, we decided on Judy Bishop to be the only in the movie because she would add a softer element to the movie because it is a male dominated cast.  We picked her also because although she is a woman and adds a feminine touch to the movie, she is very tough and can deal with her brothers very well.  It is meant to show that women have more to offer than just being a housewife stuck in the background of her man's life. 

George Raft: Main Character

One of the biggest decisions we ha to make as a group was to decide which film studio to work with.  This decision would affect what cast and crew we picked as well as most of the other aspects of the movie.  We went with Warner Brothers simply becuase they have had a history of Gangster films, and would work well with our plot.  Also, we liked the actors and actresses they had working for them at the time.

Delvecchio '35 would be a movie showcasing cinematography more so than sound, editing, color, or costume and makeup.  We chose Sol Polito as our cinematographer because he had a background of very popular movies with substance behind them.

The Hays Code would obviously be a big problem for this movie considering its a Gangster film.  Because of the code, we would not be able to show guns fireing (we would have to pan to a differrent part of the set and just have the gunshot sound in the background), we could nt show death (characters' deaths would be just alluded to) and we could not use profanity in the scripting, even though realistically these characters would be swearing a ton in real life. 

To be honest, I loved working with my group.  I did not feel that I disagreed with anything they came up with.  We all were very open-minded to everyone's ideas and suggestions.  If I had been working alone, I migt have picked a different genre of film, but in the end, I am happy with what we came up with.