Visual Literacy ?

“Notes from Underground”
Considered by many as the first
Existentialist novel
About
The rambling memoirs of a
Bitter, isolated narrator.

Just as Dostoevsky,
Scorsese introduced us
To Travis Bickle
On Taxi Driver
And his obsessive
Traumas.

Born in New York (1942)
He was always sick with asthma
Spending his time reading or in church
Or movie theatres

To understand Scorsese´s
films

You must see “ Paisa´ ” (1946)
A masterpiece by Roberto Rosellini
And…

“Ashes and Diamonds” (1958)
By polish master director
Andrzej Wajda
A post war epic told in just one day
Based on a 19th century poem

In 1948-49
TV appeared And a vocabulary was born. 

Howard Hughes,
Jesus of Nazareth
or Hugo Cabret

All his characters are emotionally
Connected to the audience

A master of driving story lines
To the edge

Emphasizing on
Music and editing
To shape images
For the viewer to interpret

Wide shots
from the knees up
Without words or
Imitating Alfred Hitchcock
With Blonde
Leading ladies

He uses Hallways as trademarks
Using slow motion to extend
The Complexity of a scene
Or a freeze frame for Abstraction

Guilt, hysteria, Anger & obsession
As emotional experiences
By using his unique
Structural vision

“I’m interested to see the visual interpretation
And the emotional impact”
-Martin Scorsese

Limited Edition Archetypes

In Life
The way we find ourselves
Is Like in movies
By watching others

“they say this one …has a surprise ending”
-Mrs. Price

I´ve always felt movies tell us many things
No movie translate this feeling
Of uncertainty better than
“Unbreakable”

We don’t know how others feel
We can see it on their faces
On their hands, on the way they bite
their lips
or answer slowly

We all have questions
We all hate questions
We have no guide to tell us what’s next
We are alone as superheroes.

As in comic books
In this movie

“It´s an exaggeration of the truth”
-Samuel L. Jackson as Elijah Price.

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Edited by Dylan Tichenor
Cinematography by Eduardo Serra

Unbreakable
Tells the story of two uncommon
People that meet

David Dunn survives
A train crash
Unbreakable
iron strong
He desperately wants to find himself


As Peter Parker, Bruce Banner or Clark Kent…
David Dunn has questions

One lives in light the other in shadows
Two Archetypes

Elijah Price was born
Breakable
glass weak
He desperately wants to find meaning

As Mysterio, Lex Luthor or Green Goblin
Elijah Price is the complete opposite

“Tell me something, David. When you woke up
This morning…Was it still there?
The sadness?”
-Elijah Price

The Annexation of Puerto Rico

Throughout movie history there 

has been many remarkable quotes.
But not many have had so much resonance
in my head, as  "The anaxation of Puerto Rico"
from a Duwayne Dunham film
called “Little Giants”.


The movie is about two teams
playing little league football
To decide which one will be the town´s team.
The cowboys vs. the little giants

Based on a John William Heisman trick play
Used on the 1984 Orange Bowl
commonly known as
“The Fumblerooski”

“The anaxation of Puerto Rico”
is used by the Little Giants offense.
To fool everyone!
Making it the unpredictable twist
to win the BIG game.

This kind of twists attract me.
With little or non movie references
character arcs become very predictable
And plots are easily spoiled by the trailer.

The Others(2001)

Written /Directed and Scored
by Alejandro Amenábar
Edited by Nacho Ruiz Capillas

Stars Nicole Kidman as Grace Stewart,
In a tale of a woman and her sick children
In a big isolated haunted house
after World War II.

Its brilliance lies on the beautiful editing
And how our attention is
Misdirected by the DIRECTOR´S
Use of movie clichés
To misguide us all.



Old Yeller (1957)
Directed by Robert Stevenson
Edited by Stanley E. Johnson

One of t he saddest stories ever
A movie monument that became a cliché.
Before “Disney´s Swiss Family Robinson”
And “The Shaggy Dog”
It’s the story of Travis Coates
And how his family adopts a big
Yellow cur dog, but suddenly
The dog turns on his owners.
That Stephen king kind a twist
Was SO shocking to me
As a little kid.
It made me confused on what
Was right and what
HAD TO BE DONE.



Arlington Road (1999)
Directed by Mark Pellington
Edited by Conrad Buff

Michael Faraday (Jeff Bridges) suspects
his next door neighbor
Oliver Lang (Tim Robbins) Is a terrorist

A Master class of editing and quick dialogue
There are no supporting roles
Every actor delivers and
It’s a movie you never pause.
Before 9-11 this movie made
America Aware of the danger
In their own back yard.



Fire in the sky (1993)
Directed by Robert Lieberman
Edited by Steve Mirkovich

In 1975, Travis Walton disappears
Everybody on town thinks he was murdered
Five days later Dehydrated, and incoherent
Travis claims he was abducted by a UFO.


To me the twist was to make it dark.
As flashbacks are introduced to let us
Experience the abduction
It adds texture by eliminating bright lights
Or sweet music (clichés of the genre)


With remarkable editing
And awesome special & makeup effects,
This apparent Sci fi movie goes further
With depth and complex characters.
Making it a must see.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothing yet'…

Those were the first words anyone ever spoken and for that matter, ever listened in a movie theatre

The year: 1927
The movie: the jazz singer
The story: a young man who defies the traditions

And that was what sound brought to movies
Defying tradition
Do something so long it becomes a tradition
Before sound editing, sound effects or even movie score…
In how many ways” sound” affects the message of a movie?
Does it change acting?
Its impact was as big as the change of black and white to color

As many characters became able to speak they became able to express deeper thoughts.
More layers to their characters
I can´t imagine Marlon Brando´s portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in 1951´s“A Street Car Named Desire”
As a silent movie.
As I can´t imagine voices
On Robert Wiene´s
“Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari”
Each movie has its era and it is a clear example of the hard work and tenacity of its makers.

Either comedy (Harpo Marx or Mr Bean ) or Horror (Jason on Friday the 13th or Michael Myers on Halloween
The absence of voice has no genre
It screams harder than many words.


Some of my favorite Characters and Actors
that don’t say much in movies


John Cazale between 1972 and 1978
had 5 opportunities
( The deer Hunter, The Godfather ,
The Godfather part 2, The Conversation and
Dog Day Afternoon)
to let the world see what he´s acting was all about.
before he died

James Dean had 3
(Giant, East of Eden and Rebel without a cause)
Between 1952 and 1955
before he died.

Jeremy Bulloch as “Boba Fett” had 1980´s“The Empire Strikes Back”
to become “a cult figure”
and he did it in
just 4 lines!!!

· “As you wish”
· He’s no good to me dead
· “What if he doesn’t survive ? he is worth a lot to me”
· “Put Captain Solo in the cargo hold”


Jason Flemyng in 2011´s “XMEN: First Class” portreayed one of Marvel´s most powerful and unknown mutants “AZAZEL”
He has the power of Teleportation and demonstrating you don’t need to say much :


· "nyet"
· "comrade"
In 1972´s “The Godfather “ actress Morgana King
sang "Luna Mezz'O Mare"
as Carmela “Mamma” Corleone
aside that she just had to say this:

“Santino, don't interfere. “

Kevin Smith as Silent Bob´s only line
in 1994 “CLERKS”

· You know, there's a million fine looking women in the world, dude. But they don't all bring you lasagna at work. Most of 'em just cheat on you.


Snoopy and Gromit have tried
But its Disney´s 1941´s “Dumbo”
Who I think accomplished much more than other cartoons
Going further than Bambi.
It touched so many of us and still does.
Its powerful message of not accepting
And worst of all laughing at anyone who’s different
And the value of believing in one self.



And he did it by saying not a word.

That hat. What do you call it?

“The Civil War is over,
and the resulting economic explosion
spurs the great migration west.
Farmers, ranchers, prospectors,
killers and thieves...
seek their fortunes.”
… opening scene from TOMBSTONE
Narrated by Robert Mitchum


A genre full of cliches
Of gun fighting and revenge
In the wild west
A place of no technology
Just human basics
And the eternal conflict of
Good VS Evil

I think becoming a lost genre
As black and white movies
We are coming close to a western less cinema.

Every year if we are lucky we get two or three…
Tales of revenge & justice in the old west.
The main reason :
it’s not appealing for young audiences

The newer generations want to see
superheroes and monsters
More CGI and PIXAR films
Not the old west…




EXAMPLE
The new “ the Lone Ranger” movie is not bad
It’s the worst case of MOVIE Marketing EVER
An Old tv hero, JUST Bad Branding
An A-list star like Johnny Depp as a supporting cast ??
And to make it worse
Opened the same day as
Despicable Me 2


Any body remembers a movie called:
“Dead Man”
Directed by Jim Jarmush
Masterpiece of acting, directing & cinematography
No BIG studio distribution
No super marketing strategy
No release date expectation
Flopped on the box office
Just a good WESTERN.

You know why James Bond became boring?
Because Jason Bourne could use REAL
Devices purchased anywhere
by anyone.
If moviegoers don’t become more
Demanding.
The movie industry will
Just gain your money repeating formulas
with no
Questions asked

EXAMPLE:
Quentin Tarantino´s Django Unchained
is not a bad movie
It’s a terrible western
…cause it’s a Tarantino movie
Its got more bullets than RAMBO.

I guess eventually
It will prevail.
But there´s hope for the Western
a new movie called:
“12 years a Slave”

I´ve only seen the trailer but you be the judge

here´s the link:
http://youtu.be/iiw1cYXQw4g

The KUBRICK Experience

Stanley Kubrick was.

Not an easy director

Made No easy movie.

He was all but simple.

In one shot

Stanley Kubrick could

amaze you

Disgust you

Or even frighten you

He didn´t say anything...

He hadn’t thought over and over and over again,

specially on his films.

Both magical and disturbing.

There is always a message underneath

Hiding

Between day and night

Mind abuse or torture

And the Powerful MASTERMINDS 

who enforce that  over the weak

Kubrick hides himself inside images

Empty immense halls.

Perfectly-well

orchestrated shots full of meaning.

He mirrored his long shots

left and right  

opposites and equals

and standing in the middle…

the character

He usually went

where no one really wants to go

by using colors or the absence of it.

backgrounds with Subliminal pyramids

evil eyes everywhere

Sexuality or the lack of it.

a typewriter

a Barbie doll

a rifle

a bomb

the masked orgy

the power of children 

the abuse of images & music

the dawn of men

We may never know what was going

on inside him,

most of his characters are like him

haunted,

they have bad dreams,

suffering of

a stressful alienation.

as Kubrick showed us

He basically  lacked

communication with the one´s

he loved.