Narrative Choices

"the criticism of films or, better yet, their analysi is an enterprise of utmost importance: it is the film-makers who create the art of the cinema; it is through reflection on those individual filmswe have liked (or those we have disliked) that we have gained in-sights into the art of the film in general."

-Christian Metz 
from the book Film Language: A Semiotics of Cinema

Christian Metz was a French Film theorist who applied both Sigmund Freud's psychology and Jacques Lacan's mirror theory to the cinema, proposing that the reason film is popular as an art form lies in its ability to be both an imperfect reflection of reality and a method to delve into the unconscious dream state.

Movie directors are all story tellers. And all of them choose how to tell their stories. This are some of my favorite directors and the choices they´ve made to create their visual narrative.


Alfred Hitchcock has a cameo appearance in all his films and liked blondes as his leading ladies. 

Stanley Kubrick –

 made his characters do "The Stare" .
He enjoyed bad stuff happening In bathrooms.

 Was obsessed with "symmetry". 

Terrence Malick

Loves shooting on Nature Cinematography
Has multiple narrators,often unclear who exactly is narrating.


Alfonso Cuarón 

Has a penchant for Long takes (i.e. continuous, uninterrupted shot of film that's typically larger than a minute or so) and uses it to tremendous effect in his movies.

Darren Aronofsky 

 Chooses to show you the back of his characters by tracking shots

M. Night Shyamalan

Really Likes Using Car Accidents As A Plot Device and appears in every film he directs.

 Quentin Tarantino 

Has Dance Scenes, Black and White Suits, women feet and theTRUNK ( point of view) Shot

Sam Raimi – 

"The Car" Sam Raimi is obviously proud of his first car, a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, and so it’s the automobile that makes the cameo instead.



Sam Mendes

(Sam Mendes + Water )= Death

 Sam Mendes has always stated that one of his favourite films is the original Jaws, and it has clearly affected him. The presence of water in one of his films is almost always a precursor for impending death.


John Landis – 

‘See You Next Wednesday’

In many of Landis’ films he sneaks in the phrase ‘See You Next Wednesday’ in the background. The original phrase was coined in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Frank Poole’s father during the videocall.


David Lynch

In most of his films are filled with Dreams and Split Personality. Two people play one person.


Martin Scorsese

In all his films the ones who tell the tale are characters, not the plot. Of course, Scorsese's films never have a plot. It's the characters that get to run the show. Characters narrating their stories.
Usually, we'll see a character, a Catholic, loathsome idler as the protagonist.
New York City as the main setting in his films

Michael Bay

He may be the most hated director, but is famous for his trademark shots. Many people say that all of his films are alike. They all have explosions in it.  And the american flag. 

Christopher Nolan

Is Obsessed With Dead Women Nonlinear story telling. Two or more parallel scenes at the end.Name of the movie is again displayed at the end

Jean Pierre Jeunet 

His sets are intricately designed using a lot of different patterns and exaggerated colors. Has an eye for details. 

Wes Anderson 

 What sets him apart as one of contemporary cinema’s most talked about auteurs is the mood he creates in his movies – the theatrical set designs, the brilliant score, the sepia tone that tinges all the frames, and the quirkiness with which the various plot elements come together. Besides, he frequently teams up with Bill Murray. 

However, there is another trademark visual obsession of his that came to my attention a few months ago – Anderson loves to compose shots that have perfect symmetry.

Paul Thomas Anderson 

Resorts to using fluid long takes to can his shots. Blessed with great visual artistry, Anderson's use of camera is often flawless. A continuously moving camera, that is.

Every narrative is, there-fore, a discourse (the converse is not true; many discourses are notnarratives
— the lyric poem, the educational film, etc.).'

What distinguishes a discourse from the rest of the world, and bythe same token contrasts it with the "real" world, is the fact that adiscourse must necessarily be made by someone (for discourse is notlanguage), whereas one of the characteristics of the world is that itis uttered by no one."on one level, all films are fiction films. All cinematic experience is based by definition on illusion."

-Christian Metz

Monster Makers

If you are like me and love the old, black and white UNIVERSAL MONSTER films you must know who Janus Piccoula was? or you might remember him as Jack Pierce.

He was born in Greece May 5, 1889  he imigrated with his family to the U.S. in his teens.

He was a cinema manager, stuntman, actor, even assistant director—which would eventually lead to his mastery of in the field of makeup.

 

Creating ICONIC monsters, such as the iconic makeup worn by Boris Karloff in Universal Studios (1931) Frankenstein or  The Mummy (1932),Lon Chaney in The Wolf Man (1941).

A stubborn man, continually resisted to change his old ways. Pierce was eventually let go from Universal in 1946 after over a decade of creating make-ups. It had become difficult for him to adapt to more modern and less costly methods. Jack was a man of tradition to his own executed designs. In the 1950s, things took a turn for the worse as television broadcasting came onto the scene. The Hollywood studios saw television as competition. Universal started the process of cutting their costs by selling needless studio assets, and trashing the unnecessary things they thought at the time were questionable.

Jack Pierce died on July 19, 1968. He won no Oscars, he has no star on the Hollywood walk of fame. Jack Pierce´s Legacy goes beyond that. He is remembered by his creations, he influenced some of FILMS most brilliant make up artists such as RICK BAKER (11 oscar nominations and 7 wins) and TOM SAVINI.

Jack Pierce changed make up for horror movies forever. 
Just remember how many times Make Up Artists
help a character....

(Stewart Freeborn)

 (John Chambers)

 (Dick Smith)

(Rick Baker)

Pierce's final credit as makeup artist was for the TV show Mister Ed.

The Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling is the Oscar given to the best achievement in makeup and hair-styling for film. This category was created until 1981.

 Usually, only three films are nominated each year rather than five as in most categories.
This year,  when you WATCH  the Academy Awards and hear..." And the nominees for BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING are..."

FOXCATCHER
Bill Corso and Dennis Liddiard


THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier


GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou and David White

Remember the work of Jack Pierce, I can only hope the Academy Awards, some day could do the proper tribute to the Original MONSTER MAKER ...JACK PIERCE.

IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY

I can´t recall when exactly i saw for the first time STAR WARS. I know my dad took my sister and me to see Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi to the movie theatre. But what i can recall is the mark it left on me. I wanted to be Luke Skywalker with my GREEN lightsaber. When the toys came  out i wanted everything, all the bad guys, the monsters, the ships and the movies.My love for STARWARS has grown all this years. I don´t know how many times we´ve watched them(A new hope, Empire and Return) over and over again, until scenes become our memories and quotes become vocabulary.

If you are like me, you watch at least 10 times the STAR WARS EPISODE VII trailer everyday.

Probably NOT. But you´ve watched it. And you are waiting for that movie as i am. 

Episode 7 The Force Awakens will mark the return of the original cast and hits theatres on December 18th 2015. 

That gives us a whole year of speculations and plot theories. Basically every fan has that date marked on the calendar.Wether you like, love or religiously practice STAR WARS everyone is expecting to see it. This movie continues the story of Luke Skywalker exactly 32 years after the destruction of the Death Star on RETURN OF THE JEDI.

WHAT WE KNOW

1. 1. The force  has been awakened
2. The Return of the Skywalkers, Han Solo , Chewbacca, C3PO & R2D2
3. 1.  Episode 7 is a J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan STORY.

From the TRAILER 

• Tatooine
• A 3 blade lightsaber
• X WINGS
• STORMTROOPERS
• MILLENIUM FALCON
• TIE FIGHTERS

A voice saying:

"There´s been an awakening..." 

"Have you felt it? "

" The DARKSIDE and the LIGHT........."

WHAT WE CAN EXPECT

• A better movie than EPISODE I, EPISODE II and EPISODE III
• The Star Wars SOUNDS(J.J. is very intelligent and if you listen carefully the trailer again its full of OLD Star Wars sounds)
• A NEW TRAILER... probably in AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON featuring the returning cast members.
• THE JEDI vs THE SITH
• The John Williams SCORE. 
• Luke using the force or teaching as KENOBI the ways of the force.
• Han calling Chewbacca some name like " LAUGH IT UP...FUZBALL"
• Space battles involving the MILLENIUM FALCON
• new characters with old characters
• practical effects less CGI
• A REAL STORY 
• An epic final scene
• EPISODE 8 and EPISODE 9.

We shouldn´t FORGET

Making a STAR WARS film is extremely difficult. Not only to film, but can you imagine the process of PRE and POST PRODUCTION of the story, the screenplay, the special effects, the actor rehearsals, visual effects, audio effects it must be a maze of confusion.

I for one, admire J.J. ABRAMS for taking on THE SINGLE BIGGEST RISK in Hollywood TODAY.

After rebooting STAR TREK taking the STAR WARS FRANCHISE 

and  trying to fulfill everyone´s hopes and dreams.

And selling it to todays SPOILER OBSESSED social networking audience.

The Force Awakens teaser trailer was released on November 28, 2014,  on YouTube generating a record 58.2 million views in its first week, surpassing trailers forAvengers: Age of Ultron (50.6 million views) and Jurassic World (53.9 million).

J.J. and KASDAN must´ve written something good so that original cast members would return and reprise their LEGENDARY ROLES.

By far EPISODE 7 is the most anticipated film event of 2015.

I can´t wait to see EPISODE VII.

Lets just count the days  until we see the lights DIM and those blue letters appear 

on the BIG SCREEN :

BREAKING the fourth wall

"Lowry ... stood across the road from his subjects and observed. Often enough there are a number of individuals in a crowd peering back at him. They invite us momentarily into their world, like characters on a stage sometimes do, breaking the fourth-wall illusion."

- Sir Ian McKellen

What is the fourth wall? Surely you´ve noticed in theater, in TV and in film the background sets are 3 walls and the fourth one is an imaginary one. Because the audience or the camera is placed there. Ever once in a while an actor or character will notice there is an audience out there becoming aware he is in fact a fictional character. But one that can interact with us by joking, explaining something or just saying whatever he or she is thinking.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet´s "Amelie" made Audrey Tautou an INSTANT ICON by staring at the camera with a smile and a spoon.

In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, one of Ben Affleck's characters says, "A Jay and Silent Bob movie? Who'd pay to see that?" At which point all three of them turn and glare at the audience.

  Have you ever noticed when suddenly a movie  character stops everything and looks at the camera to talk to the audience?

 That is called "BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL". It has no genre, no limitations, it can be in any sort of movie.

Disney´s THE EMPEROR´S NEW GROOVE made its main character, emperor Kusco explain the plot and letting us know who´s the victim of the story.

At the beggining of " Lord of War "Nicolas Cage as talks directly to the audience to set the tone of his character.

In  Annie Hall, a puffed up character: Man-In-Theatre-Line, spouts nonsense about Marshall McLuhan's theories of media. Allen's character Alvy argues with him, and then pulls the real Marshall McLuhan into the shot to back up his argument. Once that is done, Alvy faces the audience and says "Boy, if life were only like this!" He does this on many other occasions too.

Tyler Durden explains prologue and plot as we join David Fincher´s journey in FIGHT CLUB.

Dates back to the Lumière brothers and the first films made for public viewing in 1895—specifically, The Photographical Congress Arrives in Lyon, in which several of the photographers wave or doff their hats to the camera.

Alfred Hitchcock made the most freightening scene as Anthony Perkins last gesture in Psycho is stearing back at you.

Richard Donner´s Superman at the end of the movie just flying away. 

  In

 Sam Wiseman´s 

GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE it is used as a comedic device.

Steve Pink´s  

Hot Tub Time Machine has the scene where the characters realize that the hot tub time machine has, indeed, taken them back in time. When this dawns upon one of the characters, he says, "It must be some sort of... hot tub time machine," and then turns to stare at the audience.

In John Landis TRADING PLACES Eddie Murphy is asked if he knows ...what orange juice is? he responds by staring to the camera.

Quentin Tarantino´s  Death Proof.  

Martin Scorcese´s  Raging Bull.  

Johnathan Demme´s The Silence of the Lambs.  

Richard Donner´s  The Omen, in which five-year-old Damien, attending his adoptive parents' funeral, looks directly at the audience and smiles.

Breaking the fourth is not only for characters it can be also elements that touch the screen or interact with the actions in the movie,such as water, dirt or blood, intentionally sticking to the camera as it aknowledges the existence of that camera. Lens flare can also be considered as breaking the fourth wall. Alfonso Cuarón does this in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and so in GRAVITY.  

In movies as in literature, writers often break the fourth wall of a story by having their narrator or characters address the reader either in footnotes or other literary devices, thus having the film or novel itself recognize what it is (a story).