Thursday, June 1, 2017

THIS IS NOT A LOVE STORY ....








Narrator: 
"Most days of the year are unremarkable. 
They begin and they end with 
no lasting memory made in between. 
Most days have no impact on the course of a life."



May 23rd was a Wednesday.



push play to listen to the soundtrack



On the screens where the numbers of the days in the relationship are shown, the coloring and "mood" of the background art change to reflect the status of the relationship. Good days are brighter and bad days are darker.




Every ten years comes a film WITH SUCH A MEMORABLE couple that makes history. With an original love story, amazing ON camera chemistry, a lot of luck at the box office and a soundtrack so unforgettable, the film becomes an INSTANT CLASSIC. But what happens when this amazing recipe of movie success changes the ingredients, mixes the narrative, makes it more human-like and less fairy tale. As humans we are full of flaws, false expectations and CLEVERLY adds the TAGLINE 

"this is not a love story"


500 days of SUMMER STANDS out in 2009 films as a representation of a whole generation of kids that grew up watching movies, listenting to 80´s pop, from mtv to you tube, from  vinyl  to mp3, we were all changing rapidly. Trying to keep up and fit inside this new world. 

I remember the first time i saw this film , almost at the end of the film I hated SUMMER, the character. She was the very essence of girls who treat you bad. She had personified perfectly what many people go thru when they don´t understand each other as a couple. But as TOM i started to see what had happened. It wasn´t that SUMMER lied to TOM. Summer told him from the beggining how she felt. He just decided not to listen. He wanted them to be a couple. His expectations did not become a reality so he was, as us all FURIOUS. 

The one thing i was very atracted to this film was the way it was told. It felt new and inviting to the eyes and my visual culture. It was funny not vulgar. It had depth and meaning to the scenes and characters. It wasn´t your typical comedy.  But most importantly it wasn´t told in a straight line. It had tributes to all genre, european films, musicals, epics and even star wars. It CONNECTED with the AUDIENCE. It connected with ME. All the movies i have at home is the ones i enjoy watching again and again.

Most stories begin when they must, When there was an event that changed the every day routine. This is a different kind of day not like MOST DAYS. 






One of the film's writers estimates that 75% of the film actually happened to him. 



"SPOILER ALERT" If you haven´t seen it go watch it and come back.

500 DAYS OF SUMMER is about...

Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t. This post modern love story is never what we expect it to be — it’s thorny yet exhilarating, funny and sad, a twisted journey of highs and lows that doesn’t quite go where we think it will. When Tom, a hapless greeting card copywriter and hopeless romantic, is blindsided after his girlfriend Summer dumps him, he shifts back and forth through various periods of their 500 days “together” to try to figure out where things went wrong. His reflections ultimately lead him to finally rediscover his true passions in life.



THE CAST


Joseph Gordon-Levitt  is Tom



Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom Hansen, a trained architect who works as a writer at a greeting card company.




Tom BELIEVES his expectations will align with REALITY.






Zooey Deschanel   is Summer

Zooey Deschanel as Summer Finn, assistant to Tom's boss and Tom's love interest.

Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt had also appeared alongside each other in the movie Manic (2001).

Both hometowns that the main characters are from are fictional. The closest there is to a Margate, New Jersey is a Margate Township, but there is no actual city or town named Margate. There is no place in the state of Michigan named Shinnecock.



Summer BELIEVES There's no such thing as love, it's fantasy...








Chloë Grace Moretz as Rachel Hansen, Tom's younger half-sister.












Matthew Gray Gubler as Paul, one of Tom's friends.




    Geoffrey Arend as McKenzie, Tom's co-worker at the greeting card company.






    Rachel Boston as Alison, Tom's blind date.
                                                                                                                                                                                           Minka Kelly   as Autumn
















THE  MUSIC

I love this soundtrack because it is both emotional and helps the narrative. It puts you right there with the characters. Facing the same emotions, joy, anger, frustraition it´s the glue that joins all the pieces together.   

The Smiths' "Louder Than Bombs," The Jesus & Mary Chain's "Psychocandy," and Public Image Ltd.'s "Album" can been seen in Tom's childhood room.



"it´s actually telling a genuine story about heart break and growing up"
-Joseph Gordon-Levit


"it´s going to be a really funny and maybe slightly heartbreaking story "
-Zooey Deschanel


Joseph Gordon-Levitt wears T-shirts for Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and "Unknown Pleasures," and The Clash's "London Calling" albums.


The Ringo Starr music album that Tom shows Summer in the vinyl store is the 1981 work "Stop and Smell the Roses."


One thing that both Tom and Summer have in common is their love for "Bananafish." This was the name of a band that gained national prominence for a brief period in the 80s, in turn named for the first of J.D. Salinger's "Nine Stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish." Actress Zooey Deschanel, who portrayed Summer in this film, is herself named for another Salinger story, "Franny & Zooey."



THE DIRECTOR

"It´s about characters going though 
a journey and if you can empathise with them we´ve done the right thing "
-Director Marc Webb

"most romantic comedies are more loyal to a formula than to emotional truth. It's about happiness, and learning that you'll find it within yourself, rather than in the big blue eyes of the girl in the cubicle down the hall."

-Director Marc Webb




This was the feature film debut of director Marc Webb, who mainly directed music videos.

Regina Spektor 
and My Chemical Romance 
to Miley Cyrus and Fergie


Films
(500) Days of Summer (2009) - Director
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - Director
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) - Director
Gifted (2017) - Director


Production Design



In film and television, a production designer or P.D. is the person responsible for the overall visual look of the production. Production designers have a key creative role in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the director, cinematographer and producer, they must select the settings and style to visually tell the story.

When Tom first enters Summer's apartment, the camera focuses on a bowler hat with a green apple on top of it. This resembles the famous painting "The Son of Man" by René Magritte, one of Summer's favorite artists.









David Ng of the Los Angeles Times describes architecture as a star of the film. Tom is seen reading Alain de Botton's The Architecture of Happiness. The film was originally set in San Francisco but was later moved to Los Angeles and the script rewritten to make better use of the location. Buildings used include the Los Angeles Music Center (which includes the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion) and the towers of California Plaza. 


The older Fine Arts Building is featured in the film, in a scene where Tom shows it to Summer and mentions its designers, Walker and Eisen, two of his favorite architects, although he incorrectly gives the partners' names as "Walker and Eisner."



Christopher Hawthorne of the Los Angeles Times describes the film as having "finely honed sense of taste" to include the Bradbury Building where Tom goes for his job interview








The Director says : "Yes, Summer is an immature view of a woman. She's Tom's view of a woman. He doesn't see her complexity and the consequence for him is heartbreak. In Tom's eyes, Summer is perfection, but perfection has no depth. Summer's not a girl, she's a phase."




Gordon-Levitt explained that he was drawn to the role of Tom because of his relatability to the character.



 "I've had my heart broken before. Truly, truly broken. But when I look back at me in my heartbroken phase, it's pretty hilarious, because it felt so much more extreme than it really was.


 One of the things I love about 500 Days of Summer is that it doesn't make light of what we go through in romances, but it is honest about it and shows it for what it is, which is often profoundly funny"



Originality is hard to come by these days; if you can find a way to tell a story a profound character in a relatable setting every movie goer  will  notice and cherish it.


The power of juxtaposition: 


juxtapostition : an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especiallyfor comparison or contrast.




Juxtaposition provides an endlessly fascinating process that allows us to deepen our characters and the story.



In a film, the contiguous positioning of either two images, characters, objects, or two scenes in sequence, in order to compare and contrast them, or establish a relationship between them;  for example the Baptism scene on The Godfather or the PSYCHO montage.







Summer: I just... I just woke up one day and I knew.


Tom: Knew what?


Summer: What I was never sure of with you.



Tom: You don't want to be named as anybody's girlfriend, and now you're someone's wife?



One of the most relatable themes in the film FOR ME, is "Do what your passionate about". What good does it make you to have a steady job a steady paycheck a steady life.....if you feel awful. If you are not challenged every day , if you just hibernate in a comfort zone. You have to dream BIG and challenge what you know, who you think you are and become YOURSELF.





tHE CINEMATOGRAPHY



Eric Wesley Steelberg (born April 1, 1977) is an American cinematographer. He is a frequent collaborator of Jason Reitman, having worked with him on Juno (2007), Up in the Air (2009), Young Adult (2011), Labor Day (2013), and Men, Women & Children (2014).

The film's blue-centric color scheme was done to bring out Zooey Deschanel's eyes.



The supporting Characters 
that make 
TOM 
see.

 ALISON , Tom´s blind date makes him realize he is making a storm in a glass of water. 


Was she unfaithful to you?
Did she abuse of you in any way?
She told you from the beggining she didn´t want a boyfriend? 

Tom had all the answers he needed to realize SUMMER was not the villain. As he speaks with his sister she makes the same kind of remarks.



 "Look, I know you think she was the one, but I don't. Now, I think you're just remembering the good stuff. Next time you look back, I, uh, I really think you should look again. "
 -Rachel 




You should look again...






There is a fan theory that the final conversation between Tom and Summer on the park bench was all imagined by Tom and did not really happen. If that is accurate, then Day 408 (at Summer's house party when he learns of her engagement) is the last time Tom ever sees Summer.


OUT OF FOCUS

In Woody Allen´s 1997 film "Desconstructing Harry" , Robin Williams plays Mel, one of Harry´s characters, a man out of focus, that´s because he has lost the meaning of his existance.

Every so often we become as people out of focus. We tend to see whats in front of us leaving all the people and places in the back, out of our sight because we don´t care. We are missing out on a lot. The same thing happens to Tom , when he meets Autum. She says to him:




The color Red is intentionally not used in this film, and the color blue is often conveyed to represent love or happiness 


The color red does make an appearance, in Summer's apartment where a little red origami bird can be seen. It makes a final appearance at the end when Tom meets Autumn, and the color of her blouse is red.



It´s up until that moment when Tom hears the name AUTUMN , he looks at us as though he has finally realized...That´s right!!! It´s not the end of the world!!
Every person you meet is for a reason. The film, the cast, the director they all come together to create this sense of empathy  in all of us.

When one door closes, another opens...



I believe the best films are the ones that let you make your own mind. We are all different and think different. I LOVE films that make you think. That you leave the movie theatre thinking and processing what you just saw. This is a film that challenges us to see things from a different point of view. I like movies i want to watch and watch again and again. Because of how they make me feel or what they make me remember. I love interesting plots and narratives that are creative. There is a little bit of luck, the right time and the right moment to make chemistry work on a film. And there it remains forever. 

THIS IS NOT
LOVE
STORY