Coen Brothers

The Coen Brothers were an excellent team for making movies. The thing that I was most interested in with their movies was their use of dialogue. In all three of the movies we watched in class every conversation could be broken down and within it there could be symbolism and discussion. An excellent example of this is when Sheriff Belle talks about his dreams at the end of the movie. This description of his thoughts cannot be easily broken down and many instances of this can be found.

Kurosawa

Kurosawa was a pretty solid director. My favorite film of his was Yojimbo. After seeing Stray Dog I thought that he was just going to have serious movies and have no humor in them. But then Yojimbo changed my view of him, as it was a funny movie. It was interesting as Kurosawa was able to keep the humor yet still portray a sense of honor and determination that samuari's have. However Ran went back to his kind of stiff seriousness type movie and was a completely different feel. It is impressive that he can do two movies about kind of the same thing and have them come off so differently.

The Shining

For our final Stanley Kubrick movie we watched The Shining. This movie was very thought provoking as many parts of the movie were left with questions. A huge part of this movie was the tracking shot. There was not one scene in which a tracking shot was not somehow used. Kurbrick uses this technique to add to an already suspenseful plot. By having a tracking shot behind the character the viewer is more subjected to the character and can see what they see. This makes us unsure as to what is going to happen to them and thus the suspense builds. A specific scene when suspense is huge due to the tracking shot is when a kid is running through a maze and his dad is chasing him with an axe. With the use of a tracking shot we are right behind him and scared for him that his dad might come out of the bushes and kill him. All in all Kubrick's films were pretty excellent. He sometimes doesn't explain what he is portraying and it makes you think about what he is trying to say.

Hitchcock!

watching Hitchcock's movies in class was the first time I had seen one of his movies and I very much enjoyed them. The thing that I noticed was his obsession with drawing out suspense. I know this is what he is known for but it was very interesting to watch as you were always deep in the movie as he uses the suspense to draw the viewer into the film. In each of the films we watched there was several instances of drawn out suspense and since he gets us behind the characters we are hopeful that nothing will happen to them

Full Metal Jacket

This movie was done in two haves; the first showing the training and intensity in a boot camp and the other actually in Vietnam fighting the war. Kubrick comments on war in the first half with a character nick named Gomer Pyle. The drill instructor, Hartman, makes what he calls an example of Pyle by constantly punishing him for being socially awkward and not as fit as the others. Where Kubrick comments about the useless of war is when Pyle goes insane and kills Hartman and then himself. This act is one shown for the viewer to see how unimportant war is and the unnecessary things it can lead to.
When the men go to Vietnam in the second half of the movie again Kurbrick shows how useless the war is by having all the men wanting "trigger time," or wanting to shoot people. He furthers the point by making the men look a little insane and also by really never mentioning what they are fighting for. Later on Kubrick makes another point as the marines find the girl sniper and want to kill her slowly. This shows how dehumanized they have become and as a result of war want very bad things to happen to people

For our first movie studying Stanley Kubrick we watched Paths of Glory. This movie was pretty good but it made me dislike the French more than I previously did. Basically everyone (french people) lies to cover up a general who made a stupid mistake in order to move himself up within the French Army. Three men are sentenced guilty to "being cowards in the face of the enemy," when in fact they were hurt and unable to fight the enemy. As an introduction to Kubrick though this movie was a very good start and made me want to see more of his movies.
He had very interesting scenes in which the camera covered characters over long distances. One such scene is when a man defending the three men is pacing in a court room. The camera follows him back and forth keeping the jury behind him the entire time. Another unique shot was an extreme long shot showing a huge formation of French soldiers waiting for the three men to be brought forth. This style showed the helplessness of the men and that there was no way to escape what was coming to them. Although my desire to meet a French person is severely lower now the movie was a very good piece of work and Kubrick did his job to make them look like monsters.

Do The Right Thing

Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing was very smart in the way it made the viewer think about racism. I am choosing to look at one important scene; Radio Raheem's love/hate speech. This was important and worthy of noting because it was basically the theme of the whole movie. As we saw with Mookie and Sal; Sal either loved Mookie or he basically hated him, yelling and telling him how lazy he was. And this relationship just symbolized the rest of the relationship between the whites and blacks. In a similar way the whole neighborhood loved Sal's pizza and had no problem with him, but when one person turned on Sal all of a sudden the love they had for him and his food turned to hate. This hate was not necessarily towards him, it was more an explosion of the hate of the racism taking place against everyone, not just Sal.