Blog Post: Hurt Locker

A shaking camera. Ground level. Debris everywhere. This is our introduction to the war in Iraq through the eyes of director Kathryn Bigelow. Several different vantage points in quick succession gives us the impression of seeing the scene unfold through the eyes of multiple people while the army is shown moving in. After the robot fails in discharging the bomb, a soldier is forced to go in himself. We get the viewpoint of a soldier – implied by the eyeline match – and then another, as the camera shoots through the scope on a gun, and finally one more through the bomb mask as the soldier sent in to defuse the bomb looks to the sky. We are thrown into the suit with him as the only sound from the film becomes his labored breathing. Obstructed shots from around the area – most notably one from a meat shop – then gives us the vantage point of a civilian as he watches over the target area.
Chaos. During a reverse shot between the two soldiers standing guard discussing how much the area needs grass and the profit opportunity, they spot the meat shop civilian holding a phone, used for detonating explosives. As they try to get their man out of there, one starts running towards the shop yelling and pointing his gun while the camera quickly switches between several different viewpoints watching the scene unfold. Zooming in on the phone, we see a “call” made and seconds later the bomb goes off. Slow motion captures the reverberations of the force. The only sound now is that of the explosion mixed in with the heavy breathing of the suited soldier, until he hits the ground and the breathing stops.
Comparing this scene to the one where the soldiers are in a sniping battle against some of the enemy, we can notice a few things that Bigelow decided to put an emphasis on. First, the sniping sequence is long and drawn out, as indicated by the sun and shadows as well as the increasing amount of sand on the soldiers faces. This matches up with her decision to use longer cuts of each shot instead of the short quickfire ones we had in the opening sequence.

Blog Post Shark in the Head

One moment from Shark in the Head in which setting plays a prominent role is… the entire movie. It was shot almost entirely in front of an old man’s window, for the love of Urban Meyer!! OK but seriously, one moment that is worth taking a look at is when the protagonist discovers the construction going on and decides to join in on what some might consider fun. It starts out when he is going through his usual routine – looking out the window as the world passes by – and begins hearing a loud racket which we discover is all thanks to a construction crew. After realizing what is going on, our protagonist heads over to help them out and quickly integrates with the crew, even bringing 6 beers to them at one point as they all take breaks from a hard day’s work. The director deviates in this scene from traditional depictions of setting and the classical paradigm to create symbolism by having it all take place mere steps away from the old man’s front door. It shows us that even though his world is confined to a tiny area, he somehow manages to find interesting things to fill his time with as well as interact and meet new people. Despite how small one’s world may be, it is always possible to reach out as our protagonist did here.

Does this film achieve style, or is it a film of manner? Does a sillier question – other than this one – even exist? There is essentially no story to tell, which leaves us with only one option… Style! Most interesting is the film’s constant back and forth between diegetic and non-diegetic details. As an audience, we are addressed directly by the actors a couple of times (when the dancers all turn and shove their arms out, and when the scene opens with all of the actors standing and looking at us before resuming their daily activities), and it is not made clear whether or not the main character is/would be aware of these moments. Are they in his head? Is it some sort of director decision to give us a glimpse of how he feels? Certain questions are left unanswered.

Full Metal Jacket: Review review

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,964819,00.html

This to me is what a good review looks like. While it is not persuading me one way or another to see the movie, it gives more than a simple plot synopsis. Enough is given away to get a good sense of what happens, but not so much that the movie is ruined. The author uses good language to describe not just the film but Kubrick and his directing style as well. For example, he says "His last smile will be one of emotional vacancy, for he has achieved the purity of madness." This paints a picture for us of the sort of quality that is put into the film; I can only assume terrible films have absolutely no shot of conveying something like this.

Something that the review suffers from a lack of is insight about the underlying themes of the movie. It focuses on the surface of the film rather than some of its implications/motivation, and how the film might have been received by the general viewing public at the time of its release, which is an important consideration to be made. Not enough thought was put into the fact that Kubrick was making this for a 1987 audience, rather than a random audience in general. The duality of man described by Joker fits in perfectly with the way the movie was presented in 2 distinct halves; Corliss focuses on the technical aspects so much that he misses this one key comparison (among many).