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Conduct a holistic of the film Amélie by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Be sure to integrate terminologies and concepts from course discussions on both photography and film in your analysis. Cite all borrowed materials.
The film Amelie, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet orbits around the life of the main character, Amélie Poulain. Amélie is an odd yet wondrous young woman with an unusual destiny, invoking happiness and joy in others through small orchestrated acts. Throughout the film, Amélie strives to assist others by arranging different aspects of their lives, while they are unaware of it or her, themselves. In the end, the film is whimsical, saturated, and above all else remarkable, this is mainly due to the outstanding understanding and use of color and light used throughout the foreign film.
Almost everywhere throughout the movie, there are references to different artists and movements. Director Jeunet sometimes includes them directly in the set, such as artwork on her bedroom walls, and in others homes, while in other circumstances Jeunet alludes to specific works or styles in general. The film is incredibly emotional, expressive, and powerful in its plot, but largely in terms of its aesthetic value.
To continue, when speaking on color in the film, the most used colors are red, green, and blue. It has been documented in numerous interviews that Jeunet wanted each scene to resemble a painting, in turn, producing a memorable picture of each scene for the viewer. The distinctive colors that recur throughout the movie enable us as viewers to distinguish the emotions of the characters as the plot unfolds. We can see that Amélie's apartment is adorned with red hues, and the color often finds its way into her outfits too. While the color green works as a contrast to the commonly seen red, and is featured in various scenes throughout the film.
Our text educates us on the Gestalt theory of visual perception. The Gestalt theory describes how humans group similar elements, recognize patterns, and simplify complex images when we perceive objects. The theory incorporates similarity, proximity, continuation, closure,
figure, and enclosure (Visual, pp. 43).
Similarity
The lines in the metal framing of the door along with the two halves of the open book.
Proximity
Everything in this frame is within proximity: the trim of the doorframe, the slip straps, and hand placement.
Continuation
The same shapes are smooth in continuation: the shapes of the bulb and shade.
Finally, Director of cinematography, Bruno Delbonnel often uses extended, deep, and slow angles in filming. The wide filming techniques used are in an artistic attempt to reveal Amélie's feelings of loneliness and seclusion to the viewers. When the frames of the camera aren't focused on the wide slow angles, the filming heavily uses tracking features. The scenes incorporating the camera tracking often end including a close-up of a specific character's face. The lighting is mellow and somewhat yellow toned, this is apparent even in scenes that take place during the day. Director, Jeunet's handling of film components such as lighting and color is honestly incredibly powerful to the story. In the end, these factors almost more so than the plot and dialogue reveal more about the elaborate collection of emotions and feelings that make up Amélie's life experience.
Works cited
Jeunet, Jean-Pierre, director. Amélie.
Lester, Paul Martin. Visual Communication: Images with Messages. Lex Publishing, 2020.
“Visual Theories.” Visual Communication: Images with Messages, by Paul Martin Lester,
Lex Publishing, 2020, pp. 43–71.
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Inventory:
Camera
Photographer
Photo Editor
Pose matching
Composition:
The Marilyn Diptych by Andy Warhol was a multilayer colorful silk screen painting consisting of acrylic and canvas. For my recreation, I had to get creative. I do actually have my own screen printing set at home, but unfortunately, I couldn’t go all out for this assignment as I have run out of some of the necessary supplies. Instead, I focused on matching the formatting, layout, and composition of this piece digitally. I used digital editing software to try to recreate a silk press look. This was done by digitally “painting” the layers of bright pastel colors on top of one another to give it an acrylic paint look, in Warhols iconic style. I also tried my best to recreate Monroe’s facial expression and to pose at the same angle as in the original print. Her eyes are slightly closed, eyebrows raised and lips a bit parted. Thinking back I should’ve drawn on or edited in her iconic beauty mark.
Visual Cues:
Form: The painting was done in a 4x4 frame, and then copied and aligned in 4x4 again. The formatting of the images is one of the key factors in its iconic format.
Color: The colors of the paintings are also incredibly important. Extremely vivid colors layered on top of each other that are not necessarily complimentary make this piece pop. Obviously, it is pop art, so this was a must. Recreating the image via editing was a bit difficult, so I did not worry too much about matching the exact color palette in each square as the original.
Depth: The depth in this image is more related to the colors than anything else. The face is close up in a square panel, but the layers of color are what give the painting depth.
Movement: Although the image is incredibly still, it is as if the model was caught on camera mid pose. Like I stated earlier, the semi-closed eyes, raised brows, and parted lips are some of the key factors of this print.
Gestalt Laws
Similarity: Similarity is too loose of a term for this image. The four blocks are legitimate clones of one image, while the different layering and color palettes for each block make the set of four similar but not exact.
Symmetry: The formatting of the images are perfectly symmetrical in a sense. The same image is repeated four times in a 4x4 square image format.
Closure: There is also apparent closure. None of the images actually touch or overlap, even the layers of color do not mix.
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Gender
Kinder Suprise
Kinder surprise has been a semi-controversial product for a while now, having been banned in many countries due to the toy found inside the chocolate egg to have been a massive choking hazard. Aside from the physical danger of this treat, they launched new packaging, a blue packaged egg, and a pink egg. Children’s toys have long been utilizing blue for boys and pink for girls, though now if a little boy received a pink Kinder Suprise he may no longer even want the treat due to it being the “girl one”. Notice how the girl toys include horses, and the boy toys cars this packaging is putting two things horses and cars, (which really aren’t gendered things) into separate categories.
Van Heusen Ties
This is an old Van Heusen Tie advertisement that is not only portraying gender stereotypes but blatant sexism as well. With the text, “Show her it’s a man’s world”, on an image of a woman serving a formally dressed ma breakfast in bed on her knees while in a robe with her hair done. Yes, this advertisement is old, but the advertisers knew what they were doing. This wasn’t marketed towards women, but men, to feel in control and powerful if they were so smart as to purchase Van Heusen ties.
Protein World Weightloss Collection:
This massive subway advertisement shows women what they could be like if only they purchased these weightloss products. Even going as far as to make them question themselves with the, “Are you beach body ready” making viewers feel worse about themselves, in order to push them to purchase their scam products.
Love’s Baby Soft:
This is the scariest of all of the advertisements that I could find. This marketing project is disgusting and their television commercials were even worse. The lolita style of the girls in the images across the campaign insinuates extreme youth, especially when adding a teddy bear or lollypop, along with the text, “Because innocence is sexier than you think”. Though when we get to the video it gets even worse, “Love made Baby Soft, with the innocent scent of a cuddly clean baby… who grew up very sexy”. Although this is a feminine product it is marketed by men and for men, but making women believe this is something they should purchase for themselves, as men will like it.
Baby Soft Commercial
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M.C. Escher
Write an analysis that discusses the way in which M.C. Escher uses shapes, depth, and perspective to construct his images.
Maurits Cornelis Escher (M.C. Escher) a Dutch artist, engaged with architecture, perspective, and impossible spaces to create his multi-dimensional works of art. The artist took the advantage of mathematics in order to create a world that he wanted to establish in his works. He transformed his works by analyzing objects and figures in nature and distorting and deforming them while playing with symmetry and repetition of imagery.
This image depicts black and white birds flying in opposing directions. The use of shapes and depth makes them appear three dimensional. As if they are flying in a constant figure eight. Take time to study this image from a different perspective and you will notice more and more techniques shine through.
Although the basic forms within his works are quite ordinary, such as books, buildings, and stairs, they appear to be out of this world through illusionary tricks. M.C. Escher fully utilizes his artistic skills and mathematical talent. In order to create these illusions by use of shading techniques, depth, distance from front to back or near to far in an artwork, perspective, the representation of objects in three-dimensional space, shapes, and shades. M.C.Escher emphasized paradox and eternity in his works, creating impossible figures and shapes throughout his deformed landscapes. Through his work, M.C. Escher shows us that reality is wonderful, understandable, and fascinating.
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