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Rosa- Shortfilm

Rosa is a short film that connects matter or environment with information (technology). The author of “ How we became posthuman” talks a lot about how information isn’t exactly united with the body. It really doesn’t need a body to exits. Forming the idea that can be real to pass consciousness from our mind into any matter in the Earth. Connecting this to the short film we see that Rosa has woken up like spontaneously and founds others. She grew from a unknown source, but at some point of the short film we see roses carved in her neck. Which I believed is a hint. After the crucial fight, she logs off and simultaneously the same rose grew from the ground. Like her life passed to that rose that bloom at the end. I believed this part kind of reflects specifically what Hayles wants to transmit in her book.

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The Matrix (1999)

An aspect of the film that correlates the Cyberpunk Course is the dystopian future with very old tech usage. I mean, humans create AI with consciousness, but the machines becomes the enemy when they decided use humans as a source of energy. Later on, someone saved a bunch of people and they unite to look for the one that was capable of saving the humanity and destroy the Matrix. This group did not have a lot of cool and update technology to create programs for training or to find a way to enter into the matrix, still they manage to create all kind of cool things and save the day. Not only that, they are also punk, they are in the opposite of what society and agents are trying to terminate them in order of saving the matrix. For me that is pretty what Cyberpunk is.

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Ghost In the Shell- GITS(1995)

Cyberpunk movies carries out a lot of theme, like dystopian future, AI, cyborgs,androids,”high tech or low tech”,  big corporations with big power, hackers, and so far over the course we had seen a lot of it individually and all mixed up. It’s nice to get the opportunity to experience this themes in animation while comparing it to non-animation movies. 

Let’s start by the setting, in Ghost in Shell the year is 2029 and we see

 that is more of a urban style setting, is really a dystopian future, the world is not that “fancy” as “Meet the Robinson” movie or “Tomorrowland” . The government has close relationship with corporations which are the only one capable of having “high tech”. This kind of setting is presented in many of the films we have seen previous like “The Blade Runner”.

The photo above was took from “The Blade Runner”.

Other theme presented in GITS is femininity and sensual cyborg appearance. This is presented in many way, and how a man’s fantasy can be achieved in a mechanical body, Is interesting that the achieve many of the objectives using their body as weapon,specifically for the humans. Such as “Metropolis” with Maria and “The Blade Runner” with Zhora and Rachael. However in this movie she is not using her body to get what she want instead she uses her given skills. 

Also these theme is presented a lot in Ex-Machina. Because Ava knew Caleb felt attractive to her, so she instead enhance her given femininity.

 The last theme I want to talked about is how the achieved their skills. Its cool to see that connecting their brain to a computer is the “new way of learning”. Similar way can de seen in “The Matrix” . In GITS they use part of the human body and transform it or mix it to create superhuman with skills that can help the government mainly in having control of the city. In a future with a lot of threats mainly by hackers that interfere with the shells. I don’t know but this sounds pretty cyberpunk to me.  

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Hacker’s Movie

This movie is nice,because it gives a look of how cool it was to be in 1995 and presence the origin of the graphic internet, as we know it. However hackers didn’t have that great of the time, because they were threatened like criminals for being able to get and obtain data from big banks, companies, etc. We see that most of the time when they are hacking the lights and cameras shift in a way that makes us believe that they are controlling a new world, is like a whole new universe. Also is nice how they (hacker’s) liked to be part of a team that have the same ideals as you and work up together to be like a family. Each one of them, has each other's backs. Also they rely on a leader like in this scene that if we use mis-en scene we get to see “Zero Cool” in the middle with Kate Libby. 

Even though sometimes they work as a team for not so good thing like this

By the use of lights and also the way they act, you can perceived that this are actually the hackers that everyone that does not really know believes all are the same. However we need to understand that hackers are really a protest of the lack of information given to society of what is really happening with the information the government has about us or any other abused by any company or agency.

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The Hacker’s Manifesto/When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth

The Hacker’s Manifesto is a protest about how the principals and intentions of a hacker are blurred with the line of what the criminal’s principals are. He is basically making clear that all they (hackers) are rooting for is for the free access of information of the government or big corporations. They want to people open their eyes and understand that the goverment(mot of their time) does not root for the well-being of the whole nation, only for those around him. At the same time,big coroporations with huge power takes over, it deprives power to us and to the government. What is interesting is that in the “Hacker Manifiesto” he accussed of criminals those who created nuclear bombs and in the short story ( “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth”) is exactly what happenned that cause chaos in the world. The Sysadmins lose his family and friends from real criminals not from “geeks”. For real, those who were trying to fix the problem and in actually are fixing our cyberspace are the “geeks” not the criminals. This two reading expressed very similar but at the same time different ideas of what a hacker or an elite in computer really  is. 

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The Stepford Wives

This movie for me was good. This movie talks a lot about culture which can bring a lot of controversy. The story basically brings the idea of you know replacing real human wives with androids. I mean, they use androids (high technology) to fulfill something ( a men idea) that is suppossed to be something a man from 3 centuries ago could thing as something right or “normal”. Its like we develop to continue in life and with all cool technology, but still got stuck thinking is such a odd way into what a women is or gender inferiority. Society needs to move on from this idea that a women is the slave that fulfills your desires or wishes. Should womens or wifes should be all  like this? Almost as a Barbie, well it seems not , and decided to create an android, Cinematography talking look how she looks in the supermarket all exiced for a waffle mix, the light making her standout and look beautiful AT A SUPERMARKET , I assure you women does not look like this. This is all a fake, The majority of wowens does not like going to the market. Also, the way they move and walk, you know that there ir something weird and how they seem to always be happy and the sun(light) is not always at your favor.

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They Live

I believe that the picture above resumes my point …

This movie talks a lot about how society control us using the media. We are constantly aware that the media has a lot of power to many people in society, because we are constantly looking for the society approval, people in a society does not want to feel left out and with the clothe company rising and the internet rising it also rises the society tensions and alters human behavior. I believe that this movie wants to communicate how hard and at the same time absurd is that we live with the tough of another, and its hurts so bad to learn the reality and be negative. Also this movie talks about the dominance of the high class people over the others social classes. It is, in some cases, uncool that people with a lot of money lived a more easy llife while the others have to work to receive not even the half of the money this high class people received. And also the movies show how these people have some sort of dominance over the others. 

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Blade Runner Ideology

The Blade Runner ideology consist on the idea of what a human is? What makes us different from the whole nature on Earth? Is it that we have a soul on consciousness? Well, this are questions or definitions that aren’t at a Webster dictionary. We use ideas as part of what society thinks toward a topic or certain beliefs. And I found amusing that we can’t define what we are, what humans are. This of course brings up a lot of controversy, like if is inhuman for women to abort a baby who she doesn’t want? because again we don’t know when life really starts or when we are consider a “human”.  Anyhow abortion is not the topic in The Blade Runner. In this movie, we question a lot of our humanity, and if is something we are born with or we acquired it through the years or experiences of our human life. With that in mind, we see that in the movie they retire (kill) the androids they used as slaves to fulfill our jobs in Earth after four years of their service and then they want it to extinguish from the whole dystopia world. My ideal is that why do they have to give this androids human-like characteristics to make them do something so inhuman? Is easier to just do a robot with enough intelligence that makes everything you need such as “Tars” (The Interstellar) and that’s it. I think that we are being monsters by doing that just as altering genetically an animal to use to military or to repair a broken leg of ours (Republic of China Idea) is another monstrous idea. In this movie they use the soul as a way to distinguish an android from human, but now the soul means something more into the religious vision of our afterworld experience.  Is really hard to bring this kind of ideas to a society and try to get unanimous with one definition.

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The Martian (Bonus)

This movie is one of those movies that gives you anxiety, but in a good way, you just want to know if he is gonna make it or not. Believe me, I was really into the movie at the final scenes.  

Now using the shot above, almost everyody knows what the Martian is about ( or at least an idea), and this scene describes it. This image reflects, dessert,the tought that he is the only one in Mars, with no one who socialize.  I compare Watney as the “thinker” sculpture, you know, thinking what is going to be his solutions for all the challenges he is exposed in this alien planet.  If we use the mis-en- scene we see that Watney is in the center of the shot, and the sun is hitting his face( Light source) but is diffused to his entire body. Maybe the sun represents a new begginning or hope that he is going to get back to Earth. 

We know that in everything, specially in NASA, there is someone with the power of ruling over a mission or a job, and the shot above is telling us who this man is. Well, he is the Director of NASA, he is the one with control. This shot is very symetric, see how the lines in the ceiling behind him perfectly goes until it reaches the Director to , and how the press is not covering him. ,they are at his sides. He is the center of attention in this very good looking shot. Also the camera angle is at a little low angle, as a sign of power.

I like this shot a lot, because is reflecting that something is missing. Is very rare that in a shot, the center is just the background. while the sides are covered. Using mis-en-scene, we see that the one most near to the camera lense is the commander of the mission, she is the person responsible for the well-being of the crew. Behind her, is the crew, except obviously the one who stays in the “rocket” , but I get the feeling that the space in the center is where Watney was suppossed to be, and because is he is not there that space was left with nothing intentionally. Regrettably, Watney didn’t make it. However he was part of the team even tough he wasn’t always with them. 

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Blade Runner

Blade Runner emphasizes cyberpunk in many ways. One of the most easy to find is the futuristic vision of the mega enterprises with their huge moving visuals in the urban space.  Also the image is fill with a lot of skyscraper and flying cars, which helps the viewers in the interpretation that is taking place in the future. Although is not a happy technology city like Tomorrowland or something similar, is a place cover by darkness and a pretty much mechanical world, since there is nothing left ecological.  

The Artifice Magazine claims that cyberpunk is a genre that develops certain ideas and philosophy about the organics life vs the artificial. In Blade runner this is the main problem, the definition or the ideas of what being a human really means.  Tyrell Company claims that the difference between the “Replicants” and humans, is that humans are able to feel emotions while the “Replicants ”cannot, and that is why the use the “Voight-Kampff” test, to see how the pupils or Iris of the eye dilates or not while the subject is answering some physicological questions.  The interesting thing is that one of the symbolism throughout the movie are the eyes, I believe that is because they say that “the eyes are the windows to the soul”, but then again, does all human really have a soul? , We see the constant battle between these two terms and cyberpunk looks for way to answers this controversy. 

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Metropolis (1927)- Acting Analysis

The Metropolis is a expressionst movie and one of the weird/unusual old movies, since we are not used to a non-sound effect movie. However, the main and only way we can relate and feel the “movie magic” is focusing on the actresses and actors expressions. So, this being a 1927 film we have to remember that acting, in the way they get out of their persona, was a technique relatively new, because before the 1912 the actors were just being themself in the movie. So around the 20′s they started to do  close-up camera effect so we can  actually see the facial expressions in the actor or actress to develop the character . Also, by having a more screenplay, but we have to remember that the full-body expression is also important to conveying humor.  

In Metropolis, Freder and the true and robot Maria, are playing the major role in this film,because they helped in the action. But they exhibit excessive approach to nonnaturalistic characters, probably because of the futuristic setting of the film. Although, they work great with the restant of the cast.

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The Terminator (1984)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPt5mRAKTkM

For the sound analysis I decided to analyze the Police Station Shootout. In this movie it uses a lot of nondiegetic sound, because the source of the sound is coming from outside of the film, of course it has a lot of gun sound but we can’t forget is an action movie also. However in this particular scene is very interesting how the sound help us relate with the victims and one of the protagonists. In the police shootout the music starts with a “ tan tan tan tan” kind of sound, when the terminator breaks in with the car towards the police station and the sound keeps growing every time the terminator shoots. Also there’s environmental sound because the gun sound it emanates from the setting in this scene. The music is being used to increase our emotions, because we know he’s looking for Sarah Connor and she is somewhere in that police station, but when the scene cuts towards Sarah the music lowers  like in a  almost silence sound and we could hear her breath in a scary way. I also wanted to point out that when Kyle Reese reunited with Sarah the music changes to a more “taking a risk, hope he doesn’t see us” music, because is more energetic and not that intimidating sound as the one before. Later on, when they have success escaping the music changes to one alike kind of an continuity to the first one while we see the terminator furious.

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X- Files: Kill Switch Editing

X-files episode “Kill switch” is very interesting episode in the season five of this show that was broadcast between 1997-1998. However we are going to focus only on the editing, specially in this scene. If we see in the photo #1, we can see the FBI agent facial expression because of the close up shot, and it shows clearly that he is scared, then we jump to the doctor who seems a little creepy, because of the low camera angle and the close up. I felt like this doctor has not good intention, not only for his creepiness, but for the way the nurses are holding him. Then on the next shot is the saw, which clearly approved my hypothesis of the doctor not being good. In the shot #4 we see the agent reaction after him seeing the saw. This jumping of shot from one expression to the other person expression is call Classical Editing. In the shot #5 we see a medium shot from one of the nurses and rapidly a long shot of the whole setting ( master shot) to remind us where they are , the director or editor uses editing to control what we see and how to feel about each character.  Something that wasn’t possible before editing exists, and also to shape our experience about the whole situation in the scene.The magic of editing, is that raises our expectations and tension of what is about to happen, which clearly is happening in this scene. In addition it shows continuity, in shot #8, when we see again the doctor with his 100% creepiness and in the final shot we reach the emotional peek when the agent fades out. 

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Tron ( 1982)

Tron cinematographic point of view at first, I though it was going to be a bit hard because there’s lighting in like everywhere since is an cyber space. Still, there are a lot of things we can analyze. This GIF is presenting one of the beginning shots of the movie, when Alan Bradley is presenting Tron to ENCOM’s  senior executive Ed Dillinger. We can start by analyzing the lighting, we see that the light is coming from his right casting just a little bit of shadow on the other side, the light is broken up to may parts of his body from the head to his shoulders, The direction of the lighting helps in preventing his texture to look plane. The camera proximity is a medium shot, because is from the waist up, but is not only is showing his face; we can still analyze the background and see where he is at. Also, the camera angle is like, I would say to the eye level, since is not showing him like really big, or really small, just a regular angle to the viewers and this is a singular shot point of view.