#('I Am going to COMPILE all the sCENES and INTERACTIONS and DIALOGUES and sIGNIFICANT MOMENTS')
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
State of the DigiAdvs Giflist
aka âGifs I Need To Make Still (+Apparently)â
Taishiro OTPÂ Moments & Interactions (all I havenât done yet)
Sorato Moments & Interactions
Kenyako Moments & Interactions
Daikari Moments & Interactions
Dai/Kensuke Moments & Interactions
Michi Moments & Interactions
Koushiro+Mimi Friendship + Moments & Interactions That I Liked
Taichi+Meiko / Meichi Friendship + Moments & Interactions
Mimato Friendship + (Little) Moments & Interactions
YamaJou Moments & Interactions
Joushiro Moments & Interactions
Motomiya Jun Support / + Mr. Motomiya bits in later 02
Toshiko Takenouchi Support (+all Toshiko dialogues)
Yagami Family
{Iâd add Izumi family except Iâve gifâd nearly everything already}
Literally ALL important Koushiro Izumi Japanese version dialogues because they make good references for when I donât want to re-cover these scenes/important lines + his developments for the 1020201000201020th times
Gifs for EVERYÂ important dialogue in all Tri movies {same here}
Tri Appreciation in General
Iori Hida Appreciation
(if I can progress to later series like Tamers and Frontier gifs):
Takouji Moments & Interactions {Frontier}
Junzumi Moments & Interactions {Frontier}
Jurato Moments & Interactions {Tamers}
Jenkato Moments & Interactions {Tamers}
Ryuki Friendship +Â Moments & Interactions {Tamers}
any other rarepairs / OT3s / polyships / Character Support I feel like adding and that I can fit enough gifs of little moments into for a support gifset
#izzyizumi posts#izzyizumi text post#izzyizumi gifs#izzyizumi chatter#izzyizumi text posts#izzyizumi giflist#(Hey Just so you guys Know but this giflist has been an ongoing project for A While now)#(I am Far from having achieved all these things)#(But i am Progressing slowly)#(Anyway)#(making this post as a reference)#(but Yep)#(you may or may not notice some common Themes here)#(there are Reasons for these Themes)#(Maybe)#(but yep these things were selected for Reasons)#('I Am going to COMPILE all the sCENES and INTERACTIONS and DIALOGUES and sIGNIFICANT MOMENTS')#(Because I Can)#(and I actually have the ability to do this I guess so expect more gifs in the future Maybe)#(also I just actually enjoy making nice gifsets too +they Also make really useful reference posts for dialogue from the Japanese version???)
4 notes
¡
View notes
Photo
Creative Limitations.
âThe mediaâs already polarizing enough; I guess Iâm looking for things that are not polarizing and are much more nuanced about the human condition.â âLulu Wang, writer and director of The Farewell.
One of the highest-rated films of the year, Lulu Wangâs The Farewell stars Awkwafina as Billi, a fictionalized version of Wang herself, in the story of a family in cahoots to keep their matriarch in the dark. The film is based on âa true lieâ: Billiâs paternal grandmother in China, Nai Nai (played by veteran Chinese actress Zhao Shuzhen) has cancer, and the family chooses not to let her know, instead staging an elaborate fake wedding to bring the family together.
Where other independent features often develop out of a short film, Wang took her story to This American Life, a bastion of American radio storytelling. The half-hour audio version, âWhat You Donât Knowâ, is what her American film producer heard; from there, the feature film came to life. Itâs a quietly powerful story that has resonated with Letterboxd members for many reasons, including the authentic, hands-off way in which it comments on âthe many micro-tragedies that naturally follow any family whose membersâfor one reason [or] anotherâdecide to leave the family nest and search for happiness abroadâ. For others, itâs even more personal: âSeeing yourself on screen probably doesnât get better than this.â
When The Farewell opened in US cinemas in July this year, its per-theater box office average topped that of Avengers: Endgame. The film was still showing in select theaters in October, and has just been released on streaming services, including in 4K on iTunes, with a commentary track by Wang and her director of photography, Anna Franquesa Solano. âWe tried to talk a lot about process, so I think thatâll be interesting,â Wang told us. (Also, âwe may or may not have been drinkingâ.)
In time for its streaming release, we chatted with Lulu Wang about aspects of The Farewellâs production, the useful limitations of independent filmmaking, and her favorite films, from holiday movies to best soundtracks. Interview contains plot spoilers.
Lulu Wang and DP Anna Franquesa Solano on the set of âThe Farewellâ. / Photo: Casi Moss
The Farewell is standing strong in our highest rated films of 2019, and the reviews are responding to exactly the things, I imagine, that were important to you: the non-manufactured stakes, the family realness, a sense of the specific being universal, the process of grief beginning long before a person you love dies. How does it feel that your film is being so well received? Lulu Wang: I fought really hard to tell the story in such a specific way that in some ways I think my biggest fear was that the specificity would put us into a niche, and only attract a very niche audience. So, you know, the fact that thereâs so many peopleâAsian-Americans but also non-Asian Americansâwho see themselves and their family in the story is incredible to me.
You often mention the films of Mike Leigh when talking about highly specific stories that nevertheless have a universal resonance. Can you talk about some other such films and filmmakers that do this for you? Well, Yi-Yi [directed by] Edward Yang is one of my all-time favorites. The specificity, the tenderness of it. The patience of the filmmaking. I find Yi-Yi to be that. Also the humor, thereâs so much charm and so much humor in it, it feels just so real.
Kore-edaâs films speak to me in that same way. I just really appreciate the patience in filmmaking. I think so often nowadays the flashiest things get the most attention, and weâve also trained our brains to need that, right? That kind of stimulation. And so thereâs something just so beautiful about a film that takes its time and that doesnât lean on easy tricks to get attention, but that takes time to get to the heart of something very nuanced, that isnât so obvious, that isnât so black and white. The mediaâs already polarizing enough; I guess Iâm looking for things that are not polarizing and are much more nuanced about the human condition.
Through The Farewellâs run, youâve been generous about opening up the filmmaking processâthis Vanity Fair bilingual script breakdown, for example, gives a good insight into how hard you worked on the script. Could you talk us through the âwedding portrait sequenceâ, in which Billiâs cousin and his wife have a series of photographs taken while Billi and Nai Nai carry on a long conversation? Itâs entertaining, but itâs also important for what it reveals about Nai Nai and Billiâs relationship, Chinese wedding culture, and the underlying lie of the whole story. You must be so proud of this sequence. I am. Yeah, Iâm really proud of that sequence. The photo portrait was kind of inspired a little bit by Secrets and Lies, when he takes the portrait, and the falseness of what we present when we take portraits like that in the studio, right?
Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) observes yet another wedding portrait set-up in âThe Farewellâ.
One of the intentions, going through it, was minimising the dialogue and trying to condense the script, and so that made me say, âOkay, what are all these moments doing?â Theyâre all trying to do the same thing, which is to establish the relationship between Billi and Nai Nai, so condensing it into one sequence makes sense. And then also because so much of it is dialogue-driven, how do we make this cinematic? Because at one point the wedding photography studio was separate from these conversations between Billi and Nai Nai, you know, and so this is where, in some ways, being forced to have limitations, being forced to make a shorter film, you start to think more about layering and how do you do multiple things at once.
I really appreciate the limitations of independent filmmaking. Not always; when Iâm on set and I get the budget Iâm complaining! But looking back on it, those limitations are how we came up with many of our visual ideas. And then also of course it was influenced by the location itself, because we were scouting wedding studios and I wasnât aware that these studios were so large, that they have, like, different spaces built into the same building. Because if you look at a western photo studio, like in Mike Leigh, right, itâs always the same backdrop.
So that sequence was inspired because we went location scouting, and we were like âthis is ridiculous! There are ten different rooms and they all have different set ups!â So then we had this idea of them basically just wandering through the whole photography studio and weâd pick four of our favorite set-ups.
And then this idea of them being silhouetted was inspired by [Woody Allenâs 1979 film] Manhattan. I wanted to capture their relationship as a romance, and I was thinking about Manhattan and their silhouetteâI think they were in a planetariumâso we came up with this idea of a continuous conversation, but that was spaced out in front of different backdrops.
Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in a scene from âManhattanâ (1979).
That sequence helps us learn more about who Nai Nai was before the events in The Farewell take place. At Letterboxd, weâre often compiling top ten lists, but âbest grandmothers on filmâ is not a highly populated category, especially films where grandmas are more than just âkindlyâ. Tell us more about fleshing out Nai Naiâs life and the importance of giving respect to older female characters. I think about that in life, too, you know. We think about a lot of people in our lives as fulfilling a particular role in relation to ourselves. Thatâs my mother, thatâs my grandmother, thatâs my teacher. Remember as a kid you donât even think your teacher goes to the grocery store! They hide in the back of the class and then pop back up in the morning! So as a filmmaker, as a storyteller, Iâm always thinking about who they are, separate from the context of their relationship to you.
Thatâs also part of the sadness of not being with somebody or of losing somebody is you donât necessarily get to see them in all those different contexts and then when theyâre gone, thereâs so much you donât know about them and may never know about them. And as our parents get older, your relationships to your relatives change, you know, like âwhoâs the parent?ââchildren often have to become the caretaker. Thatâs where it came from, was wanting to make sure that Nai Nai was not presented as a stereotypical grandmother. That she felt like a three-dimensional woman, a woman who was once a girl, and a young woman, someone who was once in love, or maybe in a relationship out of convenience. And also that sheâs not always sweet. Thatâs very real.
One of the motifs in The Farewell is birds appearing at significant moments. In many cultures, a bird is a portent of something big, for example, a death in the family. Where did your bird come from? The bird for me came from wanting to put [in] something magical, but not, like, literal, you know? Meaning, I wanted to insinuate spirituality and magic, but I wanted it also to be interactive with the audience, so based on what they believe and how they interpret that bird is the meaning they get out of it, without me saying âthis is what it meansâ. Much of the movie is about belief systems and perspectives, so I think that if you believe the bird means something, then it does. But if you donât, and youâre a much more literal, scientific person and you go, âOh itâs just a bird, itâs just a coincidence,â then it doesnât mean anything.
Awkwafina leans on Zhao Shuzhenâs shoulder during filming. / Photo: Casi Moss
Thatâs how it is in the movie and thatâs how it is in life: what you believe, and where you find meaning, becomes your reality. With Nai Nai outliving her diagnosis, the people who believe the lie is what worked will continue to believe that the lie is what worked, and people who believe that prayer is what worked⌠In a way, we look for signs to validate the things we believe, because itâs how we get through life! We need signs, we need meaning, even if weâre the ones who are attaching that meaning.
This far down the track, what is your fondest memory of the production period? Oh gosh, so much of it. I think just being in China, being in spaces that were in my real life, with a crew. Any time that that happened it was really emotional, like shooting in my grandmotherâs neighborhood. Shooting at my grandfatherâs real grave. I hadnât seen my grandfather since I left China when I was six, because he died a few years later. To now be at his grave site, gathered there with producers and the crew, scouting it and then shooting there, you know, it was an integration of two different parts of my life that I always felt were really separate, which was my family and China and my background and culture, and then the other part of me, which is being an American, being a filmmaker in America.
In many ways, I always felt that my family didnât understand what I wanted to do, and also I couldnât bring who I actually was into Hollywood, there wasnât a space for that. With this film I was able to fully integrate, bringing my American producers to China for the first time, having my grandmother come to set and see me directing with all the lights and camera and crew. Having my parents be part of the table read. It just felt, really, like I was creating from a place that felt true and real and grounded to me.
Awkwafina and Zhao Shuzhen in a scene from âThe Farewellâ.
Speaking of being grounded, whatâs your go-to comfort film? The one youâll always throw on on a rainy day? Oh, I know: The Philadelphia Story. I love that story.
Whatâs the film youâve probably seen the most? The Sound of Music.
Favorite song from it? Probably âEdelweissâ, honestly. Iâve been watching that film since I was a kid, itâs one of my parentsâ favorite films. Itâs such a family film for us, and every time the father sings âEdelweissâ to all the kids, I get really emotional.
Whatâs the filmâor filmsâthat made you want to become a filmmaker Secretary. The Apartment. Annie Hall. I know thatâs taboo, I shouldnât say that, but I have to. Like, Annie Hall, you know? When I first saw it, I was really inspired by that. And The Piano. I think, with both The Piano and Secretary, it was the exploration of female desire and female voiceâand obviously as a trained classical pianist since the age of four, the symbol of the piano for her, for that character, and for me, was really meaningful.
Jane Campionâs âThe Pianoâ (1993).
Alex Westonâs soundtrack for The Farewell, which leans heavily on human voices, is something you worked closely with him on. Whatâs your all-time favorite film soundtrack? So many, I donât know how to choose! Well, I have a couple. In the Mood for Love. And then, because it is related, Barry [Jenkin]âs If Beale Street Could Talk is one of the most astounding soundtracks. Barry was inspired by Wong Kar-wai for Moonlight, and so yeah, thinking about In the Mood for Love reminded me that Nick Britellâs If Beale Street Could Talk soundtrack is just incredible.
Holiday season is fast approaching: whatâs your favorite holiday/Christmas film? Home Alone is a classic that we all watch. Does Fiddler on the Roof count as a Christmas film?! I donât know. Thatâs my momâs favorite. And then I have a really embarrassing one, because when we got sick of Home Alone, we had to pick a new one, and somehow we landed on Jingle All the Way. For years, we watched Jingle All the Way and just laughed our heads off.
Finally, how is Children of the New World coming along? Very slowly. Iâm working on the script. Iâm writing it. Itâs gonna take a while, probably after all of the press is done so I can fully focus.
âThe Farewellâ is available on streaming services now. Comments have been edited for clarity and length. With thanks to A24.
7 notes
¡
View notes
Text
Usagi Drop (Bunny Drop)
Usagi Drop is a breath of fresh air from the copious amounts of fan service, placid character structures, and excessive more that permeates anime series of recent times. Itâs a rare series (from my limited knowledge) that touches upon issues in a serious and honest manner, while simultaneously having the ability to subtly include right amounts of lightheartedness and humor that prevents the series from adopting too heavy an atmosphere. There exists a synergy and expert balance rare in such a form that weaves an empathizing and heartwarming tale.
The series ultimately follows the interactions and time passing by two characters, Rin (6-years-old) and Daikichi (20-some-years-old). Rinâs father, who happens to be Daikichiâs grandfather, passes away and leaves Rin an orphan. Beginning with the funeral, the series uses the strange relationship between Daikichi and Rin (who met for the first time at the funeral) as a device to bring these two characters together, not as some scandalous drama tool.
What carries the series through every episode is the priceless bond Rin and Daikichi share. Rin is modest, caring, independent, and responsible. Sheâs very mature but then not without those traits which you find ever-present in kids around her age. Joyful, curious, and downright adorable! Needless to say, her expressions are genuine signs of love and appreciation, even for something like a poor attempt at tying pigtails. How she feels shows on her face clear as a sunny day, and boy does it knock me off my chair. But the most essential role in bringing out all these sides of Rin is Daikichi.
Daikichiâs a very straightforward guy, both in personality and appearance. On top of that, heâs nurturing, compassionate, and protective. A little awkward at times, but it comes with the job. He juggles his new responsibilities well with work and still manages to maintain a good relationship with those around him through his earnest and kind disposition. His fondness for Rin is apparent, but only in a fatherly kind of manner. Though Daikichi is just as inexperienced in caring for a young girl as the next âfirst father,â what you get is a middle aged guy just trying to do his best to provide for himself and his new little house warmer.
I consider the greatest strengths of Usagi Drop lie in the seriesâ attention to minute details and micro-decisions that attribute to the overall feel. Usagi Drop definitely is not a show driven by grand plot twists or high production values. Rather, the series comes across as down to earth, easy to relate to, and warm. This is mainly seen through two forms: the artistic form and the background music.
Most notably, soft watercolour-esque scenes start out each episode before the opening song rolls. Itâs really a nice way of preceding the bulk of the episode. Character designs are markedly simplistic but thereâs no need to fuss over it. With some added touches of realism, itâs nice knowing they do change clothes each day and night and that Daikichi does grow a stubble if he doesnât shave every day like any other grown man. The backgrounds are subtle yet detailed; from pavement cracks to packaged market meat, everything in view is easy on the oculars.
Music-wise, Usagi Drop expertly deals with various renditions of both the opening and closing songs as well as numerous piano melodies and environnmental acoustics that constantly match and support many, if not all, occurrences on screen. It is this fundamentally understated role that the BGM upholds that makes it so valuable. Though the BGM is not always the most fun or melodious soundtrack to listen to sans-visuals, composer Matsutani Suguru sacrifices the âlisten-to-my-epic-music-like-hans-zimmerâ factor to solidly act as sentimental and emotional base for Usagi Drop. The opening/ending songs, on the contrary, are quite different. Both a intrinsically very cheery jingles, where the opening was catchy enough for me to warrant listening to it every time biked to class.
Neither the art or music are really the strengths that propel this series to be so wonderful, though both must be given due credit since they are both significant and great contributors. What really shines through every episode is the dialogue, both in its spoken and written forms. Ayu and Tsuchidaâs performances as the voices of Rin and Daikichi leave little more to be asked for. Thanks to them and all the other seiyuus, the talking that goes on in the show becomes one of its strengths. For example, in one episode, Daikichi and Harumi, Reinaâs mom, have a serious discussion about Harumiâs marital problems which is eavesdropped on by Rin. But noticing this, Reina takes her aside and shows her how she copes when mom and dad donât get along. Not something seen every day, you get both the child and parentâs perspectives of when things arenât going so smoothly at home. Really, kids are keen in times like that and itâs great to see that the anime picks up on this detail. And itâs not only those Iâve listed who have depth of character but everyone has their own charm about them and grows, if just a little, in their own way in the span of only a year.
A live-action version of Usagi Drop was announced recently, and the filmâs promotional video admittedly looks good (not only in terms of acting/casting, but also the COLORS. I am curious to see if similar emotions and atmosphere can be achieved with real acting and cinematography. An advantage that is partially (not solely) given to the animated form of storytelling through itâs flexibility and ability to present artistic renditions of any scene. Though live-action productions have that option in set design and character make-up, certain creative choices are limited by the fact that if we stray too far from what we can naturally perceive as âreal,â we become emotionally detached from the experience (btw, Mana Ashida is way too cute as Rin).
What truly makes Usagi Drop successful lies in the way it captures life, even with all of its insignificancies. Natural happenings such as waking up irritable and half alert, washing your teeth, brushing your face, and fumbling to find your valuables are daily occurances that are more often than not, omitted in popular entertainment in trying to create an idealized pseudo reality that is far more attractive. These normal experiences, however, are things that everyone can relate to (but are often not shared with others, because who actually cares?). Compiled and mixed with moments in our lives that are boring, we come to appreciate the novel manner in which our lives are interwoven, and how the patchwork of both happy and sad thoughts. Usagi Drop thus personifies âlife,â not neglecting the special moments that we treasure, but remembering that special moments are special because others are not. Through this, we as viewers are able to really connect with the characters and their story on a more personal level.
Then of course, spliced in between those bits of irrelevance are the undoubtedly meaningful moments to be remembered. And we want to save those precious moments by documenting them. Itâs in our nature to try and preserve the best times of our lives in some form or another.
0 notes