#they also exist to be contrasted with claudi

[kabutoden]

GOLD RULE--GOLDBLOOD Wyrbie Furfur A fierce yellowblood who really likes wolves. Living in a city of only goldbloods that highly values trolls who are psiionically gifted, they have no psiionic potential. They can get very jealous of others, especially Claudi. Wyrbie’s lusus is a small ferret that insists on going everywhere with them. Having their dad at their side gives Wyrbie a lot of courage. Ferretdad nips them on the ear if they act too mean to others. Sign of hunting partner. Prince of Light. Bee Morph. 6 sweeps: 13 years.

[lego-95316]

CMS 294 Blog #4

Blog Four

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.

Amélie is a French Romantic Comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The film is a deception of Parisian life set in Montmartre; an area known for its artistic history. The story deals with a shy waitress who changes the lives of everyone around her while dealing with her own issues of isolation. The film is filtered with bright colors from beginning to end. The beginning introduces Amélie’s parents and their interesting likes and dislikes. Amélie is six years old and relies on her imagination since her parents falsely believe she has a heart defect that won’t allow her to attend school. Each shot is framed to depict her imagination that separates her thoughts from reality. She’s a character all about balance. Throughout the film, the character creates the balance necessary for her own benefit and the better for others around her.

            Throughout the film, the narrator gives brief descriptions of the people Amélie encounters and so forth. When Amélie deals with her own isolation, the camera focuses on a close shot of the tv depicting what she is feeling. Some shots are framed with bright contrasts after Amélie helps someone out or bright depicting her departure from the real world. The visual colors add to the comedic atmosphere and romantic aspects of the film. After Amélie creates balance, the camera shifts its focus to a closeup of her smiling after creating the sense of balance between herself and the people she interacts with.

            The film received positive critical and audience reception as it’s filled with memorable moments. While being enjoyed as a film or work of art, the audience also enjoys the film from a holistic perspective. Amélie is a classic example of a holistic thinker creating a positive balance with those around her and within herself. Every technique used with depth of field and camera shot types add to the comedic and cartoon like setting that Amélie has set in to deal with her own isolation. The voice-over adds to the atmosphere of each character and comedic tone.

While it can be confusing to understand the film after the first initial viewing as the effects cover this film to the brim and keep the audience engaged. Amélie is a dreamer often shunned by society, but the film plays wonders with its colorful images and cinematography and embraces the dreamers who wish to help those around them especially when they show her heart beating within her sweater. From the very beginning of Amélie’s childhood days to the end where she finds true happiness within herself, director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet uses a colorful pallet and unique camera techniques to give off a more cartoon approach to this romantic comedy and makes the audience love Amélie for her kind nature. It’s clear that framing techniques and illusion of depth throughout the film add to Amélie’s dreaming nature and exist for that sole purpose of the film. Amélie melting like water at the sight of her lover, Nino is my favorite example of the techniques used. It adds to the romantic tension and the audience continues to root for her the entire time.

References:

Jeunet. J. (Director). (2001). Amélie. [Film]. Claudie Ossard Productions.

[s0021845a2film-blog]

Section 1: Creative Investigation A. Summer Work on Creative Investigation Topic

Cinema Du Look

Cinema Du Look has a very interesting aesthetic and the artistic style and cinematography behind films has always been of interest to me. I intend to look deeper into the recurring themes and patterns in Cinema Du Look films and the study of original Cinema Du look directors verses directors that are dabbling in the movement. Luc Besson is one of the fathers of the movement and so I will be comparing and contrasting his techniques with that of Jean-Pierre Jeunet modern interpretation of cinema du look. I hope to find out how they edit the footage and achieve the complementary colour palette. 

Primary Film References

Beineix, Jean-Jacques, 1986, Betty Blue, Gaumont.

Jeunet, Jean-Pierre, 2001. Amélie, Claudie Ossard Productions. 

Besson, Luc, 1994. Léon: The Professional, Gaumont. 

Betty Blue showcases the best and worst of Cinema Du Look in which a powerful female protagonist falls to madness while her partner tries to save her.

key features of Betty Blue:

maniacal love affairs

violent shoot-outs (link to Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless)

deranged road trips

psychedelic colour palettes 

astute fashion consciousness.

Amelie is modern day Cinema Du Look film with a consistent colour palette and female lead too. All three films have this in common and could be a convention of the movement. 

key features of Amelie:

Dramatic Grades and Colour Filters (greens, reds, yellows, blues)

Idyllic Version of Paris (no graffiti, no traffic, no crowds)

Direct address to camera

Sudden Camera movement

CGI elements ( Amelie melting)

‘ Perfect Paris’well-known locations (Notre Dame, Montemarte, Sacre Couer)

Alienated Characters

Leon the Professional is brilliant example of Cinema Du look with Luc Besson being one of the movement’s founding directors.  The young protagonists are also the specific feature of cinema du look in this film, as the young audience (this films target audience) have a better relationship with these types characters.

Key features of Leon the professional:

sound design seems quite metallic and unnatural - reflect dark nature and subject of the film. The sound design is very specific to the aesthetics of the film, matching with the harsh lighting and downtrodden settings as well.

thematic ideas of alienation, Mathilda is an outcast, she has no friends or family but instead it taken under a hitman’s wing. 

misery - Mathilda essentially loses everyone she cares about by the end of the film. 

doomed love - Mathilda holds a gun to her head while asking Leon to prove his love for her, a representation of dark thematic undertones. 

Academic Sources

source 1: 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0bBVY-mIwnEC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=cinema+du+look+French+Cinema+in+the+1980s:+Nostalgia+and+the+Crisis+of+Masculinity+By+Phil+Powrie&source=bl&ots=sWViaTK9P-&sig=LZdvp6oRttfAM55qO_bU47oAxE8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi5heea-9HWAhWrAcAKHf9PBYkQ6AEIOzAD#v=onepage&q=cinema%20du%20look%20French%20Cinema%20in%20the%201980s%3A%20Nostalgia%20and%20the%20Crisis%20of%20Masculinity%20By%20Phil%20Powrie&f=false

author: Phil Powrie

Title of book/chapter/article: French Cinema in the 1980s: Nostalgia and the Crisis of Masculinity, The Polar chapter

publisher, place of publication and date: Clarendon Press, 1997

brief overview of what the article/chapter/book is about: Powrie discusses the Polar otherwise known as police thriller, many Cinema Du Look filmmakers started their careers in the 80s which was the highpoint for polar films. He draws comparisons and similarities between polar films of the 80s and cinema du look film. He also suggests that cinema du look films use intersexuality more productively than that might have been the case for for disaffected french critics of the 1980s. 

Key Quotes: 

“The films of cinema du look are predicated on nostalgia, their narratives and the films they gesture 

“The cinema du look articulates a change in film language which focuses in particular on the status of the film image, inscribing it within the trajectory of postmodern culture, as defined by writers such as Jameson and Baudrillard: the image as a simulacrum, the image without origin, endlessly reproduced and recognised as already present in the culture, and therefore aways already a pastiche, steeped in the irony of the loss of origins.” 

the key word is “irony”, because such films inscribe images or narratives from previous films in ways which are playfully ironic.

“the films of cinema du look are fundamentally films for the young: neo-romantic heroes stricken by amour fou in a fairytale world of stereotypical gangsters and heroines.”

source 2:

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/scope/documents/2004/february-2004/allmer.pdf

author: Patricia Allmer

publisher, place of publication and date: Loughborough University, UK. 

title of chapter/article: “Window Shopping”? - Aesthetics of the Spectacular and Cinema du Look

brief overview of what the article/chapter/book is about: The author discusses the views on cinema du look as a movement and the key contributors to the movement.

Key Quotes:

“The genre has been extensively attacked and blamed for celebrating and propagating consumer fetishism and commodity capitalism.”

“Cinéma du Look characters are placed in hostile spaces, which are dominated by commodities. The characters are alienated, sexual relationships are not shown (unless in terms of amour fou and a sexuality which is penetrated by madness as in Betty Blue or sickness as in Les Amants du Pont Neuf), they are divorced from any past or future and devoid of social contact, living in an eternal present of the commodity.”

“Throughout these films the question is asked: How can I establish meaningful relationships in a world where meaning ceases to exist and is replaced by empty mediation, and more accurately in a circumstance where the word "social" is emptied out of signification?”

Allmer says that the obsession with the mise en scene is what ends up celebrating art by paying it the attention it deserves. She also argues against the perceived superficiality of Cinema du Look characters, saying that they are made the way they are to show the negative effects of the “spectacle”.

source 3:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/mar/22/french-cinema-short-history

Publisher, place of publication and date:

Title of chapter / article: A short history of French cinema

Author: Andrew Pulver

Brief overview of what the article / chapter / book is about:

The article explores how French directors have shaped film-making around the world.

Key Quotes

“After leaving its mark on a myriad of European national cinemas, and finally Hollywood by the end of 1960s, the French New Wave began to finally peter out; but coming up behind were a group of surface-obsessed style merchants who established the glossy 1980s "cinema du look". Jean-Jacques Beneix, with Diva(1981) and Betty Blue (1986), Luc Besson with Subway (1985), and Leos Carax with Mauvais Sang (1986) were the key figures here, much given to the speeding motorbike, the studied gesture and the highly coloured set-piece.”

“Realism made a comeback in the 1990s, primarily through the Mathieu Kassovitz-directed La Haine, but the leading influence of the subsequent generation has undoubtedly been Jean-Pierre Jeunet who, with Delicatessen (1991) and Amélie(2001) perfected a Gallic answer to the comic-book-influenced style of Sam Raimi, Terry Gilliam and Barry Sonnenfeld.”

source 4:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/dec/06/jacques-audiard-interview-a-prophet

author: Jason Solomons

Social alienation served up in slickly stylised fashion was the key ingredient of Cinéma du look, the movement in 1980s French cinema which encompassed films by Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva, Betty Blue) and Leos Carax (Les amants du Pont-Neuf), as well as Besson's The Big Blue and Nikita.

source 5:

Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction By Guy Austin

Key Quotes:

“ it is catergorised not by any collective ideaology but rather by the technical mastery of the medium, a cinephile tendency to cite from other films, and a spectacular visual style (le look).”

source 6: 

Facing Postmodernity: Contemporary French Thought By Max Silverman

source 7: 

http://foxyfilm.mozello.co.uk/params/post/121450/

Key Quotes:

“The most specific feature of cinema du look films is the privilege visual spectacle they have over narrative substances. Most of these films show absence of social, political concerns and psychological realism. However, they manifest themselves through highly stylish mise-en-scene and strong visual context.”

“Even before cinema du look films had a name, this film style was recognised by people such as David Russell in the Sight and Sound magazine, which talks about Beineix films reaching a wide audience with his idiosyncratic approaches to style character and narrative. Beineix believed that his films are defined as a style not technique and it is not a matter of fashion but metaphysics, which makes his films so different.”

“According to ‘Cinema of France’ book the film surrounds race and multiculturalism presenting a ‘Liberal utopian vision of a world’. This could be considered a French debate that involves a positive view on multi-racial society and being against the traditional republican traditions.”

“The most popular time of this film style was the 80's and the 90's. However, that doesn't mean that there were no cinema du look films after that era. 'Amelie' (2001) directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet is considered one of the most iconic cinema du look films made, because of its extremely strong visual aspects and mise en scene that play a huge role in the film. This film is a great example when talking about the evolution of this genre as it was made in 2001. This film also clearly shows how one director's work influenced and inspired another.Amelie is a shy cafà waitress who thinks of schemes which could make other people's lives better. She is an alienated young character who falls in love with a man she has never met, which follows the constant pattern of romance in cinema du look.Amelie's postmodern style of filmmaking was also recycles from popular pop cultures, films and literature. This film has realistic elements; however it is 'more surreal in the way it plays with received expectations' . The film is considered to be both a heritage and a cinema du look film as they both share the context of visual images being more dominant over the narrative.”

“You could say cinema du look was influenced by Méliès, who played a huge role in the history of French cinema. He was the first film maker who made films as an art form rather than a documentary. He created first sparks of surreal cinema, filmed in specific ways to create first ever special effects and also used vibrant colures by hand painting each frame of the film. Cinema du look films such as Diva, Amelie and Le Grande Bleu deploy veritable arsenals of motifs and techniques like Méliès. They also share visual images that create great metaphors throughout. Cinema du look created dynamic films such as ‘Nikita’ directed by Besson. This film was manifested into many other films and even Hollywood created a TV series based on this character. This unique film movement evolved rapidly in the 80′s and 90′s but still inspires artists all over the world, till this day.”

source 8:

http://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/cinema-du-look-movie-era/

authors: Phil De Semlyen, Ian Freer, Ally Wybrew

Key Quotes:

“Its trinity of directors, Jean-Jacques Beineix, Luc Besson, Leos Carax, turned out punky visions of a French underground (literally, in the case of Besson’s Subway) filled with pop promo visuals, skittish electro scores by Eric Serra and others, and a lovelorn fatalism strangely reminiscent of Marcel Carné and Jean Vigo.

“It is up to industry to adapt to art, and not art to adapt to industry.” (Jean-Jacques Beineix)”

source 9:

https://katiesvedmancinemadulook.wordpress.com/

Key Quotes:

“It is said to have developed slightly from French Poetic Realism, a genre that was popular during the 1930’s.”

“In some places the sound is harsher like in Leon, but other times it is softer and more operatic, depending on what is happening at that point in the film. This shows the idea of pop culture mixing with higher class culture that is prominent in this film and in Cinema du Look as a whole.” 

“This still from Besson’s Léon: The Professional is very visually interesting to me, as the angle from which it was shot adds depth to the frame. This seems like a very stylistic choice, as style is very important in Cinema du Look films. The rundown setting of the hotel shows the underground and alternative societies apparent in many Cinema du Look films. Mathilda and Léon clearly live a very alternative lifestyle as hitmen, jumping from hotel to hotel to stay unnoticed. The harsh and fluorescent lighting portrays the characters as very tough, yet closed off and alienated due to the shadowing.”

“Popular culture is commonly used in Cinema du Look next to the upper class to create exotic and underground settings for the films. Corruption and a general distrust of the police is also a commonality. Scores in Cinema du Look films are typically electronic.”

“Cinema du Look was a relatively short lived movement, once the key directors moved on to other things. However, several other films since the 80’s have been reflective of the Cinema du Look style.” (link to Amelie)

d) Outline a rough idea for a 3 – 5 minute film based on your research.

Hitman is intrigued by the female target he is set to kill. However his hesitation to kill her will cost him dearly. 

Write short paragraph (approx. 5 sentences) about:

it links to my topic as it revolves around a strong and independent female who also has a dark side involved with gangsters and hit-men - which is similar to the films I have chosen. It’ll also give me reason to experiment with colour palettes and opposing themes, contrasting dark undertones with romanticized and hyper-sexualised femininity. 

As cinema du look is fairly artistic, I may try to experiment with some form of animation as part of my film, which is inspired specifically by animation use in Amelie.