Anatomy of a Scene: Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain - "Soulmates"

The scene in question plays from 0:41 to 2:56 in the clip embedded below:

Analysis of a Short Sequence

The scene being analyzed here begins at approximately 40 minutes and 12 seconds into the movie and ends at 42 minutes and 27 seconds. This is a short scene, no longer than 135 seconds in length and comprises 15 shots in total. It begins with a wide shot of a train station in Paris and ends on close-up of Audrey Tautou as she sits on the stairs outside the train station perusing the photo album that falls off the bike ridden by Mathieu Kassovitz’ character.

The Significance

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie plays almost like a series of mood-pieces. Selecting one sequence from the lot isn’t the easiest of choices. Scenes that come to mind almost immediately are the opening mise-en-scéne, the scene in which Amélie helps a blind man find his way through a market and the scene where a young Bretodeau loses all his marbles. There are scenes full of expository dialogue, with hidden layers of meaning, such as the scene in which Amélie discusses Renoir‘s painting with the Glass Man. There are scenes of slapstick comedy like those set in Collignon’s apartment or the bathroom of Les Deux Moulins. And there are scenes of lush beauty and intricate camera-work like when Amélie is shown skipping stones on the river.

This particular sequence contains only about two lines of dialogue, but is a pivotal moment in the story. It introduces the foil to Tautou’s Amélie in the form of an equally complex character, Nino Quincampoix. This chance meeting of the story’s two protagonists sets in motion a sequence of events that makes up the bulk of the film's narrative. It also introduces the mysterious man in the Red Shoes (red shoes = red herring – a deliberate allusion or simply a coincidence?) as well as a significant plot device in the form of Nino’s photo album. These help drive the narration forward and the unison of these seemingly disparate threads results in the protagonists ultimately finding the companionship that they both so deeply desire.

We shall also make a note of how the scene captures several themes that tend to appear significantly in Jeunet’s oeuvres.

The Set-Up

Amélie, a waitress at a café in Montmartre, Paris has just spent the night in a photo-booth at the train station, having missed the last train home from her Fathers’ house. She clutches under her jacket the garden gnome that she stole from her Father’s garden.

Sight and Sound

As in much of the movie, the dominant tint in this scene is a greenish tinge with elements of red and yellow interspersed throughout. These three colors along with the occasional splash of electric blue to contrast sharply with the surroundings constitute the visual leitmotif of the movie. Jeunet is said to have been inspired by the paintings of the Brazilian artist Juarez Machado in selecting this color scheme.

Although the movie is clearly set in the present (shortly after the death of Princess Diana), the movie has a deliberate whimsical timelessness to it – as if it were a story that could take place anywhere and anytime.

The score for Amélie was composed by Yann Tiersen and this sequence includes two of his musical pieces. Background sounds are often hyper-exaggerated to accentuate the senses.

Shot 1

The scene opens with a wide shot of a Parisian train station (Screenshot 1). Employing an elaborate crane movement, the camera slowly tracks downwards and ends in a locked off shot just ahead of Amélie who paces towards the camera lugging the gnome under her jacket. Note that the costume designer has dressed the extras trailing behind Amélie in yellow, red and greens and that most of the props (such as the garden-gnome) are also almost exclusively in those colors. This shot establishes time and location for the scene – daytime is indicated by the lighting source, emanating from the large glass windows on three sides (contrasting with the florescent lighting and faint-buzzing of the previous night scene). Location is indicated by the presence of trains. Background sound of announcements of imminent arrivals and departures also add help to fix the location. Note how the sound is synchronized so that the noise of a train coming to a halt coincides with the camera finally reaching a stationary position.

Shot 2

The scene then cuts to a continuous shot, breaking the continuity rule (which states that a static shot should transition into another static shot and a continuous shot should only transition into another continuous shot). Bruno Delbonnel, the Director of Photography circumvents this rule quite often in the movie, perhaps intentionally given the meticulous planning that seems to have gone into each shot. The camera tracks low almost crawling across the ground focusing on Amelie’s feet (a shot that occurs quite frequently in this movie) as she walks past miscellaneous pieces of luggage (note that the props are once again in red, green and yellow). Nino enters the frame from the right corner. He is couched under a photo-booth and scrapping up discarded fragments of photos (Screenshot 2). Two props in this scene stand out here - Nino’s plastic bag and the door in the background are both electric blue, providing visual contrast. As Amélie approaches Nino, the camera begins to track slower, eventually ending as a slow-motion sequence. Contrasted against the hurried pacing of both the camera and the protagonist from earlier in the shot we get the impression that something has caught Amélie’s attention as she approaches the booth.

Shot 3

This is a punch-in to Nino’s face as his eyes widen (Screenshot 3). The background noise from the previous shot is drowned out and replaced by the steadily accelerating sound of a heartbeat.

Shot 4

We cut to a clean shot of Amélie face, the camera jibs down to her chest and a special-effect shot of a beating heart is superimposed over her (Screenshot 4). The camera jibs back up to her face. Note that rather than being shot from the ground up (as would be customary to establish Nino’s POV), Amélie is shot from the face level. This is explained in the following shot where Nino was not distracted by Amélie, but rather by something possibly behind her, that (deliberately) isn’t shown in this shot. Note that the color scheme is again maintained – a red heart glowing with a yellowish tinge.

Shot 5

We cut to Nino as he stands up and runs past Amélie brushing up against her (Screenshot 5) – the positioning of the camera in this shot seems to be stationary. The camera seems to be positioned about five feet off the ground and to the immediate right of Amélie and focused on the ground level as the shot begins. Rather than jib up as he stands, it tilts upwards and simultaneously rotates 120˚, following his path.

Shot 6

Cut to Amélie, now facing the opposite direction (with her back to the photo-booth). This is a reaction shot, and the sound editor includes a dull “thud” to accentuate her emotion as they make contact.

Shot 7

Cut to an over the shoulder shot from behind Amélie. Nino pauses to allow a luggage trolley pass, which honks, as if to shake Amélie from her stupor.

Shot 8

Cut to yet another reaction shot, we hear the thud repeated – as it dawns on Amélie that Nino was in fact looking at something else. She begins to pursue him

Shot 9

The edit cuts to a continuous tracking shot once again at ground level as Amélie begins pursuing Nino on foot. The camera tracks behind, dodging behind metal pillars giving the shot the feel of a handheld shot and revealing l’absent, the man in the red sneakers. The score swells as Yann Tiersen’s “Quimper” starts to play.

Shot 10

This shot changes the location as the camera is positioned right outside the train station exit. The man in the red sneakers, who was previously in the third field of view, is now in the primary field, with Nino now behind him (Screenshot 6). The camera tracks from ahead, but allows the man to walk past, choosing to keep Nino in the frame instead. A procession of monks enters the frame from the left blocking Nino from view (Screenshot 7), but he pushes past them, yelling “Attendez!” and runs past the camera which does a 180˚ turn and in one of the more spectacular sequences of the movie, raises up off the ground, and comes to rest behind a lamp-post while Nino runs up a flight of stairs in the background.  The shot deliberately avoids showing Amélie who is obviously right behind. He pushes past them and runs past the camera and up a flight of stairs. In a spectacular continuous moving shot, the camera raises up off the ground, and up past a lamppost. Since this is an outdoor shot, the lighting indicates a dull overcast cloudy sky. Also note the poster in the background to the side of the steps, again in the visual leitmotif of red, green and yellow (Screenshot 8).

Shot 11

The camera is now positioned at the very top of the stairs as the man walks past yet again. The camera tracks to the other end of the stairs where Nino is straggling up the stairs. The background shows the roof of the train station, the interior of which opened Shot 1.

Shot 12

The camera tracks towards a minivan, comes to rest behind the back left tire, pauses momentarily, as the car takes off revealing Nino’s motorcycle in the background. The camera now tracks towards the motorcycle again coming to rest behind the back wheel (Screenshot 9). As Nino takes off on his bike, the camera follows him, as he nearly collides with a car and drops off a bag (Screenshot 10). The camera then swooshes around making a 360˚ loop all the while keeping the bag in focus at the center of the frame (Screenshot 11), finally coming to a stop in the middle of the road. The background score phases out and is replaced by the sound of heavy footsteps as Amélie comes running up into the frame, leans down and picks up the bag (Screenshot 12). The camera tilts up to her face (Screenshot 13). This shot encompasses numerous subtle digital effects – streets were cleaned up in post production and reflections in the store windows were digitally removed. The car itself was inserted digitally to ensure the safety of the actors. Again, note the usage of color – the cars are either red or electric blue, the bag is a deep shade of red and the streets are bereft of any additional color.

Shot 13

Yet another location change to the stairs outside the station. The camera pans down from the ceiling, tracks towards Amélie who is seated on the stairs (Screenshot 14) and does a 360˚ loop culminating in an overhead shot (Screenshot 15).  Over her head to become an overhead shot where we are shown what she is reading. Music in this scene is "L'Autre Valse D'Amélie" by Tiersen.

Shot 14

The camera punches in to the photo album (Screenshot 16). We hear the voice of the narrator, André Dussollier who states:

“Des pages plien de photos…

- Pages full of id photographs, torn up and discarded by their owners carefully reassembled by some oddball. Some family album! -

…album de la famille”

Shot 15

The camera tracks slowly upwards as Amélie shuts the album, speeding up as it pans into her face ending in a tight close-up on Amélie (Screenshot 17).

Themes and Obsessions
In his book, Studying Surrealist and Fantasy Cinema, Neil Coombs identifies the following “Themes and Obsessions” with Jeunet’s oeuvres, all of which can be identified in this short sequence:
·         Use of dreamlike quality as part of the narrative development
·         Chance encounters trigger a chain of events
·         Use of carnival (or carnival themed music)
·         Nostalgia – difficulty in pinning down a time period as demonstrated by an aversion for the modern
·         Adults who are orphans (or orphan-like) demonstrating childlike behavior and hobbies
·         Extreme close-up shots

References:
·         Studying Surrealist and Fantasy Cinema – Neil Coombs
·         CINÉ-FILES: The French Film Guides (Amélie) – Isabelle Vanderschelden
·         Contemporary Film Directors: Jean-Pierre Jeunet – Elizabeth Ezra
·         IMDb.com
·         movie-locations.com
·         soundtrack.net
·         YouTube.com

A Question of Genre

A sampling of the conversation I had with my friends this past weekend outside the Southpoint Cinema.

“I don’t really want to see Amelia –it sounds too much like a biopic”

“Yeah, I’m in the mood for something more sci-fi”

The word genre is ubiquitous in film conversation today – it’s how movies are organized at Blockbuster or categorized on Fandango. It’s how award shows are segmented and how Netflix makes its recommendations.

So the question then arises, are movies sacrificing quality and originality in order to fit a populist mould of genre?

The Economics of Film

In his article, Questions of Genre, Neale states:

“…genres are not simply bodies of work or groups of films, however classified, labeled and defined…

They help render films, and the elements within them, intelligible and therefore explicable.”

Neale argues that all films primarily fall into one of three primary genres – the narrative film, experimental/avant garde film and the documentary. All other movies would then fall into sub-genres of these three categories.

As film analysts and academics, we like to identify elements that are common to a certain ‘type’ of movie because this allows us to study the movie against its predecessors both within and outside its genre.

Hollywood likes this classification because it assumes that a movie will find an audience similar in size to others of its genre. Indeed, audiences have been conditioned to believe that if they enjoyed for instance the harsh realism of Spielberg’s wartime flick, Saving Private Ryan then they would also enjoy Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima.

When you consider the huge production and marketing budgets of most movies that come out of the Hollywood system, it makes perfect financial sense that studios would take into consideration the return on their investments. It’s Marketing 210.01 (Mondays and Wednesdays at 1.40pm in the Fuqua Keller classroom) In an increasingly risk averse Hollywood, the ‘customer-creating organism’ wants to generate profit by ‘micromarketing’ a product to a ‘niche demographic’. So if a movie based on a popular children’s toy does well, the market is flooded with copycat-movies like Transformers, GI Joe and even a Monopoly movie !!!

Narrative Images

Neale says that the idea of genre is further reinforced by a ‘narrative image’. He explains this term as follows:

“An idea of the film is widely circulated and promoted, an idea which can be called the ‘narrative image’ of the film, the cinema’s anticipatory reply to the question, ‘What is the film like?’”

A film’s entire marketing campaign – its posters, tagline and trailer are thus designed around this narrative image – a specifically tailored marketing hook. Much like the packaging on a box of cereal, you know precisely what you’re going to get.

In this clip, an astute observer created a mash-up of the 2012 movie trailer to decry its generic imagery. Indeed, the tagline of the film could very well be “Stuff Blows Up”!

Which is why, I’m always excited when I see posters like the one for Synecdoche, New York or this one for the upcoming A Serious Man:

Genre Bender

On the question of movies spanning across genres, I identified the following three points in the Neale article.

• One - Neale says that you could pretty much take any two disparate texts and find elements common to both and put the resulting union in a class of its own but is there any merit to calling the result of such a  union a genre?
• Two - All genres initially evolve by combining elements from previously discrete and separate genres.
• Three - Genres are best understood as processes. They are marked fundamentally by difference, variation and change.

Neale is basically saying, and I’m inclined to agree with him, that genres are constantly evolving. The movies that contribute most to a genre are those which in fact push the boundaries of the genre. By picking and choosing elements from the movies that preceded it, the “generic corpus” is constantly being expanded by these movies.

“Each new genre film constitutes an addition to an existing generic corpus and involves selection from the repertoire of generic elements available at any one point in time.”

So a movie like Chicago does more for the genre of Broadway adaptations than The Producers or Rent, the latter being more straight-forward examples of the genre. While in the Producers, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick burst into song at an opportune moment, Chicago adapted the musical by asking what cinematic elements could the screen add? As a result, you have visually astounding production numbers that also serve to move the narration forward.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is in essence a comedy but adopts narrative techniques of the noir. Slumdog Millionaire pays homage to its Bollywood roots with its kitchy closing sequence. And love him or hate him, Michael Moore changed the way filmmakers approached the documentary and inspiring a style later adopted by movies such as Super Size Me.

These movies are constantly challenging the notion of what constitutes a genre – and as a result the movie-goer is only richer for it.

Haneke, Jeunet and Bonitzer

Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Michael Haneke are perhaps two of the most innovative auteurs working in French cinema today. Both have their legions of fans and both have their share of critics and detractors. Their styles however, could not be more dissimilar.

Jeunet is known for his vibrant masterpieces such as Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amelie) and Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement). Haneke is known his provoking and unsettling œuvres such as Cache and Funny Games that call into question the very essence of cinema and its purpose.

This post intends to examine their very different approaches to cinema and how they utilize screen space with reference to the Pascal Bonitzer article, Off Screen Space.

Bonitzer postulates:

“…the function of the screen is not just to allow us to see (the film), but also, as its name indicates, to conceal (from reality). The cinematic image is haunted by what is not in it.”

In Jeunet’s films every shot seems to have been carefully storyboarded and planned. We see on screen exactly what the director wants us to see for the purposes of the movie and not a stray plastic bag more. Color, tint and sound are all meticulously coordinated to produce an overall visual and aural experience.

Take for example, the opening scene in Amélie. The movie starts with an image of an insect buzzing down a street in Montmarte with narration set to the background of Yann Tiersen’s overwhelming background score.

Haneke’s film, Cache on the other hand begins with a long continuous shot of a house, with no background score and little explanation of what’s going on.

When viewing a scene, the field that’s reserved for the audience (i.e. the field in which the camera is placed) is referred to as L’absent. When the camera pans to the opposite side, the absent one is revealed. Once these two are sutured together, we now start to look upon the scene as if we were to examine it from the POV of the absent one’s gaze, and thereby the viewer becomes part of the scene.

Amélie is much more traditional in this respect. For example, in the shot where Amélie is leading the blind man down the crowded market streets, the camera pans across the street in relation to show what Amélie is describing – we get the impression that we are viewing the whole scene as if through Amélie’s eyes.

Cache, on the other hand, tries to challenge the notion of the absent one. Haneke seems to be accusing the audience of its scopophilic tendencies, suggesting that we are torturing this ordinary couple by acting as Peeping Toms into the most intimate parts of their lives. The film is definitely more self-aware and meta in this respect.

From Mulvey’s  Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,

“…[Freud] associated scopophilia with taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling and curious gaze.”

I found it interesting how each of these films interprets that statement. In Cache, the characters are often viewed through long shots with very little camera movement. The characters in Amélie, on the other hand, are often shot in close-up with elaborate camera movements. In both cases though, the camera’s gaze (and by extension the viewer’s) is furiously trained on these characters.

Bonitzer also says,

“…[The majority of]any film depends on the verisimilitude of the narrative and the realism of detail.”

Bonitzer argues that a viewer when exposed to a film that does not play along with such representation will switch off.

Cache is grounded in reality, whereas Amélie requires a certain suspension of belief. Yet, both movies include subtle references that break the fourth wall (Amélie whispering “Seize!” to her audience, or the blink-and-you-miss-it placement of a movie camera in Cache).

Their approaches to reality may be gauged from these statements from their directors:

"Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth." – Haneke.

“Cinema since the New Wave always seems to be about a couple fighting in the kitchen. I prefer to tell stories.” – Jeunet.

Indeed, Cache and Funny Games are more in line with films of the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave), a term given to works that stress neo-realism over classical escapism. Jeunet detests the New Wave and would rather be a story teller than an observer of the human condition.

Jeunet embraces the system, having worked with Warner Brothers and directing one of the Alien sequels. Haneke is averse to the Hollywood establishment. He once said,

“My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus." 

Ultimately, both auteurs challenge the Bonitzer article in different extremes – Jeunet challenges the concepts of reality by creating a surrealistic world in his movies. Haneke pushes the boundaries of realism leaving the viewer to question, just what is real?

Ultimately both directors refuse to accept that the notion that the viewer is uneducated or is looking to be spoon-fed a movie and will look upon the movie solely in terms of true/false.

Both their movies encourage discussion and reflection at the end of the movie, willing the viewer to experience the movie rather than passively view it.

The Brothers Bloom

The Long Con

The summer season is usually reserved for Hollywood’s tent-pole offerings – Sequels, Threequels and Prequels. Movies about cars, movies about toys; movies about cars transforming into toys. And yet, sprinkled amongst this surfeit of gluttonous mass consumption are the rare gems that dare challenge the audience’s imagination. I’m talking about the indie (500) Days of Summer, the French Séraphine, the Sci-fi mocumentary District 9 and delightfully quirky The Brothers Bloom.

I finally caught a screening of The Brothers Bloom when it played this week at Griffith (Quick shout-out to my friends at Freewater – Thanks guys, for bringing this movie to Duke!)

We’re first introduced to the Blooms as children. In an opening scene that serves to both introduce the two protagonists as well as establish the visual tone of the movie, we meet Bloom, the Younger  who torn between his heart and his loyalty to his brother, is often the reticent star of the Bloom, the Older’s intricate cons.

As the Blooms grow older, their cons become increasingly sophisticated. Through a mix of sheer charisma and elaborately plotted schemes they earn their keep by swindling their way through the fortunes of the rich and unsuspecting.

Oscar winner, Adrien Brody (The Pianist) plays the younger of the two Bloom brothers. All prominent nose and deep haunted eyes, he is perfectly cast to play a man struggling with the consequences of his actions. Mark Ruffalo plays the older Bloom brother and Machiavellian schemer. He plays his character broad and is sadly outclassed by his peers. 

The Blooms might have met their greatest challenge when they set out to con the seemingly naïve Penelope, a quirky shut in heiress played by Rachel Weisz (of The Constant Gardener fame). The rest of the movie proceeds as a whimsical carrousel ride – where the audience is never quite sure who’s conning whom.

Joining the fray is Rinko Kikuchi’s Bang Bang. You might remember her as the mute Japanese girl in Babel, and here too she utters few words (I believe I counted three). She plays Bang Bang as a picaresque mime. And while she's mainly there for comic relief, she easily steals many of the scenes she's in. Adding to the mix is Robbie Coltrane's (Hey, its Hagrid from Harry Potter!) Frenchman-pardon-Belgian.

Earlier this semester we discussed whether narration ought to be the centerpiece of a movie – its essence. While the movie certainly has a pretty solid plot line and adheres for the most part to Bordwell's rules of classic cinema – it refuses to be encumbered by them. In fact the movie really shines when it gives in to its whimsical side.

One sequence that really stands out is a montage where Penelope, the pin-hole camera enthusiast proceeds to demonstrate her ‘collection’ of hobbies to Brody’s Bloom – in quick jump shots she’s shown riding a unicycle, break-dancing and playing the accordion.

All most as much action takes place in the background as does in the foreground. The movie is full of these blink-and-you-miss-it moments. Like when Penelope silently checks out Bloom through the rear view mirror of the car or when she has her first umm... train ride.

The movie is shot in super saturated colors, complementing its flighty theme. For example, when The Belgian first makes his entrance on the boat – he’s shrouded in darkness, Penelope's visage is half-lit by eerie red light. Yet as in the short-lived series, Pushing Daisies, our protaganists are dressed in solemn funeral black, as if grounding them in this whimsical ride, and contrasting them sharply against the buoyant color of the Montenegro coast, or the muted grays of Prague. In fact, Rian Johnson directs this movie more Wes Anderson-esque than his previous outing, the gloomy film-noirish teenage mood piece, Brick.

One of the final lines of the movie goes, A perfect Con is one in which everybody gets what they want.
And in a way, isn't that what a good movie is, really? A grand con designed to please the audience? Well, on that front this movie does not disappoint!

The Brothers Bloom is rated PG-13 and is directed by Rian Johnson. It stars Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz.

Bordwell and Classical Hollywood Cinema

Every time I watch Cinema Paradiso, I'm reminded of why I love watching movies! #filmstudies

That's what I tweeted as we neared the end of Guiseppe Tornatore's 1989 hit, Cinema Paradiso.

Twenty years on, few question whether this Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film deserves to be labeled a Classic. But let’s set aside our admiration for this movie and rethink that word for a moment, 'Classic'.

Does Cinema Paradiso really fit the stereotypical definition of a ‘Classic’?

A 'Classic' Definition

In examining David Borwell’s article, Classical Hollywood Cinema: Narrational Principles and Procedures one may conclude that for a film to be considered an example of the Classic Style of Cinema, it must contain certain elements.

• First, there’s always a Protagonist, the Hero of the movie who is endowed with certain ‘psychological attributes’ and who must overcome adversity to attain a specific goal.
• The presence of a Dual Plot Line, one of which deals with a romance and another set in a alternate sphere such as work life, a quest or personal relationships.
• Causality ensures that the film maintains continuity. This is done by maintaining the Unity of Time and Space within the Universe of the film.

Cinema Classico

Does Cinema Paradiso necessarily adhere to each of Bordwell’s requirements?

The film does have a protagonist, Toto, but it's harder to pinpoint what his 'goal' is, really. Is it simply to make films? We, the audience can only guess at his motivations. Does he really need to overcome any sort of 'adversity'? One could make the argument that Toto was afraid to leave his village and that his ‘quest’ was to overcome his fear of unknown. But in watching the movie, I felt that it was Alfredo, not Toto who was truly responsible for his departure. (“You have to go away… for a long time,” he instructs Toto) So by Borwell's definition, Alfredo is a much truer protagonist in the classical sense of the word. (His character faces adversity - blindness, and accomplishes his goal - by getting Toto out of the village) And who is the antagonist? Surely every classical hero deserves one! Father Adelfio? No, his character is played more for laughs, to provide comic relief. Perhaps Toto himself is his own antagonist, and he needs to overcome his inner demons in order to move on. Yet, at the end of the movie we can’t be entirely sure that Toto has achieved his goal of self-actualization.

And what of the dual plot line? Sure, Toto toys with the idea of a romance, but Elana’s character flits in and out of the movie so quickly, that the audience hardly has time to perceive it as a powerful romance. Indeed some parts of his courtship are quite whimsical, even downright comical! And his love for Elana is overshadowed by his love for the cinema (When he first meets her, he captures her on his super 8 camera. When he revisits that reel years later, he might well have been reminiscing about his early experiments with the medium) Has Tornatore shrewdly twisted convention? Quest and Romance are almost interchangeable, and we’re never quite sure which one’s a conduit to the other.

Causality is one element that’d maintained pretty well throughout the movie. Toto’s life plays out almost as if it were a triptych, in the grand style of the old English novel.

For the longest time, I readily assumed that Cinema Paradiso was the very definition of the classical movie – sweeping vistas, archetypal starlets, with the right mix of humor and melodrama. But let's compare Paradiso to a movie that more readily fits into that category.

Meg Ryan = Katherine Heigl Twenty Years Ago

Around the same time as Cinema Paradiso, Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle was out in theaters in America. During her career, Ms Ephron has had her share of misses (Bewitched) and some hits (the delightful Julie & Julia). I’ll let others decide which of these category Sleepless falls into - this post is more considered with the schematics of the movie. In Sleepless in Seattle, Ms Ephron, crosscuts two disparate but linked storylines. The protagonist (Sam/Annie) must overcome their adversity (for him - dealing with the death of his wife, for her – being stuck in a relationship that lacks ‘spark’). Their romance is challenged by an antagonist (distance) and the film progresses towards a very clearly defined goal (of uniting these two characters). There's also a secondary plot line (Annie’s relationship with Walter, Sam’s with his son Jonah). Causality is also clearly established. Even though the two lead characters are rarely in the same shot, by having the two plan to unite on the top of the Empire State Building on Valentine’s day, the film establishes a place and time-frame.

Sleepless in Seattle certainly enjoys a special place in the hearts of many, and conventional wisdom would identify this movie as a ready Classic. Yet, twenty years on, it is Cinema Paradiso is considered a timeless masterpiece.

Bordwell’s article pinpoints several interesting characteristics of the classic film style. Yet movies like Paradiso have challenged these definitions of what constitutes a classic. In the most recent example from this summer, the surprise indie hit 500 Days of Summer bucked convention by presenting itself as the anti-Hollywood love story – where the guy and the girl do not end up together. Yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if twenty years from now, a class of film students were to sit in a darkened room deconstructing the classical elements of storytelling in 500 Days!

So, I guess what we've learned is that for a movie to be considered a Classic, it shouldn't necessarily have to fit the neat conventions of the Classical Movie Style. 
In paying homage to the Classic Hollywood Movie, Tornatore has himself created a Classic for the Ages!

"leit-mo-tif"

A Leitmotif (from the German Leiten, to lead + Motiv, motive) may be defined as a dominant or recurring theme, usually a piece of music or a melody that accompanies the appearance (and reappearance) of a character, idea or situation.

Although not exclusively applicable to movies, leitmotifs have been used extensively in films - and particularly in movies which span multiple sequels, to provide an identifying characteristic to a situation, or character without requiring the use of dialogue.

Some leitmotifs have become instantly recognizable. In the Star Wars Saga, the appearance of chief antagonist, Darth Vader is always accompanied by a theme known as The Imperial March (as heard in the video below). The theme immediately sets up a tone of impending danger, even to the ears of a first time viewer.

Another example of a leitmotif in a movie series of recent times is the tune popularly referred to as Hedwig's Theme. This is played over the opening credits of each of the six Harry Potter movies so far, as well as ech time Harry boards the Hogwarts express. A sample of the music can be heard here:

In the Kill Bill series, Darryll Hannah's character, Elle Driver is introduced by her now iconic whistle. (The song in question is called Twisted Nerve.)

Leitmotifs do not refer to music exclusively. In Jean Pierre Jeunet's Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, virtually every shot is primarily composed of three colors: Red, Green and Yellow.

This theme was carried into the movie's advertising campaign as well, as demonstrated by it's poster:

Seven Images

Suppose you were to wake up one day, à la Jason Bourne with no memories whatsoever? Now suppose you had the foresight to put together seven images that define you, what would those pictures say about you?


For our first class, we were asked to compile seven images that 'made us up'. After perusing my Facebook albums, here's what I came up with:


SEVEN IMAGES


And now that you know me a little better, I hope to learn more about you... 
Leave me comments on my posts, and let me know what you think about the films we discuss.