Key points for this class
Homework notes
Film notes (defined by space)
Homework notes
For future assignments:
-- watch out for serial, causual development ("Eventually," "after several conversations", etc.). Better to do one situation than a series of events. Character in a given situation instead of character development.
-- Define place and/or time it occurs, and length of film. Thesis films limited to 28 min. 40 sec.
Film notes (defined by space)
Tango, Zbigniew Rybczynski. Set in one room. Starts out with ball bouncing in through window, boy peeking in, then retrieving ball. Then ball comes back in, boy reappears, new character comes in, does his/her activity, leaves, cycle with two characters starts, third person introduced, etc. Done with 3,000 hand-painted mattes. Polish, set in apartment (possibly) of multi-generational family. Lot of people sharing very little space. Also could be about people going through lives oblivious to everyone else.
My Country, Milos Radovic. Railroad crossing. Road signifies trajectories of characters. Railroad master (uncaring bureaucrat), biker, horse/cart driver, shepherd, guy in Dodge Viper. Cross-section of precise situation. Yugoslavia all split up, violent factions. Situation: gate down, has consequences. Characters no initiative, can't just go around gate.
Hills Like White Elephants, Tony Richardson. Based on Hemingway's short story. Also at railroad station. Moment of indecision (no decision is made). Writer and wife whose relationship is doomed. Framed by space (station) and time (get off train, wait for another one). Physical and emotional baggage. Repetition of language ("very simple procedure").
"You Can Drive the Big Rigs," Leighton Pierce. Funded as a documentary about cafes in Iowa -- Pierce put footage together to make one meta-cafe. Great sound design. Time has passed this place by. Things are stagnating, yet film is rich in texture (light and sound). Detached window.
"The Box," BU thesis film. Guy who lives in a box (bed looks like coffin, tiled floor, cereal boxes, bricks, arranges ties). Life is confined. Comes home to find chest. Girl, hobbyhorse, corpse with flower. At end, guy takes flower, climbs into chest and closes it.
Zeno's Paradox, Robert Arnold. Paradox: movement through space is impossible (cross halfway to object, then halfway, etc.). Zooming into picture on tree, find it's the scene itself. Dissolves, stills. Pulls you into picture, even though movement isn't real.