Atari And King Of Kong: Film Analysis

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Documentaries have the ability to express and tell a real series of events through visual and audible conventions. Within 70 years, video games have risen from nothing to an almost all-encompassing status. Atari: Game Over (Atari), and The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (King of Kong) are both oriented around the early years of gaming, focusing on different aspects of the hobby; Atari aims at uncovering the truth as to one of the catalysts to Atari Incorporated’s demise, whereas King of Kong focuses on the competitive nature of gaming. Each documentary uses a variety of distinct methods to express their exposition, interviews, and cinematography.
Each documentary uses different methods for their expository openings. Atari opens by giving …show more content…

Atari chooses to represent their interviews in a more serious tone and uses it as means to further the plot. King of Kong opposes this by using the interviews as their main method of driving home the story, opting to omit most other forms of convention. Another minute detail that King of Kong contains is using the specific settings for each interview to express the idea that this is a very real story, occurring in everyday people’s lives. For instance, many of the interviews with Billy Mitchell were in his restaurant, and many of Steve Wiebe’s were at his house. Atari however, uses very similar backdrops, mostly in locations that are associated with more serious manners, such as a library or an office space. These different approaches to the background allow for different expressions to be made. In the case of King of Kong, the use of places where Mitchell and Wiebe frequent, provides a more down to Earth feeling of “this is real”. Additionally, King of Kong’s use of a silent interviewer allows the viewer to feel that they are being spoken directly towards, rather than given a recount, whereas Atari has an interviewer that can be heard, which allows the documentary to feel more informative. These uses of interviews both allow the story to progress; although through different …show more content…

For instance, Atari uses many cinematic rolling shots of the dump and the town, building up the idea that this is a topical occurrence for the community, and that the finding they could obtain here are pertinent to Atari’s demise. Additionally, the scenery portrays a much more serious tone, using more “mature” settings over “childish” ones. Opposingly, King of Kong omits the use of cinematic rolling shots for much of the documentary, opting to record “on site”, giving the viewer the sense of feeling present in the story. Moreover, the use of these scenes also provides the impression that this is not to be taken as seriously as other documentaries of similar nature. These contrasting expressions of cinematography help to divide the two documentaries; integrating the viewer into the story of King of Kong, and recounting the story to the viewer in

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