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How to analyze a documentary film
How to analyze a documentary film
Film analysis topics
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The famous line “You talkin’ to me?” was spoken by Robert DeNiro in the 1976 film Taxi Driver. Robert DeNiro’s character, Travis Bickle, experiences life in the big city as a taxi driver. As the movie progress he encounters people and situations that affect Travis both physically and mentally. Martin Scorsese directed the film making it a great success in the 1970’s. In order to make the film successful he utilized a series of film elements. Scorsese made use of camera components, repetition of music, gender stereotypes, character development and old-fashioned references. Through the use of these film components, Scorsese accomplished a renowned film that continues to be spoken about in the twenty first century.
Taxi driver captures the audience’s attention with Scorsese’s distinct use of camera components and repetition of music. Throughout the film I noticed that panning the camera was a Scorsese favorite. From beginning to end, the audience notices the use of a slow to a medium paced camera panning depending on the scenario of the scene. For example, at the beginning of the film, the camera swiftly pans across the setting of the taxi driver warehouse. This is to show the entirety of the scene and emphasize the amount of taxi’s that come in and out of the warehouse. The camera does not pan slowly because the director is not trying to focus the audiences attention on detail but more on the big picture. As the movie progresses and Betsy turns Travis’ heart down after taking her to a dirty movie, the camera displays a scene of a variety of flowers that was returned back to Travis from Betsy. Scorsese used panning to relate the flowers to Travis’ narration of why the flowers are in his apartment. This use of camera panning was util...
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...s we see him going to throughout the film. Another question I asked myself was why he felt the need to buy a gun. As the movie progressed I understood that it was to intentionally kill the presidential candidate but he in fact killed Iris’s pimps instead. Scorsese used many film components in order to make his film well-known across the nation. Through the character development of Travis, the audience became more connected to his character. The repetition of the jazz rendition connects the events of the film together and gender stereotypes added unique quality to the film. Through camera elements and a dated timeline, the audience is able to watch the film through a different perspective. Scorsese used these film components to create a film that captures the audience’s interest and connects the audience to the characters and events that make this film renowned.
This movie was a tale of an immigrant seeking money and power who untimely set up his own demise. The producers did a good job at pointing out certain features that let you into the life of an organized crime leader. He tells of his humble beginnings and shows you in details how he rose to the top. The producer had a point to make and I took that point as being you can never get and stay someone good while being bad. The sound effects and graphics also makes this movie. They show just enough to intrigue you but yet not to completely make you sick to your stomach. The music is very telling and
The first, most visually established element in Arlington Road that likens itself to the films of Hitchcock is the editing style. From the opening scene, a suspenseful soundtrack paired with images of a stumbling child dripping blood that something is amiss, while the unsuspecting protagonist, Michael Faraday, drives up in complete ignorance. This technique in which the audience is exposed to fatal details detained from the protagonist is typical of Hitchcock films, as seen in works such as Psycho, where an unaware young woman takes a shower while the audience watches an approaching murderer helplessly. Another example can be taken from Rear Window, in which Lisa Fremont breaks into the believed murderer’s apartment to gain evidence, entirely oblivious to his return. Again, this tactic, often recog...
Mean Streets' greatest influence in American cinema was not on directors or scriptwriters (though its influence there was considerable) but rather on actors. The film has Harvey Keitel (as Charlie) at its center, whose solidity and slight dullness as an actor keeps the film from spinning off into total anarchy; but it is Robert De Niro's Johnny Boy (Charlie's wild, self-destructive friend whom he looks out for with all the obsessiveness of an older brother) that gives the film its charge. Johnny Boy dances and gyrates and leaps and spins about the edges of the film, continually threatening to take it into and out of chaos (which he finally does). De Niro's performance, which remains as hilarious and breath-taking as ever - was a revelation at the time. De Niro took naturalistic, "method" acting to new highs, and his Johnny Boy is possibly the very first performance of its kind. It's a genuine portrayal of a street punk whose charm and obnoxiousness are almost uncannily intertwined - you can't despise Johnny Boy, but you can't respect him much, either. You just have to love him. It's easy enough to imagine Charlie's frustration over this kid - De Niro's work here adds depth and veracity to Keitel's, and the two actors work so well together that some of their scenes ? like the one they have together in Taxi Driver - have an almost hallucinatory buzz to them.
The director Antoine Fuqua vision for this film was to bring that intense love-hate relationship onto the big screen and showcase it for the world to see. To ensure a convincing film setting, Fuqua shot on location in some of the most hardcore neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Fuqua also wanted to show the daily struggles of officers tasked to work in the rougher neighborhoods of cities and how easy it can be to get caught up in a street life filled with killers and drug dealers. Overall the film displayed the city of Los Angeles in a different perspective. One which m...
Think about your favorite movie. When watching that movie, was there anything about the style of the movie that makes it your favorite? Have you ever thought about why that movie is just so darn good? The answer is because of the the Auteur. An Auteur is the artists behind the movie. They have and individual style and control over all elements of production, which make their movies exclusively unique. If you could put a finger on who the director of a movie is without even seeing the whole film, then the person that made the movie is most likely an auteur director. They have a unique stamp on each of their movies. This essay will be covering Martin Scorsese, you will soon find out that he is one of the best auteur directors in the film industry. This paper will include, but is not limited to two of his movies, Good Fellas, and The Wolf of Wall Street. We will also cover the details on what makes Martin Scorsese's movies unique, such as the common themes, recurring motifs, and filming practices found in their work. Then on
New York: Norton, 1989. Taxi Driver.
Connelly, Marie. "The films of Martin Scorsese: A critical study." Diss. Case Western Reserve University, 1991. Web. 07 Apr 2014.
In the opening scenes of the trailer, already the audience is exposed to the dystopian atmosphere of chaos, social anarchy and oppression. This is promoted by short fast paced montages and high angle shots of the swarmed streets, close angle shots of people in terror and military forces. This also conveys the magnitude of chaos this “dilemma” has caused. A short scene of the main protagonist Robert struggling through the crowd has also been visually constructed to enforce to the audience that he is the main character of this movie. The visual construction of this scene is utilised by a close up slow motion focused shot on Will Smith with the background blurred to completely draw the audience onto him. What is more unique is that this combination of effects acts as an inference that Will Smith is the solution or only hope in settling this anarchy as he swiftly makes his way through the congested street. The explosion of the bridge also informs the audience the narrative is set in New York implied by being a landmark of the city. Already in the exposition, the visual conventions have provided an engaging and well informed construction of dystopian qualities and information about the plot itself.
The root of both Travis' and Raskolnikov's problems is their complete and utter disgust with the world around them. Travis is a New York City cab driver who drives everywhere and picks up anyone. It doesn't matter to him if the customer is a prostitute who uses his backseat as her workplace. He just drives around with a glazed look of indifference in his eyes, while inside, his heart is overflowing with rage. In contrast, Raskolnikov is an ex-student living in St. Petersburg during the mid 1800's. He is extremely poor, and therefore lives in an area called the Haymarket, where all the whorehouses and bars were located. Every time he goes out, he walks past the dregs of society, which fills his heart with hatred for everyone and everything. Both characters see the world to be completely evil and devoid of all goodness, and this existential view drives them to become exactly what they so desperately hate.
After Scorsese’s father asking him a question about a character, a young Martin raised his fingers to make an impression of him shooting a gun. This image is one of the most memorable images in Scorsese’s film Taxi Driver, where we see Robert De Niro repeating the same image pointing to his temples. This image is shown at the height of the film. When Scorsese got a television at home, no more did he have to leave his house to engross himself in the most recent movie best seller. Already we can see Scorsese’s love of filmmaking from an extremely young
The Godfather is most notably one of the most prolific films of its time. This "gangster" film displayed many transformations of permeating color to give the viewer observable cues in its mise en scene that drew one right into the movie. The dramatic acting set the tone of the film with a score that lifted the viewer right out of their seat in many scenes. The directing and cinematography made The Godfather ahead of its time. The nostalgic feel of family importance and the danger of revenge lets us into the life of the Mafia. Even though no other techniques would have given the viewer a feeling of inside the mob like the mise en scene of the power the godfather held, the characters are reinforced literally and figuratively because the story views the Mafia from the inside out, and the cinematography of the film gives it a dangerous and nostalgic feel.
The Taxi, by Amy Lowell, is an Imagist poem that relies heavily on imagery, rather than abstract ideas, to reveal meaning to the reader. The author uses free verse to allow the images and lines to speak for themselves and stand alone as individual lines. By doing so, each line offers its own tone and meaning, which then adds to the overall feel of the poem. Lowell wrote this poem to a love interest, clearly stating the meaning of the poem. She speaks as if the reader is the one being called after. The reader is entranced in her short poem filled with imagery to set the mood; the dire, last goodbye that seemed to separate the two forever. The poet's love for this person was also shown in her other works, and has made it very clear that there was a connection (Highleyman). This connection reveals the theme to be that she is lost without love. Before breaking the poem down into fragments for a line-by-line analysis, it can first be analyzed as a whole.
Shot entirely from the interior of a car by cameras mounted on the dashboard, Ten records a series of private conversations between the driver and her passengers as they ride through the streets of Tehran. Each interaction is segmented into the film’s ten chapters whereby Kiarostami constructs an elliptical narrative centered on the driver, a newly remarried divorcee, as she questions her understanding of love relationships, morals, and personal fulfillment through the subsequent interactions with her son and the women she encounters.
Taking shots of moving objects can prove challenging for novice photographers. However, this is something that is easily achieved if practice and research is embraced. Panning shots help you to take photographs with a blurred background but a crisp subject. You need to first understand the best technique to use for impressive results. However, this is not about how long you have been using your camera. It is a skill that is obtained through practice. It takes patience to learn this technique because it is not something that you can acquire in one training session. Here are simple steps to guide you to shooting the best panning shots ever.
From the first note of the theme song during the opening credits, the viewer encounters the sounds of a zither, similar to a guitar. Anton Karas, the composer of the entirely zither soundtrack, was at the time an unknown artist. Reed heard him playing at a wine bar and got him to agree to compose the score. The music was often eerie or haunting, fitting with the anticipation of a noir and post-war Vienna, but it honestly gave life to the film, which sometimes felt flat. With the inundation of crime and thriller films being produced today, the viewer doesn’t feel the type of “edge of your seat” suspense that many modern day films are able to produce. As for the cinematography, many of the scenes of the film were shot at awkward angles. It was as if the camera wasn’t set up straight, but too much of an angle that it had to have been intentional. The black and white expressionist cinematography by Robert Krasker has been hailed as a critical aspect of the films’ style. At times it added to the drama of a scene, however, at other points it became overly distracting. The famous chase through the underground tunnels with the echoes disguising the location of the officers was an instance where the titled camera added to the drama of the