Megan Jean Spanish 275 2-17-2015 The film Pan's Labyrinth, originally known in Spanish as El laberinto del fauno, referring to the fauns of Roman mythology, is a 2006 Spanish-Mexican dark fantasy film written and directed by Mexican Guillermo del Toro. Del Toro displays a love of darkness and stylized color, and a preference for letting the images carry the film's narrative. As According the the American Academy of Cinematographers this is not an uncommon approach of Del Toro’s; his fingerprint of darkness and stylized colors is displayed in many of his productions including Hellboy and The Devil’s Backbone. Del Toro used his cinematographic stylization in this film to tell a strongly emotional story of darkness and hatred and violence all …show more content…
intertwined between fantasy and reality. While using beautiful filming techniques, this cinematographer is able to persuade the emotions and perceptions of his audiences through vivid visual cues even in lack of the presence of dialogue. Pan’s Laburinth is set in Spain in May–June 1944, five years after the end of the Spanish Civil War, during the early Francoist period. The narrative of the film intertwines the real world with a mythical world centered on a mysterious faun and an overgrown and abandoned labyrinth, with which young Ofelia, the main character, derives an interest. Meanwhile Ofelia's stepfather, Captain Vidal, is spending his time hunting the Spanish Maquis, Spanish Guerillas, who are fighting against the Francoist regime in the region, and Ofelia's pregnant mother grows increasingly ill. During her interactions with the faun and his mysterious tasks that he claims will prove that she is truly the princess, Ofelia meets several strange and magical creatures who become central to her story, leading her through the trials of the old labyrinth garden. The cinematography, which is defined as, the art or technique of movie photography, including both the shooting and development of the film, played a major role in the overall execution of this movie. What made the cinematography so exceptional was the interesting use of colors throughout certain scenes. When people think of a fantasy they link it to light colors but Pan’s Labyrinth did the exact opposite. The film used a dark bluish color and a combination of light saturated colors to create this dark mystical place of fantasy, whereas, while the audiences are exploring the “real” world the colors are warm, and very dry to create a more accurate look. In this production, Del Toro displays a keen liking of a few specific camera shots, including, the medium shot, the over-the-shoulder shot, and a right horizontal pan to aid in his narration of the life of young Ofelia. Medium shots are relatively close shots that reveal a moderate amount of detail. This shot allowed Del Toro to give his audience an idea of what was going on in the general area surrounding the subject that he wanted to frame, but was also able to keep them focused in on the single subject enough that they would not miss the emotions and reactions registering on the characters’ faces. This shot type when used in context with the content of the film has the capability of riveting the audience; Del Toro used the shot beautifully in many scenes of the film, but most notable in the scene where the audience sees the captain standing in front of his shaving mirror and faces his straight razor towards his reflection, making a sweeping motion, acting like he is slitting its throat. The fairly close shot the Del Toro used in this scene allows the audience to ascertain the captain’s whereabouts, but also be close enough in to him to feel a strong wave of uncomfortableness and fear when he pretends to cut his reflection’s throat. Del Toro’s use of the over-the-shoulder shot appears to be another of his favorites, especially for moments of conversation.
An over-the-shoulder shot is defined as a medium shot that is often useful in dialogue scenes, in which one actor is photographed head-on from over the shoulder of another actor. Del Toro’s favoring of this shot could easily be out of his desire to make his viewers feel emotionally connected to the characters as if they are a part of the film themself. Some viewers may even notice the innate discomfort that this shot, especially in the high drama moments of this film can provoke. It gives one the sensation of actually being able to see through the subjects eyes and personally register the emotion of the face of the person being spoken to. Another cinematographic shot the Del Toro commonly and beautifully uses in Pan’s Labyrinth is a right horizontal pan, which in Lehman’s terms means a rotation of the camera horizontally to the right while the physical camera stays in one place. He uses this shot very beautifully as a transition from scene to scene. The audience is watching one scene, when Ofelia is walking through the woods, then the camera pans behind a tree and upon emerging from the other side the viewer is introduced to a new
scene. “This isn’t really a dialogue-based movie — the images become the grammar of the story,” says Navarro. “So it was important for us to create bridges that would connect the two narratives, and to place the camera in the shoes of Ofelia, our lead character. The audience is learning with her and discovering things with her.” (asc.com) Through his cinemagraphic genius Del Toro is able intertwine the two stories that he is telling, but also is able to strike an emotional chord in his viewers that has little to do with dialogue. The portion of the film that is ‘real life’ shows more warm colors, but still a fairly mellow sky, whereas everything that is related to the fairy tale is basked in many more dark blues and overall darkness. Some viewers could interpret this as Ofelia thinking that her life is so bad when she is in the real world to the point that she wishes to escape to this fairy world, but in all reality the fairy world is much darker and crueler than the real world.
The movie the Labyrinth tells a story about a group of unlikely heroes trying to make their way though a maze in order to defeat the Goblin King. The story starts out with the main character Sarah whom, without even realizing it, wishes her baby brother to be taken way by Jareth the Goblin King. He tells her that if she wants her brother back she will have to make her way through the labyrinth and to the castle beyond the Goblin City. She only has 13 hours to complete the seemingly impossible task or her little brother Toby will be turned into a goblin. While making her way through the twisted and endless maze Sarah runs into many weird characters. The first person she encounters is Hoggle a very untrustworthy dwarf whom is under the influence of Jareth. He is selfish and does things only if there is something for him to gain. He betrays Sarah many times throughout the movie, but in the end he proves himself to be more than a traitorous coward. Ludo is a yeti and despite looking vicious is a gentle and caring monster. Ludo also has the power to control rocks. Sir Didymis is a loudmouthed, but noble knight who displays his valor throughout the movie. The four heroes manage to fight their way through the perilous labyrinth. The Goblin King Jareth is defeated and Sarah’s brother Toby is saved. Though the characters in this movie seemed to be nothing more than ordinary, and if not odd, they fought their way through labyrinth and conquered an entire army of evil goblins and their king. (Labyrinth 1986)
...ot where the camera follows a subject within a frame and motion of the subject or its surroundings is involved. In this movie Lee uses the double dolly shot which includes the camera dolly and the actor mounted on a second dolly so the actor is moving along with the camera. The double dolly shot signature move is one of Lee’s favorites and also plays into his technical competence for the movie. This shot stars Detective Keith Frazier and happens just seconds after a hostage is “allegedly” killed by the bank robbers. In this scene the camera tends to shake and Denzel facial expressions display feelings of sadness and anger. In addition, a small cameo of Sal’s Pizzeria pizza boxes are seen when the head bank robbers makes a deal with the officers to get food for the hostages. Lee has lots of these connections within his movies relating back to Do The Right Thing.
Pan’s Labyrinth. Dir. Guillermo del Toro Perf. Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, Sergi López , Ariadna Gil, Maribel Verdú, Álex Angulo, Roger Casamajor, Cesar Bea, Manolo Solo. Tequila Gang/Estudios Picasso/Telecinco, 2006. DVD.
Many people take on missions for whatever reason, but one thing that all missions have and all people taking on missions are obligated to face: is the danger of getting out of their comfort zone. Bilbo Baggins, from The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien, and Ernesto Galarza, from “Barrio Boy” by Ernesto Galarza, had to tread in murky waters to accomplish their goals. Bilbo Baggins had to battle his fear and is trying to find a balance between his two sides while trying to fight a dragon and Ernesto Galarza had to overcome his lack of English vocabulary trying to accomplish his goal of becoming a good American. These goals all motivate these men into overcoming their obstacles they faced.
History usually forces itself into the present in Juan Jose Campanella’s film “El Secreto De Sus Ojos” (The Secret in Their Eyes). Although it was filmed in 2009, the story is an attempted memorization of the violent reality in 1970-1980s Argentina, an era in which the country was rapidly sinking into military rule-ship. Campanella offers flashbacks into Argentina’s dark days, a period where violence homicide, rape and injustices ruled. Through memory, the film narrate a era in which it was impossible to be an innocent person as the innocents were falsely accused, tortured and even murdered for crimes they never committed, all these for the whims of those in power. Even though, the film is set in the 1970s, it does not call immediate attention to the animosity, the hopeless feeling and the constant struggle between the desire to forget vs. the attempts to remember the chaos and confusion of these years. However, through the use of memory Campanella allow the views to portray an almost perfect picture of what happened in Argentina.
In Jim Henson’s Labyrinth the plot closely follows the narrative structure that is documented by Propp and described by Berger. Propp establishes a series of functions which all Russian fairy tales followed and which Berger finds easily applies to modern day narratives. When these functions are applied to Labyrinth, they fit easily into the movies story line. The protagonist, Sarah, is an adequate example of Propp’s hero with some gender norms reversed and Jareth fits into the archetype of the villain. Labyrinth presents an excellent example to Berger’s updated interpretation of Propp’s fairy tale theory of structure, while presenting important modernizations to the structure.
In another budgetary adaptation, the film crew, lacking the funds for cranes and dollies to do moving and panning shots, quickly switched between multiple shots for dynamic dialog, giving a certain frenzied feel to the dialog interactions (Hervey 38). The style this lends to th...
...haracter's movement through the scene should look totally natural. As a scene shows us the basic setting and characters, it generally moves from a wide shot to a medium shot, and then to close-ups of the characters. This use of the space is then conserved by using a set of rules. The first rule is the 180-degree rule, or "not crossing the line." Meaning that the viewer is presented to a shot in which one person is on the right and a second person is on the left, the camera should not rotate beyond 180 degrees, because that would invert the relative positions of each person. The continuity style gave classical Hollywood films their rhythmic power. The spell that style enables the audience the wonder of being able to lose yourself in the world of the film depends on a how the director shows and gives you this new world, most notably done during Hollywood's Golden Age.
Cohen points to Cuaron 's fluid lensing, with its emphasis on single wide-angle shots, as a special challenge. "It makes (the effects) considerably harder, because the shots are so much longer, you 've got to think about so many more different elements. With quick cuts you can hide so many things” (A1). The whole move was a new experience not only for the actors, but also to the
When comparing the terms fantasy and reality, the adult mind categorizes the respective events of the two perspectives. Fantasy relates to the impractical while reality pertains to the facts and our experiences. In the mind of a child, there isn’t necessarily a distinction. Rather the lens in which children see through is an unrestricted view of the world that is not constrained by the rules of practicality. None better depicts the power to fantasize and imagine than the two films Beast of the Southern Wild and Pan’s Labyrinth.
Director Max Ophüls is known for his distinctive smooth camera movements (Liang, 2011, p. 2). Frame mobility keeps the audience focused on the subject (Bordwell and Thompson, 2008, p. 203), and this can be seen in this shot. Due to the camera tracking Lisa and Lieutenant Leopold after they enter the frame, the audience’s attention stays focused on Lisa and Lieutenant Leopold, even thoug...
Most of the film was shot with 50mm lenses on 35 mm cameras. This technique carefully lets the audience see the film as though watching a ‘live scene’. This has the effect of drawing the audience closer into the action.
For example, at the beginning, the camera pans around and through a frozen action scene. This is to emphasise the action that is taking place due to the close-up shots that are used on each part of the scene. The fact that the scene is frozen, mid-action allows the watcher to analyse each small element of the scene, including the tiny bullets being fired. The canted angle that is coupled with this panning enforces the fact that the scene is totally unrealistic due to the amount of things going on at once. The techniques used in this scene is common for this genre as many other superhero films use over/under cranking during a fast paced action scene, therefore allowing the watcher to absorb everything that is happening. Another example of this is the scene after the first when Deadpool is surrounded by enemies with guns on a bridge. In this fast paced action scene, a mid-shot paired with a canted angle makes the watcher feel as if they are really there which gives the watcher a dramatic view of Deadpool and his
Children of Men Movie that came out on December 25, 2006, directed by Alfonso Cuaron is one of the most famous Hispanic directors in the cinema world. Children of Men is based on a novel made by PD James and it is about apocalyptic future in which human beings have stopped being able to reproduce. Laboratories also cannot carry out the conception of human embryos and knowing the imminent end of their existence makes all the inhabitants of the planet behave in a chaotic way and live in eternal neglect. Immigrants are treated as high-level criminals and riots and urban guerrillas are the daily bread. This movie is good to criticize because is its plot, soundtrack, emotional impact, and cinematography because of these factors this movie is such
Perhaps the most absorbing and first-rate film of all time, Crimson Peak, was released in 2015. The film’s director, Guillermo Del Toro, selected the most talented and suitable actors for his characters. Toro’s renowned actors include familiar faces such as Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, and Charlie Hunnam. This film breaks the boundaries of classification, and sets the precedent for future films in its newly-crafted genre. The film is a clash of horror and romance, which is often not seen on the screen, and when it is, is not often popular.