This use of visual freedom led Ridley to have a highly artificial style that is often criticized by American film critics. For they often value plot and character development instead of realism and symbolism through visual style (Adams, 897). Ridley Scott, although a British director, appealed to the American film critic’s desires and directed the buddy love comedy Thelma and Louise. Although the film is still filled with beautiful shots, this funny film resonated with audiences more than Scott’s previous films, as it relied on the characters to drive the story rather than the background. It caused American film critics to claim that Ridley’s, “strongest quality all along has been an ability to create film myths that resonate in viewers minds …show more content…
years afterwards” (Adams, 897). Some people may watch Ridley’s films and have film myths resonate in their minds, while others, like those who voted for Blade Runner to win best picture at the Oscars of 1983, have the beautiful cinematic frames from his film lingering in their eyes. Scott uses strong female characters like Ripley from Alien and Joyce from Black Rain to break feminine stereotypes and defy their roles as women in society. These women do not let any normal or authoritative men push them around. They are stubborn in their ways and make decisions based off of what they believe is the right decision. Ridley Scott casted strong female leads in Alien, Thelma and Louise, and G.I. Jane. When asked about why he often has strong female lead roles, Ridley replied; “My film has strong women simply because I like strong women. It’s my personal choice. I’m in no way a male chauvinist, nor do I understand female chauvinism. I just believe in the equality of men and women. It’s as simple as that” (Scott, 48). Scott makes may of lead female characters strong and decisive. Joyce in Black Rain, shows that she is a strong and independent woman whom does not need to rely on Nick when she tells him, “I’m on my side” after he asks which side she’s on. Ridley also broke a female milestone in film by directing the first female roadie film, Thelma and Louise. The writer of the Thelma and Louise script, Callie Khani states, “I really wanted to write a movie where women were going to go in there and feel good about being women” (Schwartz, 85). This idea appealed to Ridley Scott and he decided to take up the task of directing the female buddy film. Ridley’s views about gender roles and equality unfold in his films. These views cause his films to portray unique roles of women in society and appeal to feminist audiences. “His view of gender equality rests on the notion not only that women can perform most tasks equally as men, but that to succeed, become truly fulfilled, and be socially responsible, women must line up the same high standards of proper conduct and personal integrity that male heroes typically possess” (Schwartz, viii). Ripley, in the film Alien, takes command of the situation and the crew when the first in command, Captain Dallas, dies at the claws of the superior alien. Ripley’s survival requires her not only to disassociate from the other woman Ripley shoves her emotions aside as she takes the role of being the strong fearless leader. She is forced to take charge and turn into an emotionless killing machine to avenge the death of her crew and save her own life, as well as the fate of the human race. In a male dominated industry and work field, it is uncommon that Ridley Scott would portray women with so much power and authority, and this sets him apart from other directors. Scott fills the traditional roles given to male protagonists to female actresses (Schwartz, xi). Thelma and Louise’s character’s as buddies on the road are roles that traditionally have been given to men, but Ridley Scott chose to take up directing Thelma and Louise because of the strong female leads. Ridley Scott uses film as a medium to portray his views on equality and social standing. Scott’s films convey messages of female equality and strong female leads but are not to be confused with being anti-male or even bashing men. Ridley Scott addresses this in an interview, “I do actually believe it was one of those screen plays that honestly felt with what a lot of women had to put up with (men)” (Robb, 60). Ridley did not want the viewer of the film to think that men were bad or less worthy than women but rather, he wanted the viewer to sympathize with women the struggles that they go through involving men. In Alien, Scott has Ripley take the man’s role on the ship which causes her to disassociate from the other woman on the ship, rather than sympathize with her (Schwartz, 27). The other woman on the ship, Lambert, acts like the stereotypical woman in a horror flick. She cries out of fear and horror and looks up to the men to save her. Ripley steps up and acts like a man when she is forced to make crucial life or death decisions based on her ability to survive. Ripley not only broke feminine stereotypes, but she also broke working class stereotypes as well.
Ridley Scott’s films often display themes of favoring the working class over the upperclass. Scott displays working class individuals as more honorable than their counterpart, the upper class (Schwartz, x). The futuristic society in the film Blade Runner displays the social classes of Ridley’s Los Angeles at it’s extremes. The poor are poorer and the rich are exceedingly richer, there is no in-between. Scott often portrays the stubborn lead protagonist to defy authority in order to fulfill their own desires. This can be seen in Gladiator when Maximus defies the new emperor and doesn’t die but challenges Commodus to a duel in the arena. The crew on the Nostromo defy Ash and Mother, whom are the higher authority of machines on the ship. For they decide to disobey the orders to keep the alien alive at all costs after discovering that the ship deems them expendable. The crew try to kills the alien to save themselves and if the ship ever got to earth, all of mankind. As well as in Blade Runner, when Deckard defies Chief Bryant and decides to let Rachel live. Another example of characters defining authority is Nick in Black Rain, as he defies Masahiro in almost every scene. Lastly, Ridley Scott often used the working class to defy the upper class either for their selfish desires or in the case of Alien, for the greater good of
mankind. Finally, Ridley Scott’s stylistic choices of mise-en-scene and equality views make him an auteur. His extreme lighting techniques along with excessive use of diffusion cannot be ignored as simply another director. Ridley Scott takes control of every aspect of the frame, even exhorting to becoming his own cinematographer for The Duelists. Some critics think that Scott’s films lack stylistic and thematic consistency. Yet, this is simply not true, as his cinematic themes are clearly displayed across all of his films. The antagonist that the American soldiers capture in Somalia sits in a dimly lit room that is very similar to the Japanese men in Black Rain, who smoke cigarettes as they watch Nick at the dimly lit night club. Ridley also has the protagonist smoke cigarettes. In Blade Runner, Deckard and Rachel are constantly lighting up to smoke cigarettes. This intricate stylistic choice is subtle, but it cannot be ignored. Ridley Scott is a master of noticing what is in the frame. He is the painter of the masterpiece that plays in the theater. Ridley Scott uses lighting to masterfully light his films, set design to enhance the theme of the film as well as reflect the characters in the film itself, and he uses characters to break social class and gender stereotypes. Furthermore, Ridley Scott’s stylistic choices eventually made him the auteur he has become today. His use of lighting to create visually stunning cinematic shots as well as setting the thematic mood of the scene or film in it’s entirety are an excellent mark of his work. Ridley Scott is worthy to be deemed an auteur because of his mastery to control every beam of light in a frame, his strong female leads and the use of the working class defying upper class authority, and his use of set design to create and enhance the theme of his films. Like the painter’s that Ridley Scott studied in depth in art school, he too created fantastic new worlds. But unlike the painters, Ridley created these worlds on film rather than canvas. Scott deviated from normal science fiction films as he portrayed the futuristic streets in Blade Runner, to be cluttered and polluted instead of clean and sterile. Although Ridley received criticisms for neglecting his actor as they became washed out in the grandeur of his production design, he argued that the background can be just as important as the actor. His fascination with light is clearly splayed over all of his films as each scene is carefully lit. Ridley uses light to convey the atmosphere of the scene and he uses light to reflect the character’s feelings and desires. Many of Ridley Scott’s frames from his films often resonate in the audience’s minds a long while after viewing the film simply because they are breathtakingly beautiful. Ridley Scott casts strong female leads because he likes strong women. He is not degrading men by doing this, but rather showing men and women that they can be equal if they decide to rise to the hero conduct and integrity standards. Another aspect of Ridley Scott’s directing choice is that he does not make every strong female character a cookie cutter version of each other. Thelma is a very different independent woman than Ripley as an independent woman. Social class stereotypes were also broken in many of Scott’s films. He often portrayed the defiance of authority of the working class to the upper class. Lastly, similar themes and lighting set ups can be concluded from all of Ridley Scott’s films. Furthermore, because of his unique style and attention to detail in set design as well as lighting, Ridley Scott is an auteur.
...t have an ultimate goal to express something they care about on film. They must not only express this in their script, but carry through on it by directing, producing and pulling together many other aspects of the film by themselves. Three filmmakers that fit this description to a “t” are Kevin Smith, Spike Lee and Alfred Hitchcock. These three men all went out with the same goal: To express their views of life in extraordinary films. They all went above and beyond their call of duty and are now ranked among the top filmmakers of history, the rank of film auteurs.
The film “A League of Their Own,” depicts a fictionalized tale of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. This league was started during World War II when many of the Major Leagues Biggest stars were drafted to the war. MLB owners decided to start this league with hopes of making money while the men were overseas fighting. Traditional stereotypes of women in sports were already in force before the league even begins. One of the scouts letts Dottie, one of the films main characters she is the perfect combination of looks as well as talent. The scout even rejects one potential player because she is not as pretty as the league is looking for even though she is a great baseball player. The player, Marla’s father said if she was a boy she would be playing for the Yankee’s. Eventually Mara’s father is able to convince the scout to take Marla to try outs because he raised her on his own after her mother died. Her father says it is his fault his daughter is a tomboy. In this case the film reinforces the traditional stereotype that mothers are in charge of raising their daughters and teaching them to be a lady, where fathers are incapable of raising girls to be anything other than a tomboy. The focus on beauty also reinforces the traditional stereotype that men will only be interested in women’s sports when the females participating in
In 1954 François Truffaut, in ‘Cahiers du Cinéma’, elaborated on this idea further with his essay ‘Les Politique des Auteurs’. He argued that ownership in a film, or the creative voice that drives a movie, is always inextricably linked to the director. As such, when looking at any director’s body of work there will be recurring themes, stylistic trends, and preoccupations that define these movies as belonging solely to the director. Accordingly, there are never “good or bad movies, only good and bad directors”. Greatness in a movie is a measure of originality and vision. Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris, in his Notes on Auteur Theory (1962), refined this concept by applying a visual aid of three concentric circles to help identify an auteur - the outer circle being technique, the middle circle, personal style, and the inner circle, interior
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
In the movie “crash” people from different racial group crash in to each other and at least two of the characters come to recognize how their prejudice and stereotyping is based on their accidental encounter with members of other social groups.
The road movie embodies the human desire for travel and progression. The vehicle of journey is a contemporary metaphor of personal transformation that oftentimes mirrors socio-cultural desires and fears. Thomas Schatz believes that one “cannot consider either the filmmaking process or films themselves in isolation from their economic, technological, and industrial context.” This statement is especially applicable to the independent American films of the late sixties, a time of great political and social debate. Easy Rider (1969) was considered a new voice in film that was pitched against the mainstream. In the 1960s, there was a shift to highlight the outsiders or the anti-heros in film. This counter-cultural radicalism seems to have also influenced the 1991 film, Thelma & Louise. The characters of both films act as figures of anti-heroism by rebelling against the conventional and unintentionally discovering themselves at the same time. Despite their different backgrounds, the protagonists of Eas...
The movie Crash was directed by Paul Haggis is a powerful film that displays how race is still a sociological problem that affects one 's life. It also focuses on how we should not stereotype people based on their color because one may come out wrong in the end. Stereotyping is a major issue that is still happening in today 's society and seems to only be getting worse. This movie is a great way to see the daily life and struggle of other races and see how racism can happen to anyone, not just African Americans which seems to only be seen in the news and such.
Cinematography, if used properly, adds immensely to the action and effects of a film. Thelma and Louise greatly benefited from panning shots, reactions shots, and dissolve. To the untrained eye these effects go completely unnoticed and unappreciated but to those who do appreciate them know that because of cinematography Thelma and Louise is a masterpiece.
The purpose of this paper is to expose some of the stereotypes present in the film The Matrix, directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski. In order to accomplish this we shall see that although The Matrix is considered to be a film about rebellion, it contains several stereotypical portrayals, which actually make it a film that supports the status quo. We shall also see that the African American characters in The Matrix (the Oracle, Tank, Dozer, and Morpheus) are all depicted in the stereotypical servant roles. Furthermore, the women (Trinity and Switch) in this film are portrayed stereotypically; that is, they are either reduced to a caring/nurturing role or they simply help make up the background (they do not have a voice). Finally, Morpheus’ initial power and leadership is stripped away leaving him to play the stereotypical supporting and buddy role.
Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.
While watching movies, have you ever noticed that the villains in almost every single Hollywood film are of Middle Eastern or European descent? In a reoccurring theme of Hollywood, the villains in these films are almost always foreigners or people of color. This is a stereotype. On the other side of the spectrum, we often see that the heroes of these films are most often than not white males. This is another stereotype. Within the last few years, we’ve seen actors such as Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, and Zoe Saldana take the lead roles, so it can’t be said that there are no non-white heroes, but there certainly isn’t many. Hollywood action movies, moreover than other genres, are typically loaded with an abundance of stereotypes. The way these movies are composed and structured can tell us a great deal about the views held within the American psyche and who holds the social power. The harsh reality is that the media ultimately sets the tone for societal standards, moralities, and images of our culture. Many consumers of media have never encountered some of the minorities or people of color shown on screen, so they subsequently depend on the media and wholeheartedly believe that the degrading stereotypes represented on the big screen are based on fact and not fiction. Mary Beltran said it best when she stated in her “Fast and Bilingual: Fast & Furious and the Latinization of Racelessness” article, “ultimately, Fast & Furious mobilizes notions of race in contradictory ways. It reinforces Hollywood traditions of white centrism, reinforcing notions of white male master while also dramatizing the figurative borders crossed daily by culturally competent global youth – both Latino and non-Latino” (77). This paper will specifically look...
The culture and philosophy of Ridley Scott (pp. 231-243. United States: Lexington Books, Inc. Pramaggiore, M., & Wallis, T. (2005). Film: A critical introduction to the film.
(4) Conventional is easy. Whenever an idea is generally perceived by society as standard or traditional it becomes very easy to display to the public without the raise of an eyebrow. This is the basis on which stereotypes appear in films. You’d think in the 21st century where what once were radical notions like same sex marriage and recreational drug use are being legalized that something uncalled for like the constant portrayal of character stereotyping would come to an end. Alas, stereotypical characters continue to emerge in film and unfortunately have become a staple of Hollywood because they’re simple and straightforward, requiring little effort on the part of the writers or thinking from the audience.
...s not limited to just actors, directors also inform our reading of the film as they too are tied to genres. Peter Jackson (the director of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) is commonly associated with fantasy films. The audience can then formulate a basic outline of the film by just using the actors and directors involved, such as expecting a fantasy tale with special effects, heart wrenching moments and ultimately a satisfactory end. In conclusion the undeniable force behind Classical Hollywood cinema is the modes and conventions implemented in making the film. The narrative structure is clearly set and events that take place are motivated. Bordwell states the style of Classical Hollywood cinema to be “excessively obvious” due to its strict following of conventions; it is a form of escapism and as such can provide full entertainment (Thompson, 2008).
“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine, some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.” - David Fincher. David Fincher is the director that I am choosing to homage for a number of reasons. I personally find his movies to be some of the deepest, most well made, and beautiful films in recent memory. However it is Fincher’s take on story telling and filmmaking in general that causes me to admire his films so much. This quote exemplifies that, and is something that I whole-heartedly agree with. I am and have always been extremely opinionated and open about my views on the world and I believe that artists have a responsibility to do what they can with their art to help improve the culture that they are helping to create. In this paper I will try to outline exactly how Fincher creates the masterpieces that he does and what I can take from that and apply to my films.