Fear Eats the Soul is a German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder , starring Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem. It is certainly a movie ahead of its time in portraying inter-racial marriages and the complex reality of living in a foreign country. The 1955 movie All That Heaven Allows My was the real inspiration towards the making of Angst essen Seele auf , both projecting a struggling love between an widow and a younger man. Yet, Fear Eats the Soul embarks on a much more complex and a bit disturbing tale. My main concern is to judge whether the movie be shelved aside and remembered as a part of the classical overused romantic genre or whether there where hidden ideas , messages and a much deeper and emotional plot that makes it well deserving of the Cannes awards . We shall explore the levels of romance that the couple goes through and the shrewd and harsh realities the director tries to portray. The movie does start off with a romantic twist. A typical love-at-first sight monologue ;yet, the conditions on which this love blooms is quite interesting to see. The 1970’s is know for its sexual mores revolution and Fassbinder does portray the lust for a youthful partner that consequently evolves into a greater romance which ,thus, drains into stress and angst. Most movies of that time portray the much older male having a relationship with the younger more attractive female; this movie does quite the opposite. It is Emmi (Mira) the older unattractive female that falls for the younger rugged male Ali (Salem). Fassbinder disregards the tradition of having attractive young lead actresses and directed the 60-year old Emmi with much emotion and believably that viewers would believe Brigitte Mira was born for this role. ... ... middle of paper ... ...a while. Yet , the nostalgic feeling of returning to the bar and dancing the way they first met softened their hearts. Even though the scene was not very long, Fassbinder tends to remind viewers -from time to time- with such small scenes on how passionate is Ali and Emmi’s romance in all its levels. A new level of romance emerged involving loyalty , trust and sacrifice at the last scenes when Ali collapsed. We bleive the romance is not the cheesy,operatic type of romance. The film managed to win 2 cannes awards with very liitle budget and a two-week shooting time. This movie is perhaps Fassbinder most orginal movie. Works Cited http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071141/usercomments http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXLfQybNNlM&feature=related http://www.squidoo.com/Top100ForeignFilms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_That_Heaven_Allows
November 1998, written for FILM 220: Aspects of Criticism. This is a 24-week course for second-year students, examining methods of critical analysis, interpretation and evaluation. The final assignment was simply to write a 1000-word critical essay on a film seen in class during the final six-weeks of the course. Students were expected to draw on concepts they had studied over the length of the course.
It is my intention to compare the book, Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, to its modern movie version, Cruel Intentions starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. I intend to examine how the original French text was modified in reference to plot, character, morals/values, and themes. I also plan to discuss how these transformations change the meaning of the story and reflect different cultural/historical contexts. There are some major differences between these two works, if only because of when they were written.
Nicholas Ray's films frequently address a competition between a 'father' and 'son' (whether literal or figurative filial relationship). More importantly, Ray has an ideological approach to these struggles. In his films, homosocial struggles are always supplanted by Ray's desired outcome of an idealized heterosexual coupling. That is, the threat of prolonged homosocial desire between his characters is usually eradicated by the death of one of the dueling men. The deus ex machina nature of the deaths implies that the resulting heterosexual coupling is somehow the way things "ought to be". In Bitter Victory and The Lusty Men, the women are clearly the people over whom the men fight in their struggle to establish a 'home' or security (with that woman). In Rebel Without a Cause, however, the male-male-female love triangle is complicated by the on-screen presence of a nuclear family that effectively literalizes Freud's Oedipal conflict.
The film Children of Men tells the tell of a woman named Kee who becomes pregnant in a world where no woman has been fertile in over eighteen years. The world is in a dystopia state because of war, decease, and famine. A man by the name of Theon Faron helps Kee and her baby, whose name is Dylan, to safety. There are many different elements that make up this film 's true essence. From its theme to the genre all these components give the film its integrity, including religion which plays an underlying role throughout. These pieces that construct this great film can be evaluated more deeply. This paper will further analysis the theme, and genre in the film Children of Men.
Canadian filmmaker and cinephile, Guy Maddin once said, “I do feel a bit like Dracula in Winnipeg. I’m safe, but can travel abroad and suck up all sorts of ideas from other filmmakers… Then I can come back here and hoard these tropes and cinematic devices.” Here, Maddin addresses his filmmaking saying that he takes aspects from different film styles and appropriates them into his own work. In The Saddest Music in the World (2003), Maddin uses a combination of French Surrealist filmmaking and classical American Hollywood cinema, specifically melodrama, to create his own style. In an article by William Beard, Steven Shaviro talks about Maddin’s filmmaking, and he links Surrealism and melodrama together saying, “Maddin’s films are driven by a tension between romantic excess [melodrama] on the one hand and absurdist humour [Surrealism] on the other.” In regards to The Saddest Music in the World, the relationship between Surrealism and melodrama is not one of tension, as Shaviro suggests, but one of cooperation. This paper will analyze two films by filmmakers Maddin was familiar with —Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali on the Surrealist side, and All That Heaven Allows (1955) by Douglas Sirk on the melodrama side—to showcase the important elements of each, concluding with an analysis of The Saddest Music in the World in conjunction with both film styles. Ultimately, it will be shown how Guy Maddin combines French Surrealist cinema and Hollywood melodrama in The Saddest Music in the World, to create his own unique film style.
The reimagined scene is similar to Act II Scene I from Much Ado in that a deception by one of the characters plays a role in bringing a couple together. This brings out various issues around courtship such as the uncertainty that people have and the question of trust. Similar to Much Ado, the scene sees love prevailing and the whole process of courtship ending in happiness for all.
Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Bastards entails a Jewish revenge fantasy that is told through a counterfactual history of events in World War II. However, this story follows a completely different plot than what we are currently familiar with. Within these circumstances, audiences now question the very ideas and arguments that are often associated with World War II. We believe that Inglourious Basterds is a Jewish revenge fantasy that forces us to rethink our previous understandings by disrupting the viewers sense of content and nature in the history of World War II. Within this thesis, this paper will cover the Jewish lens vs. American lens, counter-plots within the film, ignored social undercurrents, and the idea that nobody wins in war.
Perhaps an even stronger testament to the deepness of cinema is Darren Aronofsky’s stark, somber Requiem for a Dream. Centering on the drug-induced debasement of four individuals searching for the abstract concept known as happiness, Requiem for a Dream brims with verisimilitude and intensity. The picture’s harrowing depiction of the characters’ precipitous fall into the abyss has, in turn, fascinated and appalled, yet its frank, uncompromising approach leaves an indelible imprint in the minds of young and old alike.
In conclusion, I liked this movie because it showed women of very different backgrounds coming together, accepting each other, and becoming close friends during a crisis moment. In reality of today’s society, I saw that women are jealous against each other instead of working together. This movie shows the joy of overcoming differences and forming bonds with diverse women. In a very simple term, the director reminds us of the unique book of life that we each have. The other message is how the older are separate from society, because of their limitations and age. The older ladies in this movie shows us and other older people how to bloom again, and relive. In this movie they share their life, their tales, and their lessons from the past with us to change our typical mentality about older people.
...the story. It gives us no insight on why the characters were put in this position and why they would even end up being together if they know there will be no happy end. I don’t think it is a movie about love, just a slice of the lives of the two as it happens during that period. Ben is an alcoholic and because of the amount he is drinking, he can not be fully aware of his actions and decisions about what is going on around him. Sera is just a prostitute that loves having control over her clients and has gone through a lot of abuse and out of desperation takes in any guy that treats her humanely. In return for Ben’s loving, Sera slips in the role of the prostitute at the end when she pours liquor over her breasts and lets Ben lick it off fulfilling his greatest fantasy. The story is very slow at times and is not suitable for every audience. For some, it may be too vulgar, for others just too boring, but I believe Figgis and both actors did remarkable jobs. The story is obviously not meant to entertain or to be the typical Hollywood romance drama, but to show Sera and Ben’s relationship leading to isolation, anxiety and self-destruction because life does not always have a happy end.
...alistic romance place the speaker and his love in their own realistic fit. Although he can list the lover’s shortfalls, he able to show that he lacks her good traits. Despite that fact that he is stellar, he needs her to complete himself and to shine. Collin’s paints the image of man without much stability who is perfectly matched with woman who, ignoring other standards, completes and compliments him. Moreover, Collins manages to describe from some angles a romance in the absence of a rhyming scheme. In its place, Collins entertains he reader with a comical, light-hearted, puzzle. The speaker goes against society’s generalization. His lover isn’t describe as great beauty or on par with him, yet he loves for who and what she is.
Unlike any other movie, Gasper Noe’s Irreversible (2002), with his own unusual but unique way of telling a story, shows how violence roots from love, how pain roots from pleasure, how imagination roots from reality and how death roots from life. This movie focuses Marcus and Pierre’s battle with the illusion of justice to avenge Marcus’ girlfriend, Alex, from her atrocious fate. And beginning this with the ending, Gasper Noe has created not just a realistic and powerful movie but has explained, as well, what it means
Lars von Trier is undoubtedly a polarizing filmmaker. His repertoire invokes a range of emotions from earnest avoidance to curious infatuation. He’s been pointed out as a purveyor of misogyny as he famously and deliberately places many of his females in rather unkind situations to say the least (i.e. the brain-searing climax in Antichrist). And his penchant to depict the uncomfortable and sometimes unfathomable has been interpreted as obscene and sensationalist for its own sake. And yet his work continues to prevail, standing on its own, whole and unapologetic.
I’ve seen a lot of films, and with a lot of different genres. But I don’t think that romantic films are pretty good. They are too boring. The good films are action or comedy films, but the best films are action and com-edy films mixed together. That’s why I’ve chosen the film Taxi 2. It’s a French produced film, with a lot of action and comedy. It’s a pretty new film, and I saw it in the cinema last month. I’ve looked very much forward to see that film, because Taxi was very good too. It took only 5 weeks to get 10 mil-lion Frenchmen into the cinema. Just for watching Taxi 2.
The strength of character of our two protagonists is crucial to their status as an almost ideal couple. The stark contrasts set up between them and the secondary characters, especially the contrast between Fainall and Mirabell, allow Mirabell and Millamant's individual characters and the ensuing relationship to hold that much more merit in the eyes of the audience. At first glance, Fainall and Mirabell appear to be similar, ...