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On the waterfront movie review essay
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On the Waterfront directed by Elia Kazan about a man that once felt he owed something to the mob and now he wants to control his life. This film is a classic mobster movie that is well known for the filming techniques used whilst shooting. The method acting, the lighting, and the camera angles establish the plot. Stella Adler taught her student, Elia Kazan, the principles of method acting. The method created by a Russian director, Konstantin Stanislavsky, has actors become the character and have that character live their daily life (Barsam, 286). On the Waterfront is known for its method actors, Marlon Brando became Terry Malloy. The scene where Edie drops her glove was an accident, but Brando picked the glove up and continued as if he were directed to pick up and put on the glove. Another example of method acting is the scene where Terry’s brother, Charlie, pulls a gun out on Terry, but Brando pushes the gun away shocking Charlie since that was not meant to happen. Marlon Brando brought Terry Malloy to life throughout the film due to his method acting. …show more content…
A soft light can establish innocence or youth in a character, and a hard light can establish the evil in a character (Barsam, 222-24). During the bar scene with Terry and Edie, Edie has a softer light that symbolizes her innocence. Edie has been sheltered from the trouble in her town; therefore she is not aware that Terry is in the gang that killed her brother. The main mob boss is often shot with a harsher light. The boss is older and he is pure evil, he is not afraid to kill Terry for ratting him out to the police. The overall film is shot in a hard or high-contrast lighting that features deep shadows (Barsam, 223). The shadows increase the film’s drama and dark style. The overall lighting connects the setting with the plot and allows the audience to feel a certain way about a
Marlon Brando superbly portrays the character of Terry Malloy. He is a young ex-prize fighter, now a dock worker given easy jobs because his brother is the right-hand man of the corrupt union boss Johnny Friendly. After Terry unwittingly allows himself to be used in setting up a man’s death, he starts to question the basic assumptions if his life. This includes his loyalty to his brother and Johnny, who after all ordered him to take a dive in his big fight at Madison Square Garden.
The lighting in "The Godfather," is very dim and is often said to be compared with a Rembrant. The lighting suggest many things throughout the film like a painting. The light scenes in the movie are to portray the Corleone family as good people, someone you could relate to not look down upon. Such as the wedding scene. The scene is very happy and bright, to make you start off to think that the Corleone’s are loving family, and family minded people. The dim light in the film is used to induce fear and death. Such as the scene where Don Corleone gets shot, or when Mike is going to kill the two people in the restaurant. The scene that contradicts the lighting theory is the heart attack of Don Corleone, but it could be look at as a happy time, a time of rebirth, Michael’s coming into power.
...y. These factors, coupled with the incorporation of the heart-melting cheekbones of ‘Marlon Brando’ at his prime are more likely to have screamed ‘power’ in the eyes of a 1950’s audience, let alone the viewer of today. Also, the fact that ‘On the Waterfront’ mirrors Elia Kazan’s real-life decision to testify to the HUAC magnifies its validity to human nature and overall potency.
Seabiscuit is a movie about struggles, grief and second chances. The movie begins with a teenager that is great with horses. His wealthy parents give him up for someone else when the great depression struck. Leaving him angry at the world and become a drunk and a fighter. On another part of the story, a man starts a business on repairing bikes when he left from a company that assembles bikes. One day, a man arrives with a broken car, he asks if the man, Howard, could fix his car. Howard begins to take apart the car and reassemble it, making it better. It was then that he got the idea of assembling and selling cars. When he had a family and a son, he teaches him how to drive. The son drove off, got hit by a car and died. This left a scar on him. Howard takes a risk and buys a horse that is seen as a failure. When he looks around, he sees a boy that is disturbed as much as the horse and hires him as a jockey. That was when seabiscuit started winning. When Howard became confident, he wanted a one on one race with the Admiral, a race horse of a millionaire from the East.Seabiscuit wins
The film On the Waterfront directed by Elia Kazan set in the 1950's and based on a true story follows Terry, an ex-boxer surrounded by a cruel world full of greed and corruption who turns longshoreman. It is Terrys difficult choice as to where his loyalty lies and whether he is to stand up against his brutal boss Johnny Friendly or stay 'Deaf and Dumb' a code the people of the waterfront live by. Throughout the film Terrys views change because of the different people who influence him, but by the end of the film his loyalty lies elsewhere to where it began. At the beginning of the film Terry feels obliged to have respect and loyalty towards Johnny Friendly and his brother because they are family, with Friendly acting as the father figure he
The lighting and sound help tell the message to the audience in many different ways. By putting a spot light on the old man it told the audience that he was about to speak. Also when the old man was talking about the picture on the wall of Barbara Mandrell, the light tha...
The movie I decided to analyze for this course was American History X (1998), which stars Edward Norton. Though this movie isn’t widely known, it is one of the more interesting movies I have seen. It’s probably one of the best films that depict the Neo Nazi plague on American culture. The film takes place from the mid to late 1990’s during the Internet boom, and touches on subjects from affirmative action to Rodney King. One of the highlights of this movie that really relates to one of the key aspects of this course is the deterrence of capital punishment. Edward Norton’s portrayal as the grief stricken older brother who turns to racist ideologies and violence to cope with his fathers death, completely disregards the consequences of his actions as he brutally murders someone in front of his family for trying to steal his car. The unstable mentality that he developed after his father’s death really goes hand-to-hand specifically with Isaac Ehrlich’s study of capital punishment and deterrence. Although this movie is entirely fictional, a lot of the central themes (racism, crime punishment, gang pervasiveness, and one’s own vulnerability) are accurate representations of the very problems that essentially afflict us as a society.
...without being too open-ended or, as Stanislavski’s Method Acting turned out to be, dangerous. Chekhov’s theories have been integrated into the acting styles of so many distinguished, beloved actors and actresses that it seems reasonable to say that his technique is a healthy, valuable tool that every aspiring young artist should take advantage of in their own practice and performance. His overall goal seems to have been to free the actor, not hinder them. The real challenge is allowing ourselves, as actors, to be free to experiment and learn. In his book, Chekhov said, “Discover the differences between the character and yourself. The similarities will take care of themselves.” If an actor truly believes this, then they will make conscious decisions, resulting in a compelling, unique, and informed performance that is worthy of the character they are portraying.
Throughout the scene it goes from night time to day time, which is represented through the window. The lighting perceived through the window indicates that Oscars’ family and friends waited in the hospital from that night to the next morning to find out if he would pull through from tragic incident. Lighting plays a major role on the effect a scene can have on its viewers. For instance, bright lighting would represent happiness within character. In this case, for this scene, the lighting is very dim causing a gloomy, drowsy saddening effect. Soft lighting also plays a role in this scene to contribute to that effect because its focus is only one thing, whomever the main emotion is coming
During the scene where Rick was reflecting on his memories of Ilda, the usage of low-key lighting displayed Rick’s emotions without having to describe it with dialogue. With having little light in the frame symbolizes to the viewer that Rick is having feelings of sadness with from the light reflecting on his forehead showing his furrowed brow, and that he is staring at his drink to forget what is bothering him. The low-key lighting is to represent sorrow and sadness, whereas high-key lighting is to represent happiness and hope which the film also displays. Another scene that used low-key lighting was the confrontation Rick and Ilda had where Rick insults her. In the scene, it is very dark and has many shadows to represent the internal sadness he still feels towards her when she left him in Paris. The flashback screen involving Rick and Ilda implements high-key lighting symbolizing to viewers to a time where Rick was his happiest because he was with the love of his life. The scene itself is the two planning out their future together, and with the lighting of the scene highlighting them both lets the viewer feel a sense of hope that their relationship will work out at the end of the movie. Not only did the director implement lighting style towards the main characters, but also implemented for minor
He built directorially-unified aesthetic and ensemble playing of the Meiningen company and the naturalistic staging of Antoine and the independent theatre movement. Promotions and developments by acting teachers who were former student and many different translations of his theoretical writings, his “system” has acquired an unprecedented ability to cross cultural boundaries. Many of the precepts of his system seem to be common sense and self-evident testifies to its success. He was also the grandfather of American “method” acting, whose had disciples ranged from Marlon Brando to Marilyn
Light in the story symbolizes Rainsford lightside because when General Zaroff talks about killing men and Rainsford tries to tell Zaroff that killing people is wrong. It also symbolizes Rainsfords way of looking on the light side of things and Zaroff looks on the dark side of things. And how dark symbolizes General Zaroff is how he has a dark side and a dark mind and what I mean is he thinks about killing people. And he also thinks dark is how if someone does something they should be killed or punished. So that is how light and dark symbolizes Zaroff and Rainsford.
However, there are still many actors who utilize techniques other than classical acting to achieve their results on-screen or -stage, and many of those actors are method actors. Method acting is a style of acting that encourages emotionally sincere performances. Though it sounds similar to ‘The Method,’ developed by Stanislavski, and while it does originally derive from that same system, method acting was popularized by teachers Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sanford Meisner. The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute described method acting as “the (re)experiencing of life by the actor within the fiction of the story as if it were true and happening now.” This means that instead of the actor creating the character as if it is fictional,
When Briony witnesses her sister Cecilia and Robbie making love in the library, half of her face is shadowed by darkness, contrasting the other half which is illuminated by light. This is hugely symbolic of her perception of the situation as she can only see half of what has happened, causing her to misinterpret the situation. Similarly, when she discovers Lola being attacked, the torch blinds her, and she is momentarily thrown into light and then darkness. As she sees what is in front of her, glare from the torch fills the screen, making Briony fade, representing sight and how it can hinder one’s understanding rather than enlighten it. Moreover, light is also used when Briony attends Lola and Paul Marshall’s wedding. As Briony stares up into the church ceiling, light falls upon her, signifying a sudden epiphany as she realises Paul Marshall was guilty of Lola’s rape. Here, light represents knowledge and understanding. This is further enforced when the detective asks Briony “did you see or do you know?” in a dimly lit room where the absence of light symbolises Briony’s lack of knowledge about the incident. Briony then repeats the phrase “I saw him, yes, I saw him, I saw him with my own eyes”. This further suggests that Briony is lying, and also warns the audience that perhaps all is not as it appears. Wright
In The Graduate (1967), director Mike Nichols tells a story about a high strung young man named Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) who is seduced by his parents friend Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) and later falls in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross). Benjamin spends the rest of his time chasing after Elaine trying to convince her to marry him – despite the fact, Elaine’s family has fallen apart after the affair was exposed. During the creation of this formalistic film, the director uses very interesting mise-en-scene, in particular, the aspects of movement.