Films are usually developed for several reasons. Most film writers and directors come up with films that present or represent certain thematic and topical issues that they have in mind. These issues may be meant for entertainment purpose as well as educative purposes. It is essential to note that films usually carry societal connotations (Guynn 127). They depict the desires and pains of people within the society. They capture lifestyles, cultures, and political issues, social and economic issues among others. Cinematic and narrative elements of movies together with other stylistic devices help to bring out the intended meaning or outcome. Modern filmmakers have creatively used various aspects that show events that depict historical growth of particular nations. These films show the reasons why certain historical aspects have faded away or have remained and why they hold particular importance to those nations. Au Revoir les Enfantes also known as Goodbye Children is about a French boarding school that is under the administration of priests (Everett 49). The school seems to be a place of protection where people enjoyed peace and harmony until a new student gets into the school. The new student was allocated a room, which he could share with a student who was top in his class. Despite the fact that they became rivals at their first contact, they later form an inseparable bond linked by a shared secret. They became friends one night when they got lost in the woods and are rescued by German soldiers. The soldiers wrapped them in blankets and drove them back to school. The film was written and directed by Louis Malle. It was produced in the year 1987 (Everett 49). The movie is based on an event that happened in January 1944. Louis... ... middle of paper ... ...pened in particular countries. They achieve this through cinematic and narrative conventions. They depict class struggles in these historical periods. The films are used as representative of national cinematic history, such as Rossellini and Vittorio being used as representative of Italian neo-realists. Autobiographical elements have also been used to authenticate the thematic development of the films. Louis Malle used his autobiographical elements to influence the themes of Au Revoir les Enfantes. They represent a realistic version of the fiction film. Therefore, the above films clearly show that films can be important aspects when studying the historical information of particular nations. This is because the films can be used to pass information from one generation to another. Therefore, they are essential tools in the representation of historical information.
Furthermore, the weather illustrated within the scene, is of a lifeless and malicious coldness. Resulting in a tense, hopeless, and somber mood, that creates and eery silence, that consumes the very little light and hope within each man, women, and child's soul. Meanwhile, Jean and 3 other boys walk sullenly and imprisoned , as if each step brings them closer to valley of death, and Jean and Julien pear unemotionally into each other's eyes, knowing it would be the last shared moment between them. However they did not share a single word, because no word could tangibly express, calm, or change the situation, all they could do was look at each other with the deepest of friendship in their eyes, and dream that someday light would liberate their spirits. Lastly, as the viewer of this memorable film, I must say it profoundly impacted and provoked emotional responses within me. It left me with a saturated feeling of hopelessness, and gloominess; that I struggled to ponder and empathize with, which in my humble opinion is the rarest and most sought after imprint, a writer could want a viewer to feel. Because unlike most tragic films, Au Revoir les Enfants successfully transferred the feeling of the characters and of the writer, to the
Film is an important source. There are hundreds of movies made during the course of a year. A lot of themes are explored and conclusions are drawn. History is a major subject in film,
Every film can be related back to socially significant issues that occurred during the time it was released. It’s a snapshot of the issues during that time period. Film is not created in a vacuum. As described in our textbook, film “Conveys “the temper of an age of a nation” as well as that of the artists who produces it” (Belton 22). Films tend to reflect current society, country ideals or beliefs in order for the audience to relate. Some of those techniques used include, the American dream, family, corruption, divorce, and crime. If a director decides not include current social issues than it becomes harder for an audience to relate to the film because they will not be able to connect to the characters and get into their shoes. One film that encompasses all of these current social issues is American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013). This film is a melodrama because of the context and social issues this film deals with. American Hustle has a social significance to today’s current culture, society, beliefs and social issues through the use of the American dream, corruption, divorce, crime and family.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
Many devices such as theme, subject and meaning reflect different aspects of a film. The time and place that the movie is made are usually affected but this.
Often times people neglect the fact that the things- such as films- that they see and hear day to day can actually be worthwhile in teaching them. They come into contact with them purely for the purpose of being entertained and, sometimes, do not even realize that they are being taught valuable life lessons in the process. In conjunction with this theory, Professor Michael Taylor once said, “We don’t often think of the value of media beyond its entertainment, but there is a whole area that has to do with education through entertainment. As filmmakers, the work that we do has a huge impact on our culture. With that comes an opportunity, and may be even a responsibility, to use that impact for greater good.” Many French and Francophone films
Since the creation of films, their main goal was to appeal to mass audiences. However, once, the viewer looks past the appearance of films, the viewer realizes that the all-important purpose of films is to serve as a bridge connecting countries, cultures, and languages. This is because if you compare any two films that are from a foreign country or spoken in another language, there is the possibility of a connection between the two because of the fact that they have a universally understanding or interpretation. This is true for the French New Wave films; Contempt and Breathless directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and contemporary Indian films; Earth and Water directed by Deepa Mehta. All four films portray an individual’s role in society using sound and editing.
The Italian Neo-Realist movement began to emerge with the fall of Mussolini's Fascist regime in 1943 and was able to entirely establish itself with the end of World War II with the end of German occupation. This caused audiences all around the globe to be “suddenly introduced to Italian films” (Historical Origins of Italian Neo-realism, n.d.) through works by “Roberto Rossellini (1906–1977), Vittorio De Sica (1902–1974), and Luchino Visconti (1906–1976)” (Historical Origins of Italian Neo-realism, n.d.). With the oppressive shackles of fascist censorship now gone, Italian directors began to pursue a new style of cinematic realism. A style which combined the realist cinema and German expressionism that was already present during the fascist era but combining it with new unexplored topics such as social, political and economic issues that the regime would simply not of tolerated. As a result neo-realist cinema often took a critical approach to how it viewed Italian society and culture and tended to focus attention towards the social issues the country was facing. With directors often looking at the effects of the “resistance, post-war poverty and chronic unemployment” (Historical Origins of Italian Neo-realism, n.d.). Neo-realism for many Italian’s allowed them to “put an image to the resistance” (Ratner, n.d.) which before the emergence of neo-realist cinema had seen little to n...
made in. Some incorporate them into the plot, some use them as allegories, and some satirize them.” Without an influence or connection to relate with the audience, the film would have no dimension. When seeing a movie, viewers are always going to search for an underlying meaning or message that could connect to their lives today. Although most
According to historians like Neil Burch, the primitive period of the film industry, at the turn of the 20th century was making films that appealed to their audiences due to the simple story. A non-fiction narrative, single shots a burgeoning sense
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
Nevertheless Italian NeoRealism was essential to Italy’s film industry at the time the war ended and while Europe was recovering from the war. Its impact on modern film has been monumental, not only in Italian film but also on French New Wave cinema, and ultimately on films all over the world.
Film was meant to show the traditions and customs of specific cultures to the rest of the world. However, because of Hollywood's need for a large market to sell a movie ...
Many people don’t think about it so much, but movies (or just film in general) have become such a big part of our lives that we don’t think much of it because it just feels like a usual part of living. But have you ever wondered why this is, and how far back film started? Movies and film have been around for a long time, have developed in big ways throughout time, and has advanced in such a big and new way to this day.
‘Then came the films’; writes the German cultural theorist Walter Benjamin, evoking the arrival of a powerful new art form at the end of 19th century. By this statement, he tried to explain that films were not just another visual medium, but it has a clear differentiation from all previous mediums of visual culture.