The movie is set in 1927 and it takes a look at Hollywood’s reaction when the sound was first introduced and used into the film production industry. In the movie, the opening sequence…
An analysis on how Mise-en-scene and sound create meaning and generate response in the film Marnie, by Alfred Hitchcock. The scene is of Mark trying to rekindle Marnie’s memories from the night of her mother’s ‘accident’: Marnie, having seeing Mark trying to hold back her mother’s punches, begins to remember parts from that night.…
The only sound playing is the rapid flapping of the soft black feathers. It feels as though it will never cease. All that is shown is a black, shiny wall of furious birds. It traps viewers and develops a feeling of helplessness. They feel as though they are suffocating from torn feathers cluttering their airways even though their rational side tells them none of it’s real. This is what audience members of the movie, “The Birds”, reported feeling during the immersive experience. Some felt so claustrophobic that they had panic attacks. Cinema: the art of tapping in to an audience’s deepest emotions and using it to provoke a specific sensation. Few are able to master this fine art, however, “The Birds” by Hitchcock is a perfect example of a…
It is 1927 and Monumental Pictures’ actors, Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont are the greatest silent-film stars of their generation – all the fans flock to see their films and read about their budding romance in the fan magazines. The truth behind the glamorous “Lockwood and Lamont” façade, however, is a burnt-out actor and an oblivious actress with a squeaky voice. Their world is turned upside down, and their fame threatened, when the talkies, or movies that record sound, take over Hollywood. The grand and gentile persona of Lockwood and Lamont is endangered when Lina speaks on screen and reveals her true and rather unappealing nature. Enter Kathy, an up-and-coming actress who has caught Monumental Pictures’ – and Don Lockwood’s – eye. She has a beautiful voice and secretly dubs over Lina’s voice for the final cut of the first Lockwood and Lamont Talkie. When Lina finds out that Kathy has not only been dubbing her voice, but also kissing Don, she uses all her power as a big star to ruin Kathy’s career. Will Monumental Pictures stand up to Lina’s fury or will the pressure to produce “what the public wants” crush the love between Don and Kathy? Will “Hurricane Lina” wash away the love between Don and Kathy, or can they toss off their umbrellas and go Singin’ in the Rain?…
sounds entail voices of characters, sounds from objects in the scenes or music portrayed to…
In films, every genre has its iconic sound. Be it the thrillers’ “dun-dun-dun”, announcing the impending arrival of the Great White from Jaws or the sound of tumbling boulders from the Raiders Of The Lost Ark, flooding the bodies of adventure-loving movie-goers with adrenaline. Horror films pay their tribute to the classic razor sharp, etching noise of strings from the movie Psycho, causing the immediate rise of dread and suspension. The director-composer duo responsible for the acclaimed “all-time best horror film” Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann, had previously worked on many films together, already having a close professional relationship, making it easier for the two create a movie that was the product of both their visions. When Psycho was released in 1960, it defied every pillar of a typical Hollywood movie, stunning the public…
One of the most influential film movements in the 1940's was a genre that is known today as film noir. Film noir was a recognizable style of filmmaking, which was created in response to the rising cost of typical Hollywood movies (Buss 67). Film noir movies were often low budget films; they used on location shoots, small casts, and black and white film. The use of black and white film stock not only lowered production costs, but also displayed a out of place disposition that the conventions of film noir played upon. It is these conventions: themes, characters, lighting, sound, and composition, which are seen in the movie LA Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997). This paper discusses the techniques used in LA Confidential that link the movie with the typical cinematic conventions of the film noir style.…
10) How does Soderbergh use sound (both diegetic and non‐diegetic – especially music) to enhance the film?…
Movies have long been known to create a portal through which its viewers can transcend through their own realities and experience the unimaginable. The visual, sounds, and narrative of great movies immediately attract the focus of its audience as they move into a trance for those 1-2 hours of screen time. While many great movies introduce their audiences to varying experiences that heighten their senses and grasp their focus, some measure of relatability is necessary to connect with audiences. Such concepts of implementing elements of realism into the various facets of a film help establish a relevant connection, through which audiences can relate. However during the Hollywood Classical era, introducing such techniques of intensifying realism in movies was often unconventional and not an achievable goal for directors and cinematographers. The techniques required to implement such elements were either not well known or plausible. There were some movies during this era that did defy such tendencies and broke barriers in terms of delivering a movie that differentiated through such concepts like realism. Two famous films that have utilized certain techniques in creating an intensified form of realism in their own ways are Citizen Kane, by Orson Welles, and Double Indemnity, by Billy Wilder.…
In Citizen Kane, Welles once in a while foregoes altering for the long take; on the other hand, he additionally embraces altering procedures from Hollywood, such as the shot-reverse shot technique. Obviously, Welles gives the breakfast scene his own specific touch, giving a montage arrangement chronicling the breakdown of a relationship. He additionally uses stun cuts, as in the presentation of the News on the March grouping or the slice to a screeching cockatoo later in the film. Sound assumes an awesome part in film. Sound in the silver screen is of three sorts: speech, music, and noise. This sound can be either diegetic or non-diegetic. A decent approach to consider this qualification is as far as what the characters in the film can listen.…
Your goal in this paper is to compare and contrast some element of two films made by the two most famous silent film actor/directors (although Harold Lloyd has been gaining ground on both in recent years), Buster Keaton’s The General and Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, and to make some kind of evaluative judgment regarding them. Note that you need not — and probably should not — claim one film is better than the other; it is a much easier task to argue that one film does something in particular better than the other. Even saying one film is “funnier” is not the best approach because they employ different kinds of comedy. As always, a specific and well thought-out thesis is key to an effective essay.…
In Sam Mendes’ American Beauty, sound is an crucial tool in communicating narrative and constructing characters. Although many films use both diagetic and non-diagetic sound in their productions, American Beauty amalgamates both forms of sound throughout the film.…
The implication here is that these problems are able to cause the viewer’s attention to cast away or get bewildered. It might be said that the primitiveness is due to the fact that the medium of film was only in its birth stage. But the problem with this, in my view, is because of the state of art of silent films. Originally, the medium of movies was started out from the stage of the theatre, taking over its theatrical model and techniques. As any viewer could notice, actors display large dramatic movements and gestures to express their excitement, wonder, and dismay. Professor at UCLA, Peter Reiher agrees when he writes “Theater at the turn of the century was solidly melodramatic, with acting that would be laughed off the stage, today.” Indeed, those who watched the film can recognize several similarities between the film and the theatre plays, from the significantly expressive acting to static camera, and to staging of mise-en-scene. For instance, let’s just remember how the audience reacts when Dr. Caligari proudly presents his creation, somnambulist Cesare, at the village fair. Also, modern viewers, undoubtedly, do not find silent movies easy to watch. The complete numbness of sound in the scenes may cause inattention for film-goers who watches immensely immersible movies with blaring sound…
"Lights! Camera! Action!" the dramatic yet traditional prompt associated with Hollywood and the pictures. Hollywood appears to be this extraordinary glamorous world; however, in reality is it? Many people dream of being in the limelight of Hollywood; where there is an endless amount of money, power, and fame. Society fails to examine what's behind fame; the dark, twisted, and the ugly truths hiding within those exact words. Billy Wilder explores and divulges the dark yet unknown, harsh realities of fame, following Hollywood's transition from silent pictures to talkies; with his film Sunset Boulevard.…
Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator is a film new to the era of “talkies” and, in it’s early scenes focuses on very physical, present aspects of mise-en-scene, almost completely doing away with non-diagetic sound. The film grows throughout it’s full 124 minute run, having been filmed over several years and seemingly developing it’s delving into use of sound similarly, but in it’s early scenes The Great Dictator is permeated with an almost silence to it, with very utilitarian sound usage, only breaking away from the realism when emphasizing a joke. Sound is not completely absent, but beyond sound directly affiliated with actions taking place, visibly, on screen, there is little to no audio. This lack of excess sound in the early scenes of The Great Dictator show how Chaplin was still getting into the swing of “talkies” while producing the film, as later scenes would grow to embrace sound, especially of the non-diagetic variety.…