Dry your eyes, Baby…

After hearing some opinions on Little Women, I was curious to search and find more opinions, perhaps some with negative thoughts. I could hardly find negative remarks concerning the novel. My faveorite quote was by book critic Madeline Bedell. Se said that the novel is “The American female myth.”

At first, I didn’t agree whole heartedly. I have no sisters, my father was never in a war, etc., so upon first starting the novel I felt that I wouldn’t connect like all of the critics seem to have connected with this novel. However, Alcott was able to add so many things to the novel that it is so difficult to not relate to one of them – especially as a female. Like many, I see myself in Jo. I have actually done many of the things Jo does in the novel, straight down to her love of writing. Now I fear that I will push away my childhood love for an intellectual type – a decision Jo makes that I whole-heartedly wish she did not make.

I haven’t seen the Hepburn version of Little Women yet, so I look forward to it!

This is one of my favorite scenes from Miller’s Crossing. The Cohen Brothers have beautiful filming style, and this short clip captures a lot of it. The scene fades into a shot of the woods – barren, overgrown, not much sky can be seen. Obviously a setting for a place of death. We see the car drive into view and then we cut to a shot of the front of car and as the men step out of the vehicle. As they step out of the car they are filling in the gap of the long stretch of road behind them – a signifier that someone’s getting out of this alive (or perhaps someone will soon be walking back). The three men in the back get out of the car and we cut to a medium shot. As Bernie falls to the ground the camera tilts to follow him. Cuts continue – back and forth from Tom then Bernie. Then the woods scene begins at 1:11. The camera tracks to follow Tom and Bernie as they begin to walk into the woods. It then dissolves into a medium shot of the front of Tom – still tracking. Then again from behind, this time we see both of them. Then a cut to a front view of them both. We cut again to a shot from behind them as Bernie begins his “Look into your heart!” speech. As a side note, John Turrturo’s delivery of this speech is fabulous. Especially at the end when he gets that sly look on his face after Tommy decides not to whack him. Priceless. Now continuing with the camera work…the cuts and tracking from front and back continue until 2:37 when we cut to a long shot of Bernie on his knees pleading to overpowering Tommy. Note the landscape. Tall trees – those still standing. Here we see Tom standing over Bernie. The season is fall – note the dead leaves on the ground – also note Bernie on the ground with the fallen leaves. So, Bernie begs and pleads for awhile until he is set free. At 4:32 is my favorite moment in this short clip. We see Tommy standing all alone in the woods until the screen dissolves into a shot of the long road, the car and the two gangsters. The two gangsters replace Tommy in the shot – simply beautiful.

Miller’s Crossing immediately states the three themes present: friendship, character, ethics.

Friendship – the quality or condition of being friends: good will. Character – qualities of honesty, courage, or the like; integrity. Ethics – system of moral principles: ethics of a particular culture. Not only are these three themes explored in the film, they are torn apart for everything they’re worth.

Friendship barely exists in the film, atleast on a personal level. Hell, according to everyone, lots of the characters are “friends.” But, dialogue early in the movie can show what friendship really is in Miller’s Crossing.

TOM: Hello Bernie BERNIE: Hey Tom. How’d you now it was me? TOM: You’re the only I know who’d knock and then break in. BERNIE: You’re other friends wouldn’t break in, huh? TOM: My other friends want to kill me so they wouldn’t’ve knocked.

Character is hard to find. How shall one describe character in the film? Through honesty? That seems silly because no one is honest. Through courage? That seems pliable considering Albert Finney is a bad ass and took on a few gangsters in his pajamas with a cigar in his robe pocket. Or perhaps Gabrial Byrnes is courageous for putting himself into so many sticky situations. But if these two have character in terms of courage, what about their morals? Their gambling, etc? True character is hard to find.

Now we come to ethics – the rules of the game. Ethics is of greatest concern to gangster Johnny Casper at the start of the movie, very well as it should be. How can it be possible for all these characters to ethically intermingle when everyone of them is playing by their own set of rules? There is no one code – when one character ethically helps another he is obviously hurting someone else. Thus, ruining a frindship, showing his true character and breaking a code of ethics.

These three themes are tricky. I greatly enjoyed watching them pan out throughout the movie.

Last class we spent a lot of time discussing the similarities and the differences between these two films and why there are such similarities and differences. Many of you had great comments on why you thought Kurosawa made the changes that he did. I looked at it through the modes of persistence and agency so I could tie in a few class discussions. This post reiterates what I said in class.

As discussed, persistency is continued existence. We discussed this in terms of being at some point in your life and saying, “I’m not 12 anymore.” This declarative sentence states that you were once 12. Thus, persistency. Agency is a force that causes change. Persistency can be seen in the two films for they have the same general plot points – our hero tosses himself between two sides, and the audience is kept on their seat as to which side will come out victorious. Both movies have fights, drinking, etc. So, “Yojimbo isn’t The Glass Key anymore,” but that is where the idea for it came from. Now we move on to agency. First off, 18 years have passed. The target audience is different, not only in era but also in ethnicity.

So, Kurosawa stayed persistent while making his film. There are clear elements that can be traced back to The Glass Key. However, agency allowed him to create his own movie that can be looked at apart from The Glass Key – the main reason being the Japanese film style, etc.

In my last post I discussed some scenes and the beautiful ways they were filmed. This picture perfectly portrays what I was talking about with the low angle shot that makes our hero the god floating above the two fighting leaders.

I have also found another shot that goes along with the dark/light concepts we were talking about today in class. In the photo below, we see opposing sides framed in a long shot: Sanjuro vs. Unosuke, old vs. new, light vs. dark. Unosuki’s eyebrows are down creating a shadow over his eyes while Sanjuro’s facealmost appears to be reflecting the light. The door appears shadowed on Unosuke’s side and lit on Sanjuro’s side. The shadow cast from Unosuke is behind Sanjuro. So many little elements put together to make every element fit! It’s amazing.

The mise-en-scene of this frame also adds to the tension between the two sides. They stand outside in a simplistic, old setting with nothing but their weapons. The doors to the house is closed – there is no escaping the eventual battle between these two men. Unosuke carries his sword, yet never touches it. His hand stays firmly glued to his masculinity, for he seems to obviously be making up for his lack of manliness with a gun, while our strong hero begins to pull his sword out.

Beautiful. No wonder some movies take so long to make – so much thought.

Setting plays a minimal yet utterly significant role in this film. As we have already discussed in class, the grand mountains at the beginning of the film equipped with a perfectly placed pass for our samurai to walk into was simply beautiful. The tracking that followed him as he walked and the constant view of his backside allowed for the audience’s curiosity to bubble until we finally reached the gambling point where he throws the stick to find his destination. Once entering the town, the setting has been established. One town, many stories: disagreements between groups, sibling rivalry, loss of profits and thus a loss of food/sake, etc., etc. The minimal main settings of tavern, brothel and “town square” are made into something much bigger through the great angles used throughout. The first “battle” between gangs, where our hero decides to sit atop the tower and watch, probably had around 30 (40?) gang members each, and our hero. The cuts back and forth between gangs and the high angles from our hero’s point of view portrayed a battle much greater than the one that ensued on the screen, making all of these men seem greatly insignificant. Also a beautiful shot was the low angle revealing our hero atop the tower and the two gang leaders (Seibei and Yushitora) growling at one another before they were warned that the town was going to be under inspection. Talk about making someone seem like he’s on top of the world. Not only is our hero literally seated a good 30 feet above the gangs, the camera angle makes him seem like he is floating on air above them.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie happened at the same location.  A frame from this take is pictured below.

When our hero is told that the innkeeper has been captured, we come to the “town square” and see him hanging with two gang members playing some sort of game to his left. They stand, and the ropes twirl to reveal the inkeeper. As the men standing guard see our hero, they run to the house to warn the others. The camera stays at a medium-close up on the inkeeper as he hangs in aggravation. Panning to follow the gang members, the innkeeper stays onscreen as he now covers the right side of the screen. We continue to see the pain on his face as the gang runs backs outside as the camera pans right again to reveal our hero on the right (long shot), our hanging innkeeper in the center (still at a medium close-up), and the gang members on the left (medium shot). A beautifully shot scene. These carefully planned pans and tilts to follow the inkeepers facial expressions as the hero, gang members and more gang members are revealed say more than any dialogue ever could.

CHECK THIS OUT.

Student made video of Yojimbo. Sorry I don’t know how to embed videos. If anyone wants to let me in on how to do that, it’d be much appreciated. In the meantime, copy and paste this – it’s worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO0x9CyLFz0

This 1961 period drama by Akira Kurosawa was clearly inspired in part by western films. The townspeople in need of protection are archetype of the western, along with the conventional shots of a western film: the long wide shot of a lone hero against his enemy (enemies) as the wind whistles and dirt blows all around them. Also of note in accordance with western films was the constant curiosity and mention of coffins.

Many similarities could be seen with this film and The Glass Key. While watching, it couldn’t be more obvious that the scene where the samurai is being beaten was in part taken from The Glass Key. Both heroes attempt to leave and are beaten until back on the floor. Both pairs of guards are playing games to pass the time. The bigger bully of the two in each scene can’t wait to get his hands back on the captured, and when they are left alone both of the heroes make their escape. After researching, Kurosawa stated that his major source for the plot was obtained from the film noir classic The Glass Key. Also, (N)Ed was Paul’s ‘bodyguard’ in The Glass Key. And, according to Yojimbo, Ed was a true gambler because like the samurai stated in the beginning, “you can’t be a true gambler if you’re afraid of the sword.” Neither of these heroes were afraid of the sword, fists, or whatever the weapon.

I could tell from the moment that the film began, when Paul was seated awkwardly at his desk adjusting his black socks with upward pointing arrows on them, that he was going to steal the movie. His portrayal of a slightly corrupt political hard hitter was interesting from the moment he strutted across the screen at the beginning and was slapped by Janet Henry. His only response went something like, “What a woman.” I feel the relationship between Janet and Paul was easier to dislike while watching the film than reading the novel. The novel seemed to have Paul grovelling at the feet of Janet where the movie portrayed him more as a strong man who knew what he wanted and went after it. So, he wanted Janet and boy did he go after her. His best character trait was his ability to bow out when he knew he had been beaten. But, he didn’t whimper and walk sadly out of the hotel room – he took his ring back! Nothing would shock a woman more than taking away her engagement ring, whether she truly loved the man or not. Props to Paul.

We started The Glass Key today. So far it is enjoyable. Perhaps my favorite moment was the kick to the shin that Ed gave to Taylor!

One main difference that I noticed was the mentioning of the glass key much earlier in the screen adaptation. When Ed and Paul were discussing his relationship with the Henry family, Paul mentioned something about his practically having a key to their house. Ed chided and said that Henry has given Paul the glass key to his house. So, the screen version allows audience members in on the title much earlier than the book. The glass key here is Henry’s promises to him concerning his daughter and his kindness, etc., in order to gain the support of Paul during the election. However, once the election is complete, the key to the house will no longer be of service because the glass will shatter in the lock.

Extremely noticeable in the film are the flirtations between Ed and Janet.

Two notes have been shown so far, and they read the same thing. It was clever to change this aspect of the notes from three different questions to each person (like in the novel), to the same one questions sent to different people (like in the movie). With a novel, the reader can go back to compare and contrast the notes. With a film, especially in theatres, one doesn’t have that privelege.