ericksonb med. site

By far the best screening we have seen all year. Bonnie and Clyde  produced by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway seems to be a crime/love film based on the actual notorious Barrow gang. Bonnie a small-town girl seeks this handsome criminal Clyde. Because of Bonnie’s curiosity  Clyde takes Bonnie on a run(a robbery) with him and show her how his life is. Bonnie loves it at first then starts to regret the lifestyle later on in the movie. Bonnie never understood  that they will always be on the run and she wouldn’t be able to see her mother as often. My favorite part of the movie was when the Barrow gang tied up the cop and started taking pictures with him. I enjoyed this part because I had a feeling he was going to be apart of Bonnie and Clyde’s capture. Its sad to say I was rooting that they would get away but it is a movie and most criminals get caught or punished in films as they should.

Laura Mulvey analysis of films caused her to come up with this theory called the “Male Gaze”. The “Male Gaze” theory argues that the various “looks” at work in cinema (the gaze of the camera, of the characters on screen, and the spectator) tend to reinforce a male perspective. (Herzog1) I want  to agree with Mulvey but I have came across this film in my Media Studies class that has made me disagree. Most but not all films have a male perspective. The film I came across was Lady Eve Directed by Preston Sturges. This film has one particular scene i would like to share with my audience .

Sturges shows us the exact opposite of Laura’s theory of  “Male Gaze” in his film Lady Eve. Sturges plays with his audience mind but giving us the perspective of a female which was not likely of the time.  The scene i want to focus on is from 5:40- 8:13. This is the scene where Mr. Pike just enters the diner or eating area and every girl eyes are focused on him. In this scene Mr.Pike gets analyzed by Jean one of the many gold diggers  on the boat. Sturges gives us the opportunity to get a look at  “Woman Gaze”.

This scene is opened up with Mr. Pike reading a book called “Are Snakes Necessary?” the camera focuses on the book( extreme close-up) then slowly far away from the book including Mr.Pike on the screen (medium shot). Sturges then throws the audience in the “Male Gaze”. We are looking around the room as if we are Mr.Pike and all we see is all of these females focus on who appears to be Mr.Pike. Mr.Pike facial expressions shows that he is actually puzzled. His facial expression speaks he doesn’t show interest in these women because they are creeping him out by staring at him. Sturges then switches the perspective around 6:30

Sturges puts our focus on Jean who is actually focusing on Mr.Pike through a mirror. The camera first shows a medium shot of Jean then comes to a close-up to show she is the main focus. Jean is rather different from the other girls, she doesn’t smile up in Mr.Pike face but analyzes him and all the other girls in the room. The mirror helps us see her perspective. We  experience an extremely close-up shot on the mirror . The mirror helps Jean not look like she is the same as the other females just staring at Mr.Pikes. As we look through the mirror we see three females and Mr.Pikes. Unlike the “Male Gaze” we dont see the positive side of the gaze. Jean provides us with a negative gaze by just sitting there and criticizing as if there was nothing impressive through her perspective.

Sturges backs my argument up that Mulvey theory is actually true but arguable. We can experience a female perspective without it being strange to the viewer. Yes the “male gaze” is often shown more but “female gaze” is the exact same thing. Showing the gaze of both genders just makes the film more realistic. i say more realistic because woman have their own perspective and females perspectives weren’t  really shown. There are plenty of movies that also show women perspective for an example in todays modern film muscle men with their shirts off.

Camera movements in this scene had a really important role for an example the camera focuses on the book Are Snakes Necessary? But why? Sturges gives us the hint that we can suggest that snakes are very important in this film. My analogy of this focus was because he discovered a snake and Jean’s personality through out the film. Most snakes are often sneaky  and so was Jean. Watching this scene you can also see Sturges gives every other girl just a medium shot rather than the close up he gave Jean (6:35) to show they are not as important as her. Or was that purposely done to show us that we were going to see her perspective. I admire the way Sturges displays both gazes in the matter of 3 minutes in the film and shows that they are kind of congruent and a female gaze is no different from a Male’s.

 

The scene I chose is from the film Public Enemy In the Gun Shop. The link can be found on youtube.

Shot 1:

Shot Description

Cinematography: LS. This shot is a long shot. The camera allows us to see everything in the background. The camera placement is straight on.  The lighting is kind of dark to begin with until Cagney walks in.

Sound: Character dialogue

Shot Analysis

Description of Dramatic Content: The lighting in this shot shows us the power Cagney has in this film. Little action is shown in this shot but Cagney shows us his interest in the pistols. Another thing i pointed out was the bars in the background which i look at it as a way of telling us something violent is going to happen. I made this assumption because these bars reminded me of a jail cell.

Shot 2:

Shot Description

Cinematography: CU this is a close-up shot. The camera is straight-on. We only see the guns behind the salesman and Cagney. The lighting is stays the same never changes through out the shot

Sound: Dialogue

Shot Analysis

Description of Dramatic Content: This shot shows the importance of the two characters at this time. The Camera angle tells viewers to focus on the actual conversation.A lot of rectangles are presented. For an example the tags are rectangular and the hinges on the right upper corner.

Shot 3:Same Shot

Shot Description

Cinematography: MS. This is a medium shot. We can see  some of the background which has a lot of guitars. The camera angle is straight on which focuses on Cagney the whole shot.

Sound: Character dialogue

Shot Analysis

Description of Dramatic Content: This shot focuses on Cagney. The focus on Cagney shows us that he is up to something. Cagney looks around as if he is up to something. As we see in this scene his eyes showed he had intentions on robbing the salesman. Cagney keeps a smooth composure that the salesman has no idea whats going on.

Shot4:Same Shot

Shot Description

Cinematography:MS. This is a medium shot. The salesman and Cagney is centered in the camera. The lighting and background is the same.

Sound: Character Dialogue

Shot Analysis

Description of Dramatic Content: The salesman is showing Cagney the pistol. In this shot I feel Cagney is showing his interest in the gun. In this shot Cagney pushes the gun down I was wondering why nothing could really happen knowing the gun is not loaded. Could it be because he feels danger is coming upon him.

Shot5

Shot Description

Cinematography:MS This is a middle shot. The camera raises as Cagney raises. The salesman back is still turned to the camera but the face of Cagney is still visible.

Sound: Character Dialogue

Shot Analysis

The reason the camera raises because Cagney raises off the counter. The reason Cagney face is visible through out this scene so we can read his facial expressions. Cagney plays a very unique part in this film he shows his calm composure but stil displays his power.

Shot6

Shot Description

Cinematography:CU. This is a close-up shot. We barely see the background. The salesman face is visual now and Cagney has his back to the viewers. The lighting appears to be  darker.

Sound:There is none

Shot Analysis

The lighting is dark to show a bad time in this scene. The camera switches on the salesman now so we can observe his facial expressions. Cagney facial expressions is rather irrelevant in the sense that his actions is speaking very loud and clear. The salesman face looked puzzled rather than scared. The elephants in the shelf puzzled me why are they placed there.

Analysis

Patterns that repeat in these shots are the guitars in the backgrounds and  the positioning of the characters. I honestly do not understand the reason of guitars in a gunshop. Was there a connection between music and guns or music and crime at the time. The positioning of the characters was rather interesting to me because it showed who was important in that certain shot,who the viewer should really be studying, and what is around that character at that time.

 

 

 

The scene that i chose from Citizen Kane was the ending scene when they were actually throwing away Kanes belonging. Based on the techniques that were shown in this scene you can tell what was important and what was not. This scene focuses on one technique which is a close-up shot. In this scene we are informed that the word ROSEBUD stood for the name on his sled. My opinion of his attachment to his sled was him trying to tell us if they would of never took him away from those happy days he wouldnt of went through those problems.

This film used a lot of close-up shots to show us the importance of that certain object. In this case it was the sled that had the word ROSEBUD. Every shot that had the sled in it was focused on the sled. Even when the sled was burning it was showing the viewer the sled  burning slowly. Was this  a representation of Kane’s pain? This last scene made me wonder what was we as the viewer suppose to truly get? It cant just be the filmmaker telling us exactly what ROSEBUD is because he took a good 20 seconds of us watching the sled burn. This was a good technique because it showed us at the end ROSEBUD was a time period in his life that he truly valued.

Welcome to Qwriting.org. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!