Research Articles Base: Film

Amores Perros and the Film’s Violence

Amores Perros and the Film’s Violence             Cinema is a popular cultural institution that helps to mediate a broad spectrum of social meanings, values and structures (1972). Yet depictions of violent behavior are special since it invokes some of society’s most central and guiding values. These guiding values are those which justify the use of force, elucidate the parameters of social order and isolate legitimate from illegitimate action. Put simply, the place of violence in social life lends special significance to the public discussion about violence in films. (2000)             Film violence can be seen as an especially telling manifestation of the struggles of popular cinema to balance at any given time the forces changing society and those controlling it (2000). A broader manifestation of this struggle was the 2003 Cuban Film Festival where majority of films shared the common feature of the graphic portrayal of violence.             Moreover, the recurrence of film violence represents not only an account of shifting cinematic standards and cultural values regarding the use of force or aggression but an element in the ongoing negotiation of the place and meaning of cinema itself in society(2000)             Amores Perros is one of the films that run parallel to the entries in the 2003 Cuban Film Festival that depicts violence. The plot begins with a tragic car accident in Mexico City. The accident proceeds to follow its effects on the lives of three people. The first is Octavio, a teenager who turns to dog fighting in order to raise the money needed to rescue his brother’s wife from her abusive marriage. The second tale is a darkly comic affair which involves Valeria, a Spanish model and one of the actual victims of the accident. The final tale is that of El Chivo, an aging assassin and former political revolutionary who lives a Spartan life on the streets. ( 2005)             Violence is showed in the scenes of dog fighting. There we can see a dead and bloody dogs being dragged across the floor form a dog-fighting pit leaving a trail of blood on the floor. We can also hear the sounds of dogs fighting and learns that one kills another. Violence is also showed when Chivo nearly shoot a bloody and limp dog and when he later pours gasoline onto the dead dogs and burns them. (2001)             In addition, the number of bloody scenes including the few shoot-outs clearly demonstrates the brutality and violence in the film. Some examples of these scenes where when Chive shoots and kill the man seated in a restaurant and when he abducts a man at gunpoint and then later hold his gun on another man, kicks the second man in the crotch and hits him over the head with his gun; when Ramiro and another man rob at a store; when Octavio head-butts Ramiro, giving the latter a bloody nose; when Ramiro threatens to shoot a dog if he doesn’t get his money from Octavio; when some men abduct Ramiro and then later repeatedly kick him on the ground until he’s rather severely beaten and bloody and when two men attempt to rob a bank at gunpoint and hold their guns on others in a threatening fashion, then another man comes in, shoots one of the rubbers dead and holds his gun on the other. (2001)             Generally, the film attempts to explore the darker side of the human condition primarily through the effective use of dogs as metaphors for the animalistic behavior in man which leads to tragedy and violence. This is also underlined in the use of violent language which at times comes to sound like a dog barking. (.)             This is a tale in which the dogs become innocent victims in an endless cycle of violence where they are molded by their owners. Dogs are just as important in the narratives as human beings and what happens to the dogs happens to their owners in this biting and truculent film in which the primal emotions of love, betrayal, instinct, hate, pain and fury abound. It is also about the ease with which people commit acts of violence and the problems they face in finding redemption. (.)             Inarritu uses violence cautiously yet forcefully underlining the viciousness of human nature rather than simply revealing in its effects and consequences. This is a remarkably mature approach for an emerging filmmaker and one which serves him well lending Amores Perros a thoughtful, realistic air and ensuing that it engages on a number of levels. ( 2005)                               Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Amores Perros and the Film’s Violence

Amores Perros and the Film’s Violence Cinema is a popular cultural institution that helps to mediate a broad spectrum of soci...

E-Cinema

Film Genres              The term “genre” is a French word meaning “type” or ‘kind”. It has occupied an important place in the study of the cinema for over thirty years and is normally exemplified by the western, the gangster film, the musical, the horror film, melodrama, comedy and the like. The definition and discussion of genre and genres in the cinema has tended to focus on mainstream, commercial films in general and Hollywood films in particular. Sometimes, indeed, genre and genres have been exclusively identified with these kinds of films. ( 2000)              Stated simply, (1986) writes that “genre movies are those commercial feature films which, through repetition and variation, tell familiar stories with familiar characters in familiar situations”. “They have been exceptionally significant”, he adds, “in establishing the popular sense of cinema as a cultural and economic institution, particularly in the United States, where Hollywood studios early on adopted an industrial model based on mass production”. (2000)             Action-adventure, comedy, detective films, gangster films, suspense thrillers, epics and spectacles, horror and science fiction, musicals, social problem films, war films and westerns are major classifications of movie genres. ( 2000)             The term action-adventure is nowadays mainly used to describe what was perceived in the 1980s and 1990s to be a new and dominant trend in Hollywood’s output. It has been used, though, to pinpoint a number of obvious characteristics common to these genres and films: a propensity for spectacular physical action, a narrative structure involving fights, chases and explosions, and in addition to the deployment of state-of-the-art special effects, an emphasis in performance on athletic feats and stunts. Comedy, on one hand, is intended to provoke laughter. Encompassing a range of forms, sites and genres (from jokes to intricately plotted narratives, from slapstick to farce, from satire to parody, from shorts and cartoons to features), comedy can also entail an array of defining conventions (from the generation of laughter to the presence of happy endings to the representation of everyday life) and is able in addition to combine with or to parody virtually every other genre or form. ( 2000)             Similarly, discussion of the detective film has been dominated by discussion and debate about film noir and hence by discussion and debate about the hardboiled detective and the hard-boiled tradition in general. The gangster film occupies a privileged place in genre theory. One of the reasons for this was that the gangster film and the western had been discussed with considerable intelligence, sympathy and insight by one of the few commentators writing seriously on film and popular culture in America prior to the 1960s. Moreover,  (1968) notes that suspense thrillers focus either on victims of crime or on pursued and isolated criminals. One of their distinguishing features is a lack of attention to official detectives or the police. Accordingly, it is a crime work which presents a generally murderous antagonism in which the protagonist becomes either an innocent victim or a nonprofessional criminal within a structure that is significantly unmediated by a traditional figure of detection. (2000)               On one hand, epic is essentially a 1950s and 1960s term. It was used to identify and to sell two overlapping contemporary trends: films with historical, especially ancient-world settings and large-scale films of all kinds which used new technologies, high production values and special modes of distribution and exhibition to differentiate themselves both from routine productions and from alternative forms of contemporary entertainment, especially television. As such, there were at least two aspects of epics, two sets of distinguishing characteristics: those associated with ancient and historical films, and those associated with large-scale films. ( 2000)             Moreover, the horror film has consistently been one of the most popular and, at the same time, the most disreputable of Hollywood genres. The popularity itself has a peculiar characteristic that sets the horror film apart from other genres: it is restricted to aficionados and complemented by total rejection, people tending to go to horror films either obsessively or not at all. They are dismissed with contempt by the majority of reviewer-critics or simply ignored. ( 2000)             As a term, science fiction was first used in the nineteenth century but only became fully established in the late 1920s in. It thus largely post-dated the vogue for invention stories, for tales of science, for tales of the future and for the voyages imaginaries and which characterized the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth. ( 2000)             Furthermore, the Hollywood musical is a product of the advent of sound of the industry’s commitment to an ethos and to forms of entertainment represented, among other things by the theatrical musical. The musical has always been a mongrel genre. In varying measures and combinations, music, song and dances have been its only essential ingredients. In consequence its history, both on stage and on screen has been marked by numerous traditions, forms and styles. (2000)             The term social problem film is essentially a critical invention. Labeled sociological, message or thought films by the industry, the films themselves have been grouped and described in ways which are recognizable and consistent but also somewhat problematic. ( 2000)             And lastly, war films are films about the waging of war in the twentieth century; scenes of combat are a requisite ingredient and these scenes are dramatically central. Western films, on the other hand, are somewhat a credit to Westerns for having has occupied a pre-eminent place in writing of all kinds on genre in the cinema.  (1954) and (1971) wrote influential essays on the western in the 1940s and 1950s. The western still features centrally in introductory accounts and in introductory courses on genre in the cinema, fed in part by occasional attempts to revive it in Hollywood. ( 2000)             Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

E-Cinema

Film Genres The term “genre” is a French word meaning “type” or ‘kind”. It has occupied an important place in the study of ...

Changing Scripts

“MY FATHERS DREAMS                          THE SATAN’S DISCIPLES IN NEW YORK” FADE IN: EXT. SOUTH DAKOTAN FARM – DAY             A lone farmhouse sits isolated against a prairie backdrop, silhouetted by a marbled dawn sky. INT. FARMHOUSE – DAY             MARIO PETERSON, a gray-haired man in his late sixties, meticulously packs a suitcase.  He picks up a small, framed PHOTO from a chest-of-drawers and holds it up to him. INSERT – PHOTO             It’s a picture of a woman about Mario’s age.  She has a sweet natured smile on her face. Mario looks at it longingly, then packs it carefully in his suitcase between some sweaters and closes it up.             EXT. FARMHOUSE – DAY             A paint-chipped truck rounds the corner on a dirt road leading into the farm. Mario, waiting on the porch, ready to go, rises and waves.             A FEW MOMENTS LATER -             Mario’s daughter, Marian, dressed in jeans and shirt, loads her father’s single piece of luggage into the bed of the truck, climbs back into the cab, where her father is sitting, and drives off. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. THE SKY – DAY             Birds chirping, flying in the hot, navy sky. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL – AFTERNOON             Mario, looking a little forlorn and out of sorts, stands out by the taxi area with his suitcase on a tote, looking around for a cab, unsure what to do. CURBSIDE – A FEW MINUTES LATER             MISCHA, a somewhat dissolute-looking Russian cabbie in his thirties, roughhouses Mario’s single piece of luggage into the dirty, cluttered trunk of his cab. INT. TAXI – DAY             Marian is sitting on the passenger seat as Mischa opens the driver’s side door and slams it shut, rattling Marian’s nerves. MISCHA (harshly) Where to? MARIO I want to go to 526 East 5TH.  That’s in the East Village. My son said it would cost thirty dollars only. In the REAR-VIEW MIRROR we glimpse Mischa giving Marian a cunning look. CUT TO: EXT. LOCATION – DAY             The TAXI passes on a turnpike, streaming with vehicles, headed toward Manhattan.  DRIVE-BY TRANSITION. INT. TAXI – DAY             Hurtling along.  Mario cranes his head through the partition and attempts to strike up a conversation with the surly cabbie. MARIO I came to New York for my wife. MISCHA Oh. And where is she? MARIO In our daughter’s house. MISCHA So, you come here all by yourself? MARIO Uh yes. I have to fix some things up. We had some sort of love quarrel last night. MISCHA Oh………. MARIO I have to convince her to come with me and go home. MISCHA Yeah……Flowers will help you that. MARIO I’m from South Dakota. Where are you from? MISCHA Moscow. MARIO Ohhh. Do you know the East Village? MISCHA Oh, yeah … yeah … it’s a hellhole. MARIO You mean it’s dangerous? MISCHA Nah, not dangerous.  Not that dangerous. (beat) Not during the day. ANGLE ON MARIAN –             looking out the window, her face clouded with consternation. EXT. BRIDGE – DAY             Cars pouring into Manhattan over one of the many bridges spanning the East River. CUT TO: EXT. EAST 5TH STREET AND 2ND AVENUE – DAY             The cab brakes to a halt, bringing Mario INTO THE FRAME, his face stricken with fear.             Mario climbs out of the cab as Mischa, in the background, opens the trunk to retrieve his bag.  Mario, taking in the foreign surroundings, seems confused about something. MARIO Pardon me, Mischa.  Is this 526 East 5TH Street?             Mischa closes the trunk and approaches Marian with her one piece of luggage on a tote. MISCHA Yeah. This is it. Just go down the block to the middle. There you’ll see number 526. MARIO That way?! MISCHA Yeah. Not far. You’ll be fine. (beat) It’s still day. He chuckles to himself, but Mario doesn’t get the joke. MARIO I see. How much? MISCHA Forty-five all total. MARIO Forty-five?  I thought it was only supposed to be thirty? MISCHA Thirty is base price.  Tolls, tax, tip … it all adds up.             Mario unsnaps his wallet and grudgingly hands the disreputable cabbie two twenties and a five. Mischa takes the money and starts away. Mario, who stands frozen to the dilapidated street started to walk heading to his direction, pulling his luggage apprehensively down the street. After a moment, he saw the number 526. He inhales deep and knocks at the door.   45 seconds talk             This was excerpted from the movie script ‘My Mother Dreams the Satan’s Disciples in New York’ written by Rex Pickett. This excerpt is a story of a man in his early sixties who had a love quarrel with his wife. He went to New York to talk and convince his wife who hide at their daughter’s house after their LQ to go home. The excerpted script dealt only on its first part where the man was preparing his things and when he was heading to New York and having conversation with the cab driver. It ended up when he was already in front and knocking at his daughter’s house.     Writer’s Note:             I changed only the first part of the original script since it was too long. However, I wrote it in a way that the new script will give the idea of what’s going on in the story. The script was also hanging to let the reader think of what will happen next. You can access and read the original script at Thank you very much. Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Changing Scripts

“MY FATHERS DREAMS THE SATAN’S DISCIPLES IN NEW YORK” FADE IN: EXT. SOUTH DAKOTAN FARM – DAY A l...

Hollywood’s America: History of 20th century USA through Film

History of the 20th-Century USA through Film: a History Research Plan     Film Title: Good Morning, Vietnam by  (Touchstone, 1987)   Description of the Film: Situated during the Vietnam War in 1965, Good Morning, Vietnam is a story of a nonconformist military disc jockey from Crete – Adrian Cronauer. It is a comedy/drama focusing on the life of Cronauer, played by Robin Williams who works for the interest of military deployed in Saigon using his “unusual humor” and aired in the Armed Forces Radio Saigon (AFRS). The happy-go-lucky DJ goes on air with his witty delivery of daily news flash and information, pseudo-interviews (using his own voice in impersonating people), peculiar choice of music, and other goofy means of doing things that was loved by the listeners – the masses and Pfc. Eddie Garlick (Forest Whitaker) yet hated by military officers like Lt. Steven Hauk (Bruno Kirby) and later Sergeant Major Philip Dickerson (J.T. Walsh). Lt. Hauk wanted Cronauer to stick to military guidelines, even in terms of humor while Dickerson considers him as annoyance.             With his signature “Good Morning, Vietnam” greetings spoken in overstated or elongated manner, Cronauer was referred as someone who is “not G.I. enough” and possesses mocking inclination. During his free time, he strolls outside the radio station and teaches English to Vietnamese students where he met Trihn (Chintary Sukupatana) with a brother named Tuan (Tom Tran) also known as Phan Duc To, a terrorist who was hinted by the army.               After all the revelations, Cronauer prepared to leave the military and hands Garlick a tape reel to play when he is gone. He started an instant softball game with his students and bid goodbye to Trinh where she thanked Cronauer on warning his brother’s impending danger. Cronauer was replaced by Garlick and played the tape where Cronauer yelled “Goodbye, Vietnam!”   Summary of Preliminary Research Findings: The film reflected so much about history, culture, national identity and the nationalistic nature of Americans and Vietnamese. It also brings to light the concept of freedom – country, people, media, and self (to be discussed in the Research Paper). Good Morning, Vietnam is not just about war on its literal meaning but also to its symbolic and figurative perspective and relevance.   Thesis Statement: American history, like any other national history is full of struggles in order to discover its real distinctiveness and establish its desired position. The importance of freedom in American society rooted on the aspiration to promote one’s individuality among others. War is not just the presence of guns and ammunitions but the struggle of someone on forces that affect the concept of being free.   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Hollywood’s America: History of 20th century USA through Film

History of the 20th-Century USA through Film: a History Research Plan Film Title: Good Morning, Vietnam by ( Touchstone, 19...

Italian film

MOONSICKNESS  Translation   Batà was all crouched up on a bale of straw in the middle of the threshing yard. His wife, Sidora, turned to look at him anxiously from time to time from the threshold where she was sitting, with her head leaning against the doorpost and her eyes half-closed. Then, overwhelmed by the oppressive heat, she went back to stretching her gaze towards the blue strip of the far-off sea, as if she were waiting for a breath of air, now that it was near sunset, to rise from there and softly make its way over to her, across the naked earth bristling with burnt stubble. So oppressive was the heat that the air could be seen trembling like the breath of burning embers above the straw left in the yard after the threshing. Batà had drawn out a stalk from the bale where he was seated, and with a listless hand was trying to beat it against his hobnailed boots. It was a futile gesture. The stalk of freshly mown straw kept bending. And Batà remained sullen and absorbed as he stared at the ground. In the dismal and motionless brilliance of the scorching air, there was an oppression so suffocating that her husband’s repetitive, futile gesture was causing Sidora unbearable agitation. In truth, the man’s every action—even just the sight of him—caused her agitation, that she could barely repress.       1 Married to him just twenty days, Sidora already felt destroyed—ruined. She noticed a strange heavy and terrible emptiness, inside and surrounding her. And it seemed almost untrue, that she had been brought there such a short time ago, to that old, isolated property, with its stable and house combined, in the middle of that stubble wasteland, without a tree about—without a hint of shade. There, for twenty days, barely smothering her tears and revulsion, she had only just managed to force herself to surrender her body to that taciturn man, who was about twenty years older than she and who seemed to now be weighed down by a sorrow more desperate than her own. She remembered what the local women had said to her mother, when she had announced the marriage proposal to them. “Batà! Good lord, I wouldn’t give a daughter of mine to him.” Her mother had believed they said it out of envy, because Batà was well-off. And the more she insisted on giving her to him, the more they, with a sorrowful air, showed reluctance to join in her satisfaction at the good fortune that had befallen her daughter. No, in all conscience, quite honestly, nothing bad was ever said about Batà, but nothing good was either. Cast away forever on that far-off piece of land of his, no one knew how he lived. He was always alone, like an animal in the company of his animals, two she-mules, a she-ass and the guard dog. And he certainly had a strange demeanour, grim and at times that of a fool.     2 There had actually been another reason, and perhaps a more forceful one, why her mother had insisted on giving her to that man. Sidora still remembered this other reason, which at that moment seemed far, far away, as if in another life, but nevertheless distinct—precise. She could see two youthful lips, full of wit and brilliant red like two carnation petals, opening up into a smile that caused all the blood in her veins to tremble and tingle. They were the lips of Saro, her cousin, who, in his love for her, had not known how to find the strength to come to his senses—to break free from the company of his wretched friends—in order to remove any excuse of her mother’s for opposing their marriage. Oh, certainly, Saro would have made an awful husband; but what kind of husband was this one, now? The troubles that, without a doubt, the other one would have given her, were they perhaps not preferable to the anguish, the revulsion, the fear, that this one aroused in her? Batà finally came out of his crouching position, but as soon as he was on his feet, he turned halfway round, almost overcome by vertigo. His legs, as if fettered, folded up under him. With his arms in the air, he barely held himself upright. A moaning, almost of rage, sprang from his throat. Sidora, terrified, rushed towards him, but he stopped her with a wave of his arms. A relentless whimpering rose from him and prevented him speaking. He choked it back with difficulty and battled against his sobs—a horrible gurgling in his throat. And his face was white, turbid, ashen, his eyes dark and veiled. Behind the madness in them     3 could be distinguished an almost childlike fear, still conscious, never ending. He continued to signal to her with his hands to wait and to not be frightened and to keep her distance. At last, in a voice that was no longer his, he said, “Inside…shut yourself inside…well… Don’t be afraid… If I knock, if I shake the door and scratch it and cry out…don’t be afraid…don’t open it… Not for anything… Go! Go!” “But what’s wrong with you?” Sidora cried at him, horrified. Batà moaned again and shook all over with a powerful, convulsive jolt that seemed to split his limbs, then, with a flash of his arm, he pointed to the sky and roared, “The moon!” Sidora, while turning around to run to the house, through her fear actually caught sight of the moon of the fifteenth*, enflamed, violet, enormous, only just risen from the colourless hills of Crocca. Barricaded inside and holding herself tight, as if to prevent her limbs from breaking off with their continuous, increasing, unswerving shaking, she too was moaning, out of her mind with terror. Soon after, she heard the drawn-out, feral howls of her husband writhing outside the door, a victim of the horrendous sickness coming at him from the moon, and he was beating his head, his feet, his knees, his hands, against the door, and he was scratching, as if his fingernails had become claws, and he was snorting, as if in the fever pitch of a raging bestial toil, as if he wanted to pull that door out, tear it off, and now he was baying, baying, as if he had a dog in his body, * The fifteenth day after the new moon, i.e., the full moon.     4 and once again he was scratching, salivating, howling, and beating his head and his knees against it. “Help! Help!” she cried, even though she knew that no one in that wasteland would hear her cries. “Help! Help!” and she held the door with her arms, in fear lest, at any moment, despite the many latches, it would yield to the repeated ferocious and relentless force of that blind, howling fury. Oh, if only she could have killed him! Dazed, she turned, as if to search for a weapon in the room. But through the window grating high up in the wall facing her, she again caught sight of the now translucent moon as it rose in the sky, suffused by a peaceful glow. At that sight, as if suddenly struck down by contagion from the sickness herself, she let out a great cry and fell on her back—senseless. When she regained consciousness, in her lightheadedness, she did not at first understand why she had been thrown to the ground. The door latches brought back her memory and immediately she grew frightened by the silence that now reigned outside. She rose to her feet. Unsteadily she approached the door, and held her ear up to it. Nothing. No more. She remained listening for a long time, oppressed by fear of that enormous, mysterious silence—of the entire world. And finally she seemed to hear a sigh from nearby—a mighty sigh—as if emitted from a deadly anguish.     5 She immediately ran to the chest under the bed. She drew it forward, opened it and pulled out her woollen cape. She returned to the door, held her ear up to it again for a long time, then hurriedly, silently, lifted up the latches one by one, silently lifted the bolt, then the crossbar. She opened one shutter just slightly and suspiciously eyed the narrow opening at ground level. Batà was there. He was lying like a dead animal face downwards amidst his drool, black, tumefied, with his arms spread open. Squatting close by, his dog was guarding him—under the moon. Sidora came outside holding her breath. Very slowly, she closed the door partway, made an angry sign to the dog to not move and, warily, with the tread of a wolf, fled with her cape under her arm through the countryside towards the village, in the still deep night tinged by the glow of the moonlight. She arrived at her mother’s house in the village a little before dawn. Her mother had just gotten up. Dark as a cave, the hovel at the end of a narrow alley was barely illuminated by an oil lamp. As she rushed inside, dishevelled and breathless, Sidora seemed to fill the whole space. Upon seeing her daughter at that hour and in such a state, the mother raised a cry and caused all the local women to come running with their oil lamps in hand.     6 Sidora began to weep loudly and, while weeping, she tore her hair and pretended to be unable to speak, so that her mother, and the neighbours, would better understand the enormity of the event that had befallen her—of the fright she had received. “The moonsickness! The moonsickness!” At Sidora’s recounting, the superstitious terror of that mysterious sickness took hold of all the women. Oh, poor child! They had told her mother so, that that man was not natural, that that man must have been hiding some great defect, that not one of them would have given him to their own daughter. He was baying, eh? He was howling like a wolf, eh? Scratching at the door? Good heavens, how frightening! And how was that she wasn’t dead, poor child? Collapsed on a chair, completely overcome, her arms and head hanging, her mother was irresolutely chanting, “Oh, my daughter! Oh, my daughter! Oh, my poor ruined little girl!” At sunset, pulling the two harnessed mules behind him, Batà appeared in the alley, still swollen and bruised, humiliated, dejected, bewildered. At the scuttling of the mules on the cobblestones of the alley, which the August sun enflamed like an oven and blinded as it dazzled against the whitewash, all the women, with gestures and cries choked back with fear, hurriedly retreated with their chairs     7 into their huts, and stuck their heads out of their doorways to keep watch, and to give each other knowing looks. Sidora’s mother stood on the threshold, proud and trembling all over with anger, and began to cry, “Go away, wretched soul! Have you got the nerve to face me again? Get away from here! Get away from here! Treacherous murderer, get away from here! You’ve ruined my daughter!” And she carried on ranting and raving for a bit, while Sidora, hiding inside, wept and begged her mother to protect her—not to let him in. Batà listened to the threats and insults with his head bowed. They wounded him. He was to blame. He had hidden his sickness. He had hidden it, because no woman would have accepted him if he had confessed beforehand. It was right that he now pay the penalty for his sin. He kept his eyes closed and bitterly shook his head, without moving a step. Then his mother-in-law slammed the door in his face and bolted it. Batà remained a bit longer, head bowed, before the closed door. Then he turned and noticed the many appalled and fear-filled eyes at the doorways of the other huts, spying on him. Those eyes saw the tears on the disheartened man’s face, and at that moment their fear turned to compassion.     8 First one, more courageous, old woman held out a chair to him, then the others, in twos and threes, came outside and gathered around him. And Batà, after thanking them with silent nods of his head, began very slowly to relate his misfortune to them: that when she was young his mother, out in the cornfields, while sleeping peacefully in a threshing yard, had kept her baby exposed all night to the moon, and, that he, poor innocent baby, with his little belly in the air, his eyes wandering and waving his legs and arms about, had played with the beautiful moon. And the moon had “enchanted” him. The enchantment had slumbered inside him for years and years, however, and had only recently woken up. Every time the moon was in the fifteenth, the sickness took him again. But it was a sickness for him alone. The others need only avoid him, and they could avoid him easily, because it was precisely timed and he could feel it coming and he could give advance warning. It lasted only one night, and then that was it. He had hoped that his wife would have been more courageous, but, since she wasn’t, it could be resolved in this way: at each occurrence of the moon, either she came to her mother’s in the village, or her mother went down to the farmhouse to keep her company. “Who? My mother?” Sidora cried out at this point, flaring up in anger, her eyes fierce, she threw open the door behind which she had been standing, listening in. “You are mad! Do you want to make my mother die of fear as well?” Then her mother also came outside, nudging her daughter with her elbow and ordering her to stay quiet and calm in the house. She approached the group of women, who had by now become quite compassionate, and started to chat with them secretly, and then talked privately with Batà.   9 From the threshold, angry and full of consternation, Sidora followed her mother’s and husband’s gestures, and since they appeared to be fervently discussing something that her mother was agreeing to with obvious pleasure, she began to shriek, “Oh, no! Don’t listen to him! Are you agreeing to something? There’s no point! There’s no point! I’m telling you!” The local women urgently gestured to her to be quiet and to wait for the conversation to finish. Finally, Batà said good-bye to his mother-in-law, left one of the two mules in her charge, and having thanked the good neighbours, he departed, pulling the other mule behind him by the halter. “Be quiet, you foolish girl!” Sidora’s mother said quietly as soon as she returned home. “When the full moon comes, I will go down, with Saro…” “With Saro? Did he say that?” “It was me who said it. Shush! With Saro.” And, lowering her eyes in order to hide her smile, her mother pretended to wipe her toothless mouth with the corner of the headscarf tied under her chin, and added, “Do we happen to have anyone else in the way of men amongst our relatives? He’s the only one who can help and comfort us. Shush!” So the next morning, at dawn, Sidora set out again for the countryside on the other mule left by her husband.     10 * As well as being a word to describe an extremity of the moon, a horn is the emblem of a cuckold. She thought of nothing else for the entire twenty-nine days that went by until the new fifteenth. She watched the August moon gradually set and rise ever later, and her desire made her wish she could hasten the declining phases. Then, she did not see it anymore for a few evenings. She finally saw it again, pale and slender in the yet twilit sky, and gradually, once again, it started to grow more and more. “Don’t be afraid,” Batà told her sadly, seeing her with her eyes always firmly fixed on the moon. “There’s still time. There’s time! The trouble will start when it no longer has horns*…” At those words that were accompanied by an ambiguous smile, Sidora felt herself freeze, and she looked at him, dumbfounded. At last the evening arrived, so long-awaited and at the same time so dreaded. The mother arrived by horse with her nephew Saro two hours before the moon would rise. Batà, as on the previous occasion, was all crouched up in the threshing yard, and didn’t even raise his head to greet them. Sidora, trembling all over, gestured to her cousin and mother not to say anything to him and led them inside the house. Her mother immediately went and poked her nose into a dark little closet where old tools were piled up—hoes, sickles, saddles, baskets, saddlebags—next to the big room that also sheltered the animals.   11 “You’re a man,” she said to Saro. “And you already know what he’s like,” she said to her daughter. “I am old and I’m more afraid than anyone else. I’ll stay hidden away here, very quiet and very alone. I’ll shut myself in tight. Let him be the wolf outside.” All three of them went out into the open again and remained for quite a long while talking in front of the house. As darkness gradually descended on the countryside, Sidora threw looks at Saro that became increasingly more ardent and provocative. But on meeting those looks, Saro, although usually so lively and spirited, gradually felt himself grow pale, the laughter on his lips harden, his tongue dry out. As if there were thorns on the low wall where he was sitting, he fidgeted continuously and swallowed with difficulty. And from time to time he extended a sidelong look at the man awaiting the assault of the sickness. He also extended his neck to see if, from behind the hills of Crocca, the frightful face of the moon had yet emerged. “Still nothing,” he said to the two women. Sidora answered him with a lively gesture of indifference and carried on, smiling, and provoking him with her eyes. Those eyes, by then almost impudent, began to fill Saro with horror and terror, more than the man crouching over there, waiting. And he was the first to jump inside the house as soon as Batà let out the proclamatory whimpering and signalled with his hand to the three to close themselves inside       12 immediately. Oh, with what fury did Saro set about making fast the latches and latches and latches, while the old woman dejectedly shut herself up in the store-room, and Sidora, impatient, disappointed, repeated to him, with an ironic tone, “Easy, easy…don’t hurt yourself…You’ll see that it’s nothing.” It was nothing? Oh, it was nothing? With the hair at his forehead standing on end, at her husband’s first howls, at the first kicks to the door, at the first salivations and scratches, Saro, thoroughly soaked in cold sweat, with his back shivering, his eyes opened wide, was trembling all over like a leaf. It was nothing? Good Lord! Good Lord! What? Was she crazy, that woman? While outside her husband was causing a tempest at the door, here she was, laughing on the bed, swinging her legs, stretching her arms out to him, calling him, “Saro! Saro!” Oh, yes? Angrily, indignantly, Saro bounded into the old woman’s store-room, grabbed her, dragged her outside and threw her down to sit on the bed next to her daughter. “Here,” he cried out. “This woman is mad!” And while stepping back towards the door, through the high window grating in the wall facing him, he also saw the moon that, while causing such harm to the husband out there, here seemed to be laughing, blissful and spiteful, at the wife’s unsuccessful revenge.                   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Italian film

MOONSICKNESS Translation Batà was all crouched up on a bale of straw in the middle of the threshing yard. His wife, S...

SOUND ANALYSIS

Introduction             Multimedia material has an enormous importance in film and television productions, e.g. image understanding and media conversion (, 1998).             Audio requirements of film and television production are frequency contour (general trend or melodic contour), audio objects, timbre, harmony, frequency profile, amplitude envelope, temporal structure and textual content, sonic approximations, prototypical sound, spatial structure and source of sounds and its characteristics.             In short, the sound reinforcement systems’ (, n.d.) and processes’ clarity and audibility are the core of audio requirements of an entire production. Sound designs are the manipulation of resources to create a “sonic environment” (, 1994). Sound Effects of Sci-Fi and Horror Films             According to , the soundtrack should be implicit, whether it is a scary or action-filled film. The sound track must be working on you without being aware of the technique used. Sound engineers, designers and mixers barely consider ‘mickeymousing’ technique in this digital era. Mickeymousing is a matching of action and music. It has now become a cliché as it is giving away what is about to happen (, 1996).             The sophisticated, modern audience are increasingly accepting contrapuntal technique where sounds are contrasting the textual theme. Thus, the audience will not recognize and cannot anticipate what will happen next.             Synthesizers are almost always present in sci-fi and horror films since they can produce otherworldly sounds (, 1996).             The length of sound or attacks are used variedly in both sci-fi and horror productions. From beginning to its peak, the attack may be soft and hard and slow and fast whatever the scene requires. A lot of movies incorporate the use of high-pitched music to build fear. Other films use high strings to express stress since they can evoke weird psychic going-ons ( and , 1990). Moreover, deep sounds seem percussive that it can literally penetrate your body when played strongly.             Inhuman and mechanical effects are obtained through electronically lowering or raising the voices. This technique is known as the telemetry tracks.    Sound Design for Star Wars             The Star Wars series is the best example of a creative and realistic sound designing and it has been the standard since then.  is responsible for the motion pictures’ sonic success. He created exceptional and unusual weapon, vehicle and character sounds.             The visual world comes alive in an ‘organic’ soundtrack. Mostly,  used animal sounds. What is more incredible is his use of unusual things to create impeccable sounds. Like that of the speeder bike, unless you know, you won’t recognize that it is a mixture of recorded sounds of P-5 Mustang airplane and a P-38 Lockheed Interceptor ().             The synthesizing technique is widely-used in the entire film. The use of horn (, 1992) suggested that Star Wars is beyond that ‘heroism’ concept because you cannot predict the next scene.             The techniques used vary from a certain scene to another. The used of processed natural sounds blended well on the background. It is so diversified that even protagonist have their own theme music.             Furthermore, the Ewokese language used in the film was formed through alteration and layering of Mongolian, Nepali and Tibetan languages. The formation of composite words and sentences are derived from actual languages (). Yet, the emotional clarity was conveyed properly. The human voice element supplies the purpose of the characters. Very realistic persona emerges in Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Darth Vader among others (, n.d.).             The Star Wars production uses the dramatic emotional approach instead of realistic. The irony, however, the film made the people believes that everything in the movie is real. It has successfully convinced the audience of a certain truth in a scientific sense including the ‘sound of space’ and the ‘sound of anger’                What makes the special effects of Star Wars is the complementing sound and action. The images on the screen go along with its emotional context. Literally, the sound tells the story and brings pleasure to the audience. Arguments             Many claimed that the sound track of Star Wars is not exactly very memorable. It is vague and it lacks theme coherence since it does not put the spot on the character. The conflict scenes and its background inflict a slight confusion between the orchestra and chorus and different melodies. The minor tonality and the persistence of rhythm created the notion of what the next pace would be. The range of emotions alters each on particular paces of the movie.             I believed that the Star Wars movies and sound tracks cater to specific groups of moviegoers, music lovers and movie enthusiasts. We must remember that Star Wars is a science fiction film set on an outer-visual world with classical implications on the side. The scores are powerfully emotional which tends the film to live on in the music. What makes the Star Wars a dull movie is repetitiveness but no question regarding the sound effects and engineering.             The carefully considered sounds did reflect a superb sound engineering. Sadly, the sound forms and sound functionality does not contribute to usability, enjoyment and identity (, 2004).  The sound legibility is there but musicality must be clearly understood by the listener. It must not diverse attention and fight against dialogues and effects. Yet, the sound is working on its audience unconsciously (, 1997). Sound Effects of Animation Films             The first principle of animation sound: there is no connection between the object in the picture and the origin of sound. The actions in the picture are more condensed, too.             Bonds that connect sound with moving images are very crucial to animation. Such visual elements and the audio track share in a more intimate and more creative connection compared to other motion picture forms.             The high degree of synchronization is a practical sort on the technology of animation. The total control is placed at the animator in both the visual and audio aspects. Accuracy is the key measure of animation sound.             The movement of animation and music have basic mathematical foundations.  Such relationships are measured through the rhythm of musical composition that ate fitted into bar units. The units have defined time length that is interpreted in time units.             Likewise, audio-visual metaphors are created through combining fast moving animated visuals and unrealistic sound effects. These metaphors often have humorous aspects.  As such, the synchronized sound effects serve as a source of kinetic energy.             The sounds in an animation film can be pre-synchronous, post-synchronous and non-synchronous. In “presynch” process, the key actions’ music and sound effects are recorded first before the images are produced. Most voices are pre-recorded, analyzed and logged in order to achieve the precise synchronization. These will become concrete determinant of the occurrence of key actions.             When the images are comes ahead of sounds, the process is post-synchronous. The outer orientation, spatial and temporal settings, is completed by sound effects that are established by the visuals.  These are primary determinants of the scene’s pacing. The animators are shooting according to voice tracks. Particular actions which require sound effects are added into the effects track at the appropriate frame.             The non-synchronous process deals with music that has not been carefully timed to fit the film. In ‘time art’, the synchronization within the picture at different points is inevitable.             The first draft of the sound track is also known as the scratch track. Usually, the scratch tracks and the storyboard are built at the same time. Sound Design of Chicken Little             Chicken Little is the first independent venture of Disney in computer animation. The people behind the production aimed at creating something new yet very Disney, in effect, in audio, animation, visual effects editorial and original conception.   is the sound engineer and supervising sound editor for the film.             The film has a great deal of score and it is clearly delivered on the effects and dialogues. The good sense of tonality did not give away much of the picture and the sound is not going against the effects and the dialogue. Within the entire film, there is a kind of balance which an audience will surely enjoy (, 2006).             The scores are properly arranged and the dialogues are carefully-chosen. The slogan is very catchy and the film conveyed appropriately the ‘sound of falling sky’. The voice performances have strong influences on the visuals which makes the story more interesting. The pitch-shift and the voice progress in the film made possible a creative input wherein the message is delivered successfully, sonic-, music- and animation-wise.             The specific effects due to the sound toys and waves provided a relaxed mood yet subtly extraterrestrial emotion. The aliens’ and the big voices are a parody but not totally scary. The music track and sound scoring are not diverging during sequences (, 2006). Arguments             The voices of the main actors are somewhat misplace which makes it annoying and a bit unmotivated with limited appeal. The predictable format due to sound mixing reflects poor sound engineering but the music is good. Somehow, the movie showed the sound of floating feather in the air and the vaporization of victims by aliens. The visual and audible identity of the movie suffers.             There is no time for a little audience reflection (, n.d.) since the movie is so fast-paced. Thus, the audience cannot relate on the story and cannot follow the plot             I think the movie lacks synchronization. The psychoacoustic affects more on the children. It is a fantasy movie which poignantly created more illusions. The mood of the movie did not really change from the beginning until the end. Conclusion             Like all cognition, listening is based upon existing mental model of what things ought to be — our sound perception. Sound modulation and quality connotes emotions while watching a movie and hearing the background music and sound effects. Our ears suggest absolute values of sound.             As such, proper convention of sounds in a film or television production must be a priority for sound designers and engineers. Sounds are intended to simulate reality, create illusion and mood whenever necessary. These are not just mechanical tool, it can be employed creatively and artistically (, 1989) to deliver a particular message to the audience.             The roles of sound must be clear to all technical actors of a production. Whether narrative or grammatical role (, 1997), what is important is the sound can communicate to its direct listener or audience as long as it is not revealing the progress of the story or the continuity of the scene in a blatant way.             The success of a certain production depends largely on audio requirements: sound component, sound envelope and record and playback component (, n.d.). Such contributes to the authenticity and credibility of a scene. The human voice, sound effects and music must be mixed and balanced to produce the necessary emphasis which creates desired effects.             To wit, a film is an exemplary visual experience but we cannot afford to underestimate the importance of film sound (, n.d.).       Bibliography   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

SOUND ANALYSIS

Introduction Multimedia material has an enormous importance in film and television productions, e.g. image understanding an...