Heathers

My overall take on this film was I felt like I’ve already seen it a million times, even though this is the first time I’ve watched it. There are so many recent films similar to it: they are all set in high school with the types of people that we know, and with cliques that follow a specific hierarchy. Someone mentioned the comparison of Heathers and Mean Girls, and even though I actively hate Mean Girls I cannot get the comparison out of my mind. Where you are on the class scale is the most important part of your high school career, nothing else matters except doing whatever you can to be as close to the top of the hierarchy as possible. And I think that part of that is what makes Heathers post-modern. Nothing in the rest of society (in other words concepts of significance that really should matter) is talked about or has any value.

What is interesting about Heathers though is that it uses a significant matter to exemplify or even reinforce the hierarchy of the school. Committing suicide becomes something that the cool kids do. After Martha tries to kill herself and fails, she is only seen as just example of another loser trying to be like the in-crowd. It doesn’t matter anymore if she was trying to fit in or if she would have killed herself regardless just because of the meaning that the other “suicides” brought to the act. Heathers takes the meaning of suicide completely out of context.

Shaft

What was interesting about Shaft was that his character had the coolness of the typical detective, but the film adds pronounced blackness to this already cool character. The film made an obvious distinction between Shaft and the other minorities in the film. He outclassed them, for example there was a black drug lord and Italian mobsters. Bumpy is forced to come to him to be a detective to find his kidnapped daughter because of his reputation with the police-force. No one else could be willing to help him. Bumpy also chose Shaft because of trust issues, it’s easier for him to trust a black man rather than a white man.

The scene that had the most impact for me was when Lt. Androzzi holds a black pen to Shaft’s face and says “You’re not so black.” Shaft comes back with holding up a white coffee cup to the Lt’s face and says “and you ain’t so white either.” I think it really struck me because it was the most obvious way of pointing out stereotypes and that Shaft was resistant to accept racial hypocrisy, yet I think it might have also been an example that there are always some people that don’t fall into stereotypes.

Vanishing Point

After every film we watch I always find myself grateful for our short lectures on the history and background of the movie. I know I've said this before in other posts, but I really wouldn't be able to appreciate what is happening in the film without those lessons beforehand. I'm not very familiar with "B movies", and before we studied this film I wouldn't be able to describe any characteristics about them except that they aren't really shown in theaters.

Vanishing Point was really interesting to me especially because it takes the typical "American Hero" theme from main stream movies and blends it with an anti-hero character. The result is this character who seems fed up with society and seems at first to be rebellious, but we later find out that he is just an ordinary Joe who seems like a nice guy.

As for Super Soul, I found him very annoying. He was so energetic and eccentric, it was just so unappealing. I think that Kowalski thought he was annoying at times too. He had to turn his radio off several times, but he did keep turning Super Soul back on so I think that might just be because of his curiosity. He's curious that other people are actually paying attention to him. I think his "going out with a bang" was justified more with the publicity Super Soul gave him, even if the public didn't really care that much... Kowalski didn't know that.

I really like how the way they incorporated the film title into the story at the end of the opening scene. I just wish though, that the beginning of the film made more sense. It shows him turning around and driving into the desert when he sees the set-up. It doesn't match up to the end result.

Dr. Strangelove

To start, I just want to throw out there that this film is probably one of my favorites so far. It was refreshing to have a noticeable plot again. Without the lecture about the Cold War before we watched the film I probably wouldn't have been able to follow it as well though. I also really liked, as someone mentioned in class, the fact that it was in black and white. I thought that it added to the authenticity and made it a believable situation, even with all the satire and irony.

The whole irony of the "War Hero" thing with the soldiers in the planes was really interesting to me. They never seem to notice that after they drop their bombs that they will be obliterated along with whatever they throw the bombs down at. The pilot of the plane even gives a touching speech at the start of their mission that talks about glory and promotions when they return back to the States. They don't realize that there really isn't a "good guy" or "bad guy" in their war. Everyone dies as soon as one move is made because of their "Mutually Assured Destruction." But then, viewing it from the soldiers' point of view, it's hard to stay driven when you are circling over a foreign country, away from your family for no seemingly good reason. If they realized that not only can neither side make an offensive move without destroying the world, but as soon as the airmen do drop their bombs they instantly die. It's not much incentive on their part, so all they really can do is hope that they survive and become war heroes.

Another ironic part that I couldn't help but laugh at was during the firefight on the base. Like we talked about in class, it looked like a scene from an old World War II movie with men on foot shooting at each other from only meters apart. As the camera pulled back to show us the entire scene, we can see through the smoke a billboard from the base that ironically says "Peace is Our Profession."

I think that if someone was to make a satirical film about the war in Iraq similar to Dr. Strangelove it might be a little more controversial (I think that's the word I'm looking for). I know that Dr. Strangelove was one of the first of a movement that started making fun of social and economic difficulties, but I think that "making fun" of the war on terrorism might hit a little closer to home seeing as Americans have lost so many of its people in the fight. I could be wrong because I don't really know as much about the Cold War as I should. In a way it might be easy to create a satirical film about Iraq because at the very least we have a common enemy, whereas in Dr. Strangelove we are all enemies of ourselves I guess. I don't know, I'll be interested to see what everyone else says about it.

La Dolce Vita

To start, I think this film was very beautifully crafted. From the scenery (including flooded lower class apartments to aristocratic castle-like structures to the beach) to the costumes and hair styles, there were countless astounding elements to this film. From the first image I felt fully consumed in the film. I feel like there was no boring part. I know at the beginning the story line was a little slow, but it's hard to say it wasn't interesting.
I think that Fellini explores religious fervor with several of the events throughout the movie, including the opening scene with the helicopter. I think that the statue of Jesus flying over the city was ironic. The men in the helicopter hover for a while over the modern apartment building so they can wave at the bikinied sunbathing girls by the pool, all the while transporting a representation of the Son of God. As Catholicism is a very modest-conservative religion, it is easy to see that from the very beginning of the movie, it would be immediately rejected by the Catholic religion.
As the film continues I feel like Fellini pokes fun at religion, especially when the two children claim to see the Virgin. The children have such a hold on the crowd, that they make a game out of the attention the crowd gives them. They run in random directions giggling with each other, claiming each time that the Virgin appears to them, and each time the raucous, anxious crowd ranafter them. The eager crowd (which was full of the sick in hopes of finding a miracle) was determined to be healed and to feel closer to God. The tragedy of the situation is that one man actually ends up dying in the rain and excitement of that night.

I also think it's interesting that Fellini plays with the idea of ghosts and the afterlife. As some drunk party guests swarm into a building belonging to the party host, which he hadn't entered in at least two years, they are I search of communicating with souls that haven't "passed on."

So to answer the question: Is Fellini the ultimate Catholic or the ultimate decadent? I believe that based on his direction of this film he is the ultimate decadent.

Orpheus

To start off, Orpheus was a little disappointing for me at first simply because of how the myth was molded to fit the film. We were just talking about Orpheus' story in my Chaucer class and I never imagined there would be this kind of version to it. But, putting aside the fact that it was based on the myth, there were so many interesting concepts to this film!
My favorite idea is the thought that Orpheus was falling for Death, or playing with suicide. It was actually brought up in class and the more I think about it relating to the movie the more interesting it is to me. At the beginning Orpheus feels threatened by another poet, who is killed shortly after we meet him. This is the first time Orpheus is encountered by Death, he follows her and is entirely intrigued by her. As the movie progresses, he becomes more and more reclusive, interestingly enough confined to the vehicle in which Death travels while in the mortal land. He falls in love with her and seems willing to do anything for her. Orpheus showed little interest in his wife throughout the film until the very end, in which he had forgotten he had encountered Death at all. Even when he has the chance to go get his wife from the underworld, he is interested only in the chance to see Death again.

Laura, Femme Fatale?

As we watched Laura in class on Tuesday, I personally had much difficulty not getting caught up in the plot. I had to keep reminding myself that I'm watching this for a class, I need to pay attention to detail, mechanics, I need to analyze these characters. It was just so easy to let the images flood my mind and let the story take me.

But as I continually forced myself back into analysis mode I took some interest in the character of Laura. Before we started the movie we talked a little in class about the femme fatale and that in this particular movie the femme fatale wasn't especially traditional. The only femme fatale characteristic I could really apply to Laura was the infatuation others developed for her, even when she was thought to be dead. Her portrait had an overwhelming effect and was often strategically placed in the background of camera angles.

After I read the femme fatale article No Place For a Woman I forced myself to notice a couple more ways Laura would fall into the catagory. She had a strong career, and the film showed her with the power to grant jobs, as she did with Carpenter. Also perhaps at the end when we assume that she chooses to be with McPherson, which will most likely lead her to a domestic life.

Although I did see a few ways to support Laura as the femme fatale woman, I still don't believe it is strong support. It just seems to me to accidentally fall into this catagory. After I read No Place For a Woman I imagined this kind of woman to be strong, independant, and self-assured. I imagined her to be above all opposed to marriage and opposed to all other means of depending on men. Laura was impassive and couldn't make up her mind. And finally when it seemed that she had made up her mind, she changed it.