Communicating in Film: Styles and Movements - Essay Example

Communicating in Film: Styles and Movements Communicating in Film: Styles and Movements Question 2 Introduction Cinematography isthe art of visual storytelling that is applicable in visual communication to control what viewers see and the image represented. Cinematography promotes the production of classic films where individuals can deduce the storyline without tracking any conversation. The technology applied in cinematography enhances the basic composition and scene constructions for perfect planning of scenes using visual language (Gaycken 2015, p.15). Cinematography has a great potential for developing global understanding and greater cultural awareness. Cinematography enables viewers to respond to situations, people and politics in personal ways, through which choices, moral decisions and opportunities for action are made. Cinematography can take viewers beyond their experience by providing opportunities to engage with characters and societies. Hence, film production through cinematography help in the promotion of awareness and understanding of other cultures and developing viewers’ sensibilities to global trends. Various cinematography techniques are applicable in film productions (Nama 2015, p.68). The paper discusses how film managers use cinematography in the development of narratives, characters and mood with reference to four films, Days of Heaven (1978), Psycho (1960), Memento (2000) and Blackmail (1929). Days of heaven (1978) Narrative Cinematography has been extensively applicable in developing the film’s narrative. In the film, Days of Heaven (1978), the development of narrative is evident in various scenes. The film’s storyline commences when Bill, his girlfriend and a young sister Linda are compelled to flee Chicago after he (Bill) accidentally murdered a foreman at the work place (Slattery 2015,p.114) The trios board a train from Chicago and eventually arrive at a wheat farm in the Texas panhandle. The narration proceeds by explaining how Bill secures work for them as sackers by deceiving the supervisor about a non-existent prior experience. To avoid suspicion Bill and Abby pretend to be having brother and sister relationship (Blasi 2014, p.68). Even though Bill expresses misunderstanding with the foreman, who considers his performance substandard, they seemed to enjoy their work. A wealthy farmer, Sam Shepard, is in love with Abby and asks her to stay with him after the harvest. Bill develops jealousy, but when he overhears the doctor telling the farmer about his few months of existence, he (Bill) encourages Abby to accept the proposal. The Farmer and Abby get married, but the foreman becomes suspicious considering Bill and Abby as cunning artists hence sending them away. The farmer’s health recovers fast and he escapes death while treating Bill like a brother. He, however, notices that Bill has developed restlessness (Lucia et al 2015, p.23). in an attempt to clear his doubts, the farmer questions whether Bill and Abby are in a close relationship during a visit by wayward Italian circus troupe. After learning of the farmer’s knowledge of their relationship, Bill escapes from the farm with the circus troupe to conceal and avoid exposure and suspicion about their relationship. After the exit of Bill, the farmer, Abby and Linda set up a family for a year until when the itinerant famer returns and Bill too comes back. Character Days of Heaven film shows traits and the passionate aspects of various individuals participating in the movie plot. For example, the murder of the foreman reveals the arrogant traits of Bill at the steel mills where he works. It extends by stabbing and wounding a farmer and taking Abby and Linda in the farmer’s car, which they later sell to purchase a boat. Bill’s deceiving character is evident when he lies to the foreman about his experience in a bid to secure job opportunity on the farm. There is distrust between Bill and the farmer. After realizing the farmer has a short life, he persuades Abby to marry him instead. According to the film, Abby shows weak sexual characteristics by abandoning Bill for the farmer, who is socially irrelevant. Abby is an opportunist and by taking chances of rare opportunities she acquires the entire farmer’s fortune. Again, she has an opportunity of leaving by a train with American soldiers going to fight during World War 1 (Aldama 2015, p.225). Linda, who has been admitted to a dance school of her dreams, colludes with her friend Jackie and together they elope showing a dishonest character. Moods There are different moods within the film displayed by dissimilar types of individual traits. A jovial mood is shown by happiness in the relationships between the farmer and Abby after Bill secures a job at the farm. It prevails when the farmer secretly falls in love and convinces Abby to marriage. The Farmer, Abby and Linda share great moments and spend the idyllic year at the farm playing and going to picnics. Gloomy moods also exist in different scenes in the film as Bill kills a foreman at the steel mills where he works. The police officers track Bill with dogs and horses. Bill gets back to his tent and gets hold of his gun ready to exchange fire with his pursuers exposing his defiant mood. The search for along the shoreline ends in a gunfight. One of the horseback pursuers kills Bill and Abby breaks down in grief in the public view. The memento (2000) Narrative The film memento features different cinematography techniques to display the traits of various characters. The storyline of the movie is about a man, Leonard, tracking down the man who raped and killed his wife. It is challenging to trace his wife’s murderers compounded by the fact of a terminal problem of memory loss he is experiencing. He can only recall the details of his life prior to the accident but cannot remember an occurrence that occurred within fifteen minutes (IRMA 2015, p.151). The narrative in the film elaborates the plot and theme as depicted in various episodes. Development of a narrative is evident through the complicated story of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a person whose ability to make new memories is bad. A problem arises when Shelby is struck on the head while confronting two people attacking his wife at their residence. Leonard murders one of the attackers but losses his wife during the incident. He is determined and devoted to finding and killing the second attacker who flees away after the committing the murder. In film, memento, the story commences when Leonard Shelby finds himself in a room at the Discount Inn stunned of his presence there. His phone rings and he picks conversation with a stranger explaining that he suffers from anterograde amnesia, a condition influencing his creation of new memories (Thomas 2015, p.246). He further describes the condition detailing the story of Sammy Jankis, who had a similar problem. He describes how he must have a system of notes to counter the problem and a drive to use them. Leonard’s further narration of the story explains that he had just become an insurance investigator when he met Sammy. He had the responsibility of determining whether his condition was covered by his insurance policy. In Sammy’s condition, there was a slight difference from other forms of anterograde amnesia because he could not study through conditioning (Ward 2015, p.206). Leonard narrates how Mrs. Jankis (Harriet Sansom Harris) privately contacted him trying to persuade her that Sammy is on the verge of making new memories. She tested Sammy’s condition by regularly questioning him to accept insulin injections. She then slipped into a coma and never recovered from the overdose leading to Sammy confinement for a mental institution. In their conversation with the stranger, they include the Leonard’s investigation and the police officer’s disbelief about Jimmy story. His caller then identifies himself as a police officer and provides him with additional clues for his quest. The caller tells Leonard about the descriptions of the second attacker and about planned meeting with the attacker. Leonard also plans to meet the strange caller who purports to be a police officer in a motel lobby. Leonard meets a man and enquires if he is the Officer Gammel. The man insists that Leonard calls him Teddy since he was an undercover officer. He offers him (Leonard) directions to the location to meeting the second attacker (Jimmy) in an abandoned building on the city outskirts. After Jimmy Grantz arrives at the meeting point, he recognizes Leonard as the man with memory lapse and inquires the reason for his presence at that place (Botez 2015, p.314). Leonard threatens Jimmy telling him to strip. That prompts Jimmy to plead for life telling Leonard about 200,000 dollars in his car trunk for drugs payment. Leonard strangles Jimmy and takes his Polaroid photo of his body putting on Jimmy’s clothes. Teddy reaches the scene and tries to coax Leonard that Jimmy was the man he was trailing, but Leonard does not believe him. Teddy admits that Jimmy Grantz was a drug dealer who did not have anything to do with his wife’s killing. Teddy informs Leonard that his wife survived the attack, and Sammy Jankis was a fraud who was not even married. Character Every episode of the movie, memento, reveals various character traits of the individuals engaged in the plot of the film. The vengeance character is evident when Leonard vows to find and kill the second murderer of his wife. He collaborates with a strange caller claiming to know the second killer and plans for an incognito meeting with Leonard to tell him about Jimmy. When Leonard meets Jimmy, he kills him by strangling thinking he is the right killer of his wife but that proves opposite. Leonard shows the characteristic of patience and dedication as evident from by the motivation he applies in tracking and killing the second killer of his wife. There is also an aspect of cheating detected in the movie where the strange caller uses alternative names claiming to be an undercover. Self proclaimed police officer plans a secretive meeting with Leonard in the Lobby where he reveals to Leonard where the presumed killer is waiting. There exist trust and transparency between the characters following the cooperation of everyone involve in the investigations with the ability to provide any evidence. Moods The characters in the movie possess different moods determined by the situations they are undergoing. Leonard in a real bad mood after realizing that one of his wife killers is absconding, and he promises to find and kill him. A mood of confusion is revealed when Leonard goes to Ferdy’s bar to meet Natalie after finding and appointment letter in Jimmy’s coat he wears. He finds Natalie who takes him home is ready to live with him at her residence in a mood of total confusion. Bibliography Aldama, F. L. (2015). Critical approaches to the films of Robert Rodriguez. Austin: University of Texas Press. Blasi, G. (2014). Nature and the Unmaking of the World: Reading Figures of Nature in Terrence Malicks Days of Heaven. Journal of Language, Literature and Culture, 61(1), 67-73. Botez, C. (2015). Skin-deep memos as prosthetic memory in Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000). Probing the Skin: Cultural Representations of Our Contact Zone, 312. Gaycken, O. (2015). Devices of curiosity: early cinema and popular science. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Information Resources Management Association. (2015). Gamification: concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. Lucia, C. A. B., Grundmann, R., & Simon, A. (2015). American film history: selected readings. Chicester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Nama, A. (2015). Race on the QT: blackness and the films of Quentin Tarantino. Austin, Univ. of Texas Press. Slattery, D. P. (2015). Days of Heaven (1978). Directed and Written by Terrence Malick. Psychological Perspectives, 58(1), 114-116. Thomas, D. (2015). Pusting Ourselves Together Through Cinemd. Neo-Noir, 240. Ward, J. (2015). The students guide to cognitive neuroscience. Psychology Press. Read More