Signing off.

So it’s the end of the blogging escapade, and I admit that I haven’t been as dedicated as I should have been. I have found the process quite hard to keep up with alongside other work although I believe the posts I have made have been a tasty morsel of what could have been. Some of the lectures I have found useful and others...not so much.  I did find the seminars very helpful and appreciate the effort made to try and link the material to the course. Ivan, I salute you.

"Violence is good, OK!"

Last week’s lecture was about extreme violence and how the audience reacts to seeing such media. We started by watching a clip from "Happiness"(1998) in which a man is seen strolling through a park and quite peacefully gunning people down in the most calm and relaxed way imaginable. The music playing over the top is also gentle and calm. This is clear binary opposition and the use of this creates a reaction in the audience which was evident in the lecture, as the majority of people broke out into laughter, as what they were witnessing was so absurd. We also watched a scene from “Natural Born Killers” (1994) a favourite of mine which features the adventures of Mickey and Mallory a couple travelling down route 666 whilst on a killing spree just for kicks. It is a typical road movie like "Thelma and Louise"(1991) or "Easy Rider"(1969), but contains a lot of killing and is also a love story. The violence is portrayed in an almost glamorous way and there is also a first person shot which is in reference to the game ‘Doom’ which makes the audience experience the violence from the attackers perspective, making it less disturbing. This lecture made me think back to a seminar where we were asked to analyse a scene from “A Clockwork Orange” (1971) where there is a display of violence which is carried out in a most extraordinary way. The scene is filmed in slow motion with Rossini’s overture to La Gazza Ladra playing, which makes the fight look almost like a ballet as the characters can be seen leaping ever so gracefully around in time to the music. This is another way of downplaying the violence, as when it is associated with something as high brow as ballet it doesn’t appear to be so shocking or brutal. The lecture also dealt with violence in video games, in particular the “headshot” and how this and other forms of video game violence has desensitised the audience to the material. This desensitisation is thought by some people to be a bad thing as it makes people less disturbed by the idea of killing and therefore in a way devalues human life. This of course is not true as it is just a form of entertainment and just means that humans are curious beings that like to explore darker aspects of the world. This is a form of catharsis, the cleansing of emotions after experience, in particular fear and is very therapeutic to some people. The point is just because someone likes to play first person shooters or watch violent films, it doesn’t mean they will one day buy a gun and start killing people looking to score headshots.

Realism 'To The Max!'

I recently watched Pan’s labyrinth a film I have always liked for its stunning blend of special and visual effects, coupled with a gripping storyline. It is a tale of a girl who uses her obsession with fairy tales as a means of escaping from the harsh reality of her life. Having never seen the special features I decided now was the time to do it. In particular there was a featurette about the character costume and make up of Doug Jones a well known ‘monster actor’ who plays both ‘Fauno’ and ‘Pale Man’. This was very interesting as it showed how the characters were created using both real costume and effects and some CGI. Doug Jones was filmed getting into the costumes and you could see just how much work there was behind the scenes to create these effects as well as the pressures as an actor having to stay in character whilst speaking a foreign language and having poor visibility. I found myself shocked to see Doug Jones in full costume, as the realism value was amazing even without CGI. I actually believed that I was looking at a fantasy creature and the fact that it was in a dressing room and out of context blew my mind further. As an observer I could not differentiate between the real and the fake. I saw him as a separate entity in the real world not just a man in a costume. Even scarier was seeing him dressed up as ‘Pale Man’ a hideous creature that I find truly terrifying. His skin falls saggy off his bones as if he was once fat. His long pointy fingernails are blackened. Worst of all he has no eyes in his head, instead just two nostrils and a dark mouth with jagged teeth. He has sockets in the palms of his hands, in which he can place removable eyes when he wishes to see. This is the most disturbing element of this character as well as the jerky unnatural way in which he walks as he stumbles around seeking out his victims. For a character to project so much fear into me whilst being completely out of context to the film, I think is a job well done and realism has definitely been achieved. It is only when Doug is in costume but starts talking in his American accent that the illusion is dropped and you realise it’s just someone in costume. I think this film is a brilliant example of realism and one of the best examples of how real effects and CGI can work together to create magic.

Say What You See!

This weekend saw my first visit back home to Shakespeare’s county since I first came to university. On the journey back I couldn’t help but notice the road signs all around me, specifically the brown and white tourist information signs. This got me thinking about semiotics, the study of signs and symbols of which we had an extensive lecture two days earlier. Now there are of course many instantly recognisable symbols where the object is clearly pictured, such as an elephant to represent a zoo which is fairly iconic, but also the symbol of ‘i’ is instantly recognisable by most people as an indication of ‘information’ even though this symbol is rather arbitrary. However I came across some signs that had me stumped. I did not possess any prior knowledge of these symbols or their connotations, nor could decipher what they were on a purely denotative level. The first one looked like a cross between a piece of a patchwork quilt and a jigsaw puzzle piece, which I later found out was actually an indication of an ancient monument in the care of English Heritage. Though stranger than this was what I could only interpret as an image of three people doing the dance to “Y.M.C.A”. After much painstaking research I have found out that the symbol is supposed to represent either parks and gardens or natural attractions. I am still yet to find out whether the symbol is supposed to be representative of perhaps an orchard or maybe a family of three rejoicing at the beauty of a nearby natural attraction.

Jan the Man

Just like Alice I am about to embark upon a topsy-turvy journey of wonderment and curiosity, with a dash of insanity thrown into the mix. To start I am going to revisit a film I first saw several years ago by a Czech director called Jan Svankmajer, who is renowned for his surreal animations. This film called “Alice” (1988) is based on Lewis Carrolls book “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (1865) and combines Stop-motion animation with live action. Whilst not crossing the line into horror, the visuals often appear grotesque and disturbing, making it a very strange cinematic experience. The boundaries are often blurred between the real and the imaginary as inanimate household objects come to life and behave in ways you wouldn’t expect. The strong recurrence of skulls and scissors coupled with the eerie narration of the story by Alice herself makes this a risky choice for my bed time viewing, as my dreams will no doubt be occupied by Czechoslovakian surrealist style nightmares.