jogroglog: October 2012

Tuesday, 30 October 2012

The Filmic - Film clips for discussion

The Man Who Knew Too Much - The Walk to Ambrose Chapel - Alfred Hitchcock 1956

Interesting clip - long uninterrupted shot, building suspense and using quiet, empty streets of london to add to this feeling of being alone - also clever conceit in that the scene leads up to a farcical scene in the taxidermist building and not the one of terror that you were expecting.

Slacker trailer - Richard Linklater 1991

Film where nothing much happens and you are led for one set of characters to another, all set in small town America where no one seems to be working and there is a lot of navel gazing about individual's role in this society.
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Helen - a film by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawler 2008

A really unsettling film where most of the characters are played by amateurs - the main character is a volunteer with a care home history, taking on the role of a murdered woman, from a very secure middle class background, as part of a police re-enactment. The volunteer morphs into the murdered person...

Les Vacances de M Hulot - Jacques Tati 1953

Use of mime and humour to celebrate the annual french summer holiday - the main character, played by Jacques Tati, is always in the middle and the cause of chaos, but ordinary people are all attracted to him as he to brightens up their dreary own holiday. Also a comment on the French modern and upper class of the time .

La Haine - Mathieu Kassovitz 1995

Saw this at the Barbican with a live score by The Asian Dub Foundation - a perfect combination of an angry film with an angry band - gives a real insight into the haves and have nots in and around Paris in the 1990's and was shown to the French cabinet by the President to highlight the extent of the problem in the council estates in the Paris suburbs.
Good to compare with Mr Hulot Holiday - 40 years different and the need to shout louder about inequality in the more recent film.