This week you will blog about two films. The one we watched in class today was
"Un Chien Andalou" the surrealist film by Luis Brunel and Salvador Dali. It is a short film less than 20 minutes. I understand it is on YouTube. For this film I want you to internet search: surrealism, Salvador Dali and the film itself and give us a suumary of your findings on the blog.
For the second film, watch something on your own and blog about the lighting in your film.
Don't forget to check the drop off week 6 folder for handouts and links for this week.
Off you go.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Okay, I thought that "Un Chien Andalou" was an absolutely horrible film in every way. In terms of lighting it was very stilted, bright and washed out. The light tended to obscure everything in many scenes, and then there was more contrast in others. The lighting set-ups had no continuity, and it was just awful. The keylight was like a hot spotlight that flattened everything instead of giving form.
Surrealism was a movement that started in the 1920s. The strange artwork of this time period is very popular; it's characterized by elements of surprise and unexpected decisions made by the artists. According to the artists, the works are expressions of the prior philosophical movement.
Salvador Dali is best known as a spanish surrealist painter, but he's also skilled in photography sculpture and film. He has worked on a short Disney cartoon called Destino, and he's also worked on one of Alfred Hitchcock's films called Spellbound. He was also known for doing strange things to draw attention to himself. When making Un Chien Andalou, Dali and Bunel agreed that no logical or rational image or idea would be accepted; they wanted to rely on psychoanalysis for the movie.
Un Chien Andalou is one of the most famous short surrealist films. It has no plot, but intead has a dream logic. I think this makes the film hard to follow. I found out that the part where the woman's eye is slit is actually the eye of a dead crow, but with intense lighting, Dali washed out the feathers and made it look like smooth human skin. One film maker says that anyone interested in the film industry will end up seeing Un Chien Andalou, and another says that it may have been the first film-making style of modern music videos.
I watched a movie called Man on fire. The story is about a sorrowful bodyguard who falls in love with an adolecent school girl whom he guards. When her life is threatened, nothing stands in his way of getting her back.
The lighting in this movie is very realistic, believable and convincing. There's nothing special about the lighting except how it is used to insinuate different moods. The bodyguard is an ex-assassain who feels that God will never forgive him, and he therefore doesn't think that his life is worth living anymore. I believe that the milky blue key light was used appropriately to symbolize this and the general mood of the movie as well. Though the blue color wasn't everywhere through out the entire movie, the light still had continuity in it's intensity. In the begining there's a scene that takes place in a large restaruant where shady white overhead lighting is used. There's another scene in a club where the light varies between low-key colors of yellow, blue, red and green. Many scenes that took place outside were filmed during the afternoon in the shade of buildings and trees in order to match the low intensity of the rest of the movie. There's one scene that took place outside when the sun seemed to be very bright, but the actors were at a picnic table where a large umbrella covered them. I didn't find anything spectacular about the lighting, except that it was used good.
Tillman, you make some excellent points, and your choice of Man on Fire along with your description of it put me in mind of the old lighting adage: "the best lighting designs are the ones you don't notice". This concept is very true in films and and stagework that offer naturalistic presentations.
Excellent work as usual Till.
Good interpretation on the use of blue in the lighting.
~Tim
Surrealism is the principles, ideas, or practice of producing fantastic, or incongrous imagery or effects in art, literature, FILM, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational combinations.
Salvador Dali was a spanish surrealist painter, born in spain May 11, 1904. He was a skilled draftsman, known for striking and bizzare images in his surrealist work. He was widley considered to be greatly imaginative, he had an affinity for doing unusual things to draw attention to himself. This irked those who loved his art ad much as it annoyed his critics.
Some of his famous works were "The Persistence of Memory" "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans" and "Swans Refelcting Elephants."
The famous film, Un Chien Andalou
was a very confusing movie in my opinion, I found it to be weird but typical of Salvador Dali, since he was into such unusual and bizarre pieces of work. I didnt really care for the lighting, i thought it was way to bright and it made it hard for me to know what was going on.
The movie I watched is Premintion. It's about a woman, Linda Hason, who has a beautiful house, a loving husband, and two adorable daughters. Her life is perfect. Until the day she recieves devastating news that her husband, Jim has died in a car accident. When she wakes up the next morning to find him alive, she assumes it was all a dream, but shaken on how real it felt. She soon realizes it wasnt a dream and her world is turned upside down. Desperate to save her family, Linda begins a furious race against time and fate to perserver everything that she and Jim built together.
I enjoy the lighting in this film very much. I like how in the begging the lighting isnt too dark and it creates a sort of calm mood, but later in the film when Linda comes in and out of her "dreams" the lighting is very gloomy and dull making the film seem erey like, it gave a sense that something was about to happen. The lighting was used very well and gave off the right feeling and mood for this suspenceful film.
So I had a nightmare last night about "Un Chien Andalou". I didn't see that there was much thought put into the lighting of the short film. The shots were way too hot, and as Tillman said, the characters appeared very flat with no form.
The film itself was very hard to follow, perhaps i just hate the idea of surrealism, but I personally have a difficult time calling this film art.
On my own time I watched one of my favorite films "Garden State". Using a lot of natural lighting, the film gives a sort of foggy look on the life of Andrew Largeman. The character has been heavily medicated on lithium since he was a teenager, leaving almost no emotion or feeling in his life. He then returns home for his mother's funeral, deciding not to take any of the meds while away. In the beginning of the film the lighting seems very dull and every scene is a bit hazy reflecting the light through fog.
Towards the end, shots become clear, resembling that the meds are wearing off and his life is sort of starting a new.
I thought the film for "Un Chien Andalou" was very hard to watch. The lighting really hurt my eyes. It was so bright on some part that i couldn't see their faces. Also I didn't understand the movie at all i tried to get somthing from it but i couldn't sorry, but this is Salvador Dail's and was best know for his strange artwork soI would think he will bring that same style to the big screen
In my opinion the movie "Un Chien Andalou" is a very difficult movie to understand and watch. I don't really understand what the movie is about. It seems to go from one story line to another. The lighting goes from bright to dark on any given scene and is very hurt on the eye.
I choose the movie "Transformers" this was one of my personal favorites movies of 2007. It brings the cartoon series to real life, in a non-stop action pack thriller. The Autobots ( protagonist ) are called into action once again when Megatron has been accidently activated by humans. Once the autobots have united they only have a limited amount of time before megatron finds and activate his ultimate death weapon against human kind. Shia Leowolt comes to play when he purchased an old beater car and it turns out to a transformers have quiet a task to disarm and dismantle megatron and his death cube.
Many of the scene took place outside because of shear size of the robots in parks, parking lots,there are even scenes in and around Hoover Dam so sunlight was abundant in many scene. At night most scenes took place in well lit areas such as factories tran-stations and parking lots. To me the lighting was well placed and thought out.
The lighting in "Un Chien Andalou" was so bright that it made the actors look flat. I really did not see much dimension in the figures whatsoever. But the movie itself was pretty entertaining. Seems like a lot of people here didn't like it...I liked it mainly because I didn't know what was happening or what was going to happen next. That's Dali for you I guess. But anyway, onto surrealism. It is a movement that began in the early 1920s and became very popular due to its visual imagery and unique style. It was best known for because of it's element of surprise and odd placement.
Salvador Dali is a Spanish surrealist artist. Born on May 11, 1904 and is one of the most famous surrealist artist in the world. He worked on short films and paintings. He was also a writer, photographer, and sculptor. In his work he liked using a lot of symbolism. He also tried to kill himself a couple times (at least that's what they say but he never succeeded) so he lived his final years in his Theater-Museum.
As for my movie, I watched Peter Pan (2006). It's gotta be one of my favorite stories growing up and I really liked the recent version they came out with. But I'm not sure what to say about the lighting. It wasn't realistic, not necessarily saying that's bad since it is fantasy. But in the beginning the lighting was very soft and gentle--pretty dark too. It was either raining or it was night. I noticed that the movie really over exaggerated the colors of the light too. For instance when it was night and the actors were inside a room, the light on their faces were orange. If it was night and they were outside, their faces were blue. When they were in a dark cave--they were green. The way they did the lighting was pretty weird but I think it worked. I did not notice anywhere where the lighting was too bright or overpowering. Sooo...I'm not sure what to rate the lighting in this movie since I think a lot of it was implied unnaturally.
i think everyone pretty much summed up "un chien analou". there's not much more to say. i think i could make a better movie than that. As far as dali goes his paintings are pretty good i guess but he should have stuck with painting and not film.
i watched the movie shoot em up.
Mr. Smith is waiting for a bus when a pregnant woman runs by, chased by a group of thugs. Smith kills them and delivers the baby, but the mother is killed. Chased by the evil Mr. Hertz and an army of goons, Smith enlists DQ, a lactating prostitute, to help him care for the baby.
After a series of gun fights, Smith discovers the truth. A Democratic presidential candidate and supporter of draconian gun control measures is dying, but had several supporters impregnated from his sperm so he could harvest the children. The women were killed by Mr. Hertz who was working for a wealthy firearms executive. However, Mr. Hertz and the Democratic politican cut a deal to work together. Smith kills every one of them personally, and in the end he reunites with DQ and the baby to start a new family. imdb. the movie was pretty interesting the special effects and the action sequences were pretty original and creative. the lighting was very naturalistic for the most part with the exception of some scenes where they had the main character lit in different setups to make him look like the good vs. evil which were a lil darker and more shadows.
Un Chien Andalou how sick was this movie the eye silting, dead cow piano dragging.that film was forged from 100% pure awesome.
the film i watched was ichi the killer. Its about a gang leaders disappearance and a subordinate's search for him. in his search, him and some other gang members come in contact with a depraved manipulated brainwashed killer named ichi.
at the end of the film kakihara the man in search of his missing boss, becomes board with his would be fight with ichi and decides to pop his own ear drums. the instant he does this the lighting turns to a washed out light blue and white as the audio cuts out. it was a very dramatic change in lighting much like the ones seen in Un Chien Andalou
Yeah the salvador dali film i think the guy was definatly on something, it was an ineresting movie though, the lighting in my scene isnt that special but im gonna make it more interesting then it is in the acctual movie
Maybad I forgot about the movie I had to watch. I watch Sin City I really liked movie. I really don't know but I know its four diffrent short in this hard, dangerous, rough city at night. This is not a old movie but the was shot in black and white. Like the Salador Dali film it had kinda high level of white but i could still tell what everything was. Sometimes they did show some color but it was small thing like hair and eyes. I like the lighting in this film they used thing like car lights and sreet light a lot but it was mostly shot at nigh. Most times I have a hard time catching lighting in black a white with this movie it was a little better.
Surrealism may appear at first glance, Bazaar but never less its Art. Art, we may all agree is a collaboration of imagination brought from our minds and manifest through some sort of medium. Whether painting, sculpting, photography, cinematography, etc… our imaginations are revealed to be viewed by others. I find it humorous how several individuals interpret the same piece of art. I compare art to our dreams. Every person has different variations of dreams. Some may dream in what appears to them color or reality. Some may dream only in figures of shadows with movement. Some hear sound and conversations. Others might hear music. When Surrealism made its debut, visually through works of pictures and painting in the 1920’s many thought of it like dreams, “free…conscious…”(encyclopedia, surrealism) Jim Morrison used a free , stream of consciousness style of lyrical writing. Many poets and writers such as Louis Aragon and Robert Desnos. Our Salvador Dali used film as well.
I feel the film was a representation of random thoughts and dreams of a mind in grief. The common idea or theme through out the short film was loss, death, and associated visuals with these emotions. Bugs, dark high contrast shadows etc…
In a dream, thoughts are crumbled together with images seen and placed in the sub-consciousness. These thoughts and emotions are played out in the mind in an unorganized, unexpected sort of way. Surrealism is similar to a dream to me, a collaboration of visuals, thoughts, emotions, and ignored processed data in the mind.
Luis Bunuel (the Director) “believed reality is actually a smoke screen for hidden urges.” (Durhnat 65) "We have been rendered unwittingly comfortable within our psychic cages to the point where we prefer them to liberty, an experience and aspiration we neither understand or desire" (Mellen 331). I couldn’t find anything on the actors or cast of the movie but I would really love to know where I can find the info. A story like that can be a movie.
A movie I viewed in the last two weeks has been “ Amazing Grace” based on the life of antislavery pioneer William Wilberforce, is directed by Michael Apted. The lighting in this movie appeared similar to the Movie we viewed in class called “The Girl with the Pearl earrings”. Though the wardrobe in this film was vibrant and bold the background and overall feel of the movie seemed a tad gray, blue. Tim said this might have to do with a deliberate decision for and era feel. I agree, Each scene has a antique picture portrait feel. This movie indoors, seemed to have harder lighting in some scenes that accentuated the subjects features. I really enjoyed the writing and colors in this movie and highly recommend it.
Post a Comment