-
In the early 1800s, there was an exponential growth around development of science and technology achievements in the western world, which formed the great deviation around the society in various aspect such as hope, anxiety, aspiration among the curiosity of mankind in what will this invention may develop into as we constantly move toward the future. During these time is when science-fiction genre starts to play a great role in our society. According to Science Fiction: A Historical Anthology, editor Eric Rabkin questioning the extrapolation of inventions like photography, calculator, and the light bulb in which it may lead us to a better future or on the other hand take us to the territory not meant for humans to tread. Frankenstein (1818) written by Mary Shelley considered being the birth of early science fiction genre with its portrayal of the great fear in the scientific extrapolation of resurrecting the dead by using electric current. Frankenstein considers being the modern Prometheus story in which they both have the same element compared to the Greek mythology. Frankenstein is a remarkable story that echoes the early extrapolation due to the rapid growth of scientific development of the western world by greatly representing two main elements which are dealing with early extrapolation of science and psychological dynamics.
Frankenstein is brilliantly well-written plot and structure that moves the reader consciousness by the consequences of scientific experiment and remind us the great cost of responsibility in human curiosity. The story of Frankenstein is familiar to most of the reader due to its classic representation of an early extrapolation of the scientific experiment. The overall tone conveys a mixture of science and supernatural which made its one of the most enduring and open up the early genre of scientific/fantasy with frequent taps of the myth of the Prometheus in which reckoning the modern-day science. The novel manifesting rage, revenge, romance between creature and its creator through a dynamic story arc in which results unique and compelling story. In the 1800s new technologies were invented and discovered among the curiosity of men amongst the rapid growth of development makes people questioning the value and how might these inventions would affect their future life. Shelley extrapolate the story that approachable in the modern scientific world in which Victor has resurrected the death but also owing to its request of either vengeance or commonality to live with. Looking in the aspect of God created mankind or Adam and Eve case, human eventually disobeyed God and follow their own path. Frankenstein depicts the same concept in which Victor has created a creature and the consequence are followed by.
The story of Frankenstein reflects great psychological dynamics of what mad scientist wanted to pursue but came the fear that the creature would overreach and harm society. “During my first experiment, a kind of enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my employment; my mind was intently fixed on the consummation of my labor, and my eyes were shut to the horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in cold blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands.” This part of the story firmly represents moral, emotional, and psychological strength of Victor Frankenstein in creating the unexpected creature. It echoes the idea of character facing an uncertainty of the situation caused by himself and end up in the trap of dilemma. Victor’s character has shifted over the course throughout the story arc from an innocent fascinated young man by the anticipation of science into a disillusioned and narrow mind and result in creating a great monster that haunted him throughout his life. This fall into the concept of mad scientist that work on the principle of passion and overly ambitious. The story conveys the unreliability mind of a character that wants to pursue his succession but turned out to be tragic of creating unwanted life form.
Frankenstein is a great example representing the early age of science-fiction genre in the way that it conveys both logical and emotional aspect of the consequence created by enthusiastic of the mad scientist. The story makes us understand and emphasize on the flaw or human errors in which usually driven by emotion over logical decision result in a great tragedy. The creation appears to mirror the creator flaw, personality, and obsession. The overall story arc of Frankenstein constantly reminded us of how powerful science can be in both good and bad way and how our intellectuality is one of the sacred principle humans has and should be used wisely. The reason why Frankenstein is still a classic story nowadays is because it depicts the realness of extrapolation by giving weight to both psychological and scientific prediction in the scenario of a modern day mad scientist.
-
Casablanca (1942) is one of many films which produced during the global conflicts of World War 2, perhaps with exceptionally memorable dialogues and seamless act delivered within great performers that make the film exclusive as well as artifice. Director Michael Curtiz has created unique aspects of delivering flawless powerful story of romance that touches the audience in both visual and emotional perspective. Casablanca is a remarkable example of what is a real cinematic movie that reflected historical context in consequence of German invasion. There are three main elements that made Casablanca a decent movie which are a plot and dialogue , the main character Rick Blaine, and historical context within.
Casablanca delivers a whole new perspective of how I usually watch the film. Smooth storytelling in the movie makes it a great case study to understand the history background and reachable at the same time. The sequence ordering in the movie is done well in additionally of investing time to build up the intense romance and political issue at its climax. To illustrate, one of my favorite scenes is the flashback of Rick, when he was with Ilsa at France before the German army approaching in Paris during his expressionless heartbroken period after reuniting with Ilsa at Casablanca. It shows how war scattered love away from other and bring them back together again at Casablanca. The movie draws a great parallel connection between love and war and unlike the other late 1930s movie, I feel that Casablanca itself brought up the witty contemporary dialogue which are recognizable. For example: “We’ll always have Paris.” said by Rick to Ilsa in the last scene of the movie. Many of the quotes include this are seamlessly rooted into the American culture or usual choice of phase even I, who speak English as a second language do get familiar with some of these phases, therefore there is no wonder why 7 of Casablanca quotes was nominated on the list of “American Film Institute’s top 100 Quotes”
“My dear Rick, when will you realize that in this world today isolationism is no longer a practical policy?” Rick’s ideal of life symbolic the American’s initial refusal to join the war of Nazi invasion with a policy of isolationism during the World War 2. As for me, his act and appearance seem to show his neutrality when he comes to dealing with situation happened around him such as refuses to accept drinks from customers to avoid further hidden agenda. Rick characteristic has become a metaphor for American early acted toward World War 2. I believe that Rick have good qualification of what make a compelling multidimensional character due to what drive him to make each decision and unique development of characteristic throughout the story arc.
From my viewpoint, the movie showed the good connection to the historical context of when United State abandoned their neutrality and fight against Nazi invasion, which connected to the change of Rick’s ideologies which slowly evolved along the story. The subplot of romance between Rick and Ilsa build up the suspension along the main plot and make a great contribution toward the climax which results in a worthy resolution at the end within remain of rich and powerful message behind the story. Casablanca is the representation of location where historically had a massive influx of refugee who tried to escape from the war zone and ended up on Casablanca. At the moment of time, Casablanca was full of diversifying refugee which are surprisingly accurate and matched with the production of international cast sign up for the minor role. Moreover those actors also the immigrant that had escaped from Europe to America. With a common between historical accuracy in the movie result a promotion of the movie to the audience in the 1940s, as well as took on a new meaning toward relevance for the cast and crew. In consequence of the event and timing that Casablanca was created amongst the tense situation, it quickly made the movie became a success in a short period of time.
Casablanca portrays a good blend in between love and politic with a great historical connection to the Nazi invasion which can be concluded as a good movie to be watch and even study for the subliminal contexts. As many have told us that every frame of the picture have the meaning behind itself, Casablanca did well in representing dialogue, Rick Blaine, and history context. The romance and personal sacrifice sum up a great essential theme of the story which also mirrors a different perspective of heroism. In conclusion, I am convinced that Casablanca is the movie we must all see to not just gain the historical knowledge but to enjoy and admire one of the greatest the all-time modern story that was created on the early 1940s.
-
Taxi Driver(1976) directed by Martin Scorsese who is one of the few directors that have a great role in the film industry with his long span career in studying and research on the historical figures, filmmaker, and significant cinema histories around the globe. At first sight, I knew it’s going to be one of the most challenge films I have to solve out the puzzle in the way of very subjective delivered by one legendary director. In my first watch, I hardly able to grabs out the messages from the film and it came to the point where I decided to watch the whole film again for the second time, hoping to take out the messages and find out what’s going on in the mind of Martin Scorsese in working on this title. Although Taxi Driver was criticized that its contexts and development of the story are difficult to understand for the majority of the audience, but on the other hand, it shows that the film it owns has heavily invested in subjective storytelling through Travis Bickle the protagonist. Things that make this film rich in context and stand out from the norm are due to it compelling protagonist and used of colors.
Taxi Driver have it uniqueness of characters construction that results in the richness and moves the story forward along with enriching the subtexts. Travis a taxi driver is one of the well-developed character due to the strong backstory and state of his mind. The character played by Robert De Niro due to his realistic portrayal of a person live alone by his own narrow mind. Travis is a character that represents the elements of a loner living in the big city and slowly gets affected, swallows by the environment around. The character has a strong confident in every action he takes and unquestionable in his stake. It seems to me that his ideologies always suited his own individualistic living but less contribute to what going on in the outside world. Due to his difficulty of trying to approach and connect with people around him, he always loses the connection to them as a person but instead gain what they believe and make a greater contribution to it. For example, when he meet up with Betsy at the presidential candidate Charles Palantine headquarter and later on break up with her during the misconception of him that brought her to the adult’s film theater caused him to become more radical and aim to assassinate Palantine later on. “We’re gonna have to make some radical changes” said by Palantine in response to Travis obsession about how terrible the city is. The quote that given above not just to serve the foreshadowing purpose but I also see it as a revelation of Travis act in the climax of the film. The character in my point of view is very fragile and easily convinced by people ideologies that quickly come and pass on his life. Travis is the character that set apart from the social norm which makes him independent but full of battle going on inside his mind. In my opinion, I believe that it is a form of mental illness he developed during his participation in the Vietnam war which later on makes it difficult for him to be part of the society surrounded by people. After my second watch of the film, I am convinced that Paul Schrader the writer has done a remarkable job of creating a compelling character with valuable subtexts. It’s very rare to see such a strong motive characteristic hiding beneath like this where we don’t really see where the story will take protagonist to achieving his goal and free himself. On another word, the journey of Travis achieving his goal results in a justifiable resolution that free him out of his enslaved mind.
Most of the film set in the nighttime to served the purpose of revealing Travis’s perspective in things that happened around him along with his unique response and verdict toward the environments and situations. From my point of view, I like how the light are being used and manipulate in Taxi Driver scenes. The film used of red as a color signature of Martin’s obsession to demonstrate Travis emotion and uncertainty of his mind. To illustrate, there is a scene when Travis ask for a personal conversation with Wizard outside the dinner. The red represent doubt inside Travis’s mind and his pessimistic toward future act. It is also my belief that the second half of the film tend to desaturated the colors down which changed the overall tone in the film result in muted tone that give the audience vivid feel of Travis’s subjective point of view in his psychological aspect. Although it’s a subtle meaning and require a very subjective viewpoint to convey the meaning behind this film, which also makes this film different from other and stand by it own artistic style.
Taxi Driver is one hell of a film for me to analyze and emphasize due subliminal meaning and Travis’s subjective, it took me quite a time to look at it and understand it. The story has a clear hook and build along the action of the protagonist ideologies amongst suspension of the main plot and make a great contribution toward the climax which results in a worthy resolution at the end within remain of a rich and powerful message behind the story. A protagonist has good qualification of what make compelling multidimensional character due to what drive him to make each decision and slowly reveal unique subjective development. In conclusion, I am firmly convinced that Taxi Driver is the film we must all see to not just to understand but to enjoy and admire one of the great subjective film, yet unique used of color choices that successfully portrays out through the vision of a legendary American film historian Martin Scorsese.
-
The Godfather(1972) signify the first incipient of Italian-Mafia film amongst the American media society with its contemporary use of elements in the modern American cinema history. The film that reflects the best mind of an American Italian Director Francis Ford Coppola in shaped up the metaphor for American capitalism results in a great compelling plot and eye-catcher cinematography. The great combinations of family, honor divide within greatness of New York city backdrop. All of the elements is defined by the patriotism of American in which one of the principles “Freedom” is the core concept of the story. The Godfather is a remarkable film that echoes the American society by seamlessly representing the three main elements which are strong unique plot structure, the honor of being men, and exceptional job of cinematography.
The Godfather has a brilliantly strong plot and structure that moves the American culture by a great norm of honor and nobility. Most of the message is solvable to the majority of western culture including the American Italian culture. The overall tone of the gangster is one of the most enduring Hollywood genres with frequent taps of the myth in both gangster and multicultural. Not so long after the end of Motion Picture Production Codes, cinema industries are starting to depict violence, crime, revenge, and murder which eventually show the realness favor to the audience which results in the compelling story. The Godfather have created numbers of tension scenes to grab audience focus based on the suspension act of characters death. I believe that there is one of the great suspense moment in the film that makes the movie stand out is that the film spent time building up the tension of Michael decision to kills Mark Mccluskey and Virgil Sollozzo for 13 minutes. After a spent a couple scenes of rationing up a tension, the real violence of gun shots only occurs in the time of 5 seconds. The quick live and death moments is one of the elements that constantly create surprise to the audience and make it harder to figure out the end of the story arc. The moment included ambushed of Michael brother Sonny Corleone and Michael wife in Italy Apollonia Vitelli-Corleone.
The dark tone of the film enrich the character’s ideologies along with each individual unique response and verdict toward the environments and situations. Questioning the words “honor of men” in the number of different aspect of what make Americans ideologically united such in liberalism, communists and concluded as democratic. Looking down to the character of Don Vito Corleone, he has a great ability to read other intentions and convince them by words raised his value of virtue up without any question. Vito is a strong central character that can be used to drive the story forward. Michael, son of Vito have a clear character internal arc that slowly evolves throughout the film and made him ended up becoming a vengeance person in contradict with his father ideology of peace between the family. The absolute change of Michael personalities from the beginning to an ending reflects the richness of character’s subtexts. On the other side, it also shows that The Godfather did a successful job of depicting the diversity of characters ideologies and act to gain their own honor to the family and people around them.
The iconic opening scene of the film portrays great techniques of low-key cinematography and warm lighting in the heavy contrast giving the superior tone to the Vito and his relative which as the same time, build a dynamic tension of their conversation. The tone and colors use in The Godfather is something I don’t normally see in the other film before the 70s, therefore it giving this film a mysterious unique way. I notice that most of the film takes place indoors in dark rooms and corridors, but on the other hand when it comes to the outside scene the tone are shifted to the high-key. Both of the combination of lighting and colors make the movie diversify from the norm and portrays a great use of contrast between the story. The dark tone of the film make the audience become skeptical and create the look of nobility to the scene. On the contrary, high-key lighting gives the tone of family responsibility and hope. Gordon Willis did a great job in the manipulation of lights to create certain emotion and unique shift for the film.
In the story of The Godfather, it representing many groups of the audience in both American and immigration from Europe which also matched the time where the Mafia was a very strong presence because it was something immigrants had carried with them from their homeland to United State. In conclusion, The Godfather portrays its contemporary use of elements that broaden the American cinematic history along with a fresh and unique plot structure and strong characters motives. All of these combinations are sum up to make the film stand out and become sentimental to many of the people. From my point of view, The Godfather is one of the finest work of art that should be watch and study especially for the film student who want to experiment and broaden their techniques to become a better storyteller.
-
“Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends time and space” said by one of the character in Interstellar. This movie is about the relationship between father and daughter to the hope of humanity of finding a planet that can habitat the people living on Earth. Director Christopher Nolan has created unique aspects of delivering another flawless powerful story of science fiction that touches the audience in both visual and emotional perspective. Interstellar is a remarkable example of what is a real cinematic movie that show independence vision and reflect upon our life. There are three main elements that made Interstellar movie one of the most successful films in the movie industry which are an uncommon storytelling, focus of the details, and the soundtrack.
Interstellar delivers a whole new unique perspective of storytelling techniques, inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey. The movie itself shows a balanced combination of artistic compositions and visual science, resulting in realism in the context and excitement at the same time. The plot is written to be tender, but still evokes the audience wisdom in various ways, such as a solution to our global warming crisis. The story focuses on the love between person in parallel with the action to save mankind from extinction. Interstellar also questions the audience on one’s decision making process, how the objective and emotion is played into the process. Foreshadowing is one of the elements that adds to create dramatic tension to the story, and more importantly, to create an unexpected storyline to make the story more exciting. The storytelling and arrangement shows a clear outstanding artistic style, which leads to an impressive film experience.
Great storytelling can reflect the hard work that is put into the film, where every little detail in the movie greatly enhances the audience experiences with the movie. Movie making is a collaborative job. People gather together and take on jobs that align with their area of expertise. The hard work from the different groups then all come together to create the larger picture. Director, Christopher Nolan, always put a lot of attention to the details of the production design in every one of his past films, Interstellar included. The farmhouse, along with the cornfield environments were especially built and grown for the set. Nolan always pushes his team through the challenges of using as much practical effects as possible in order to make the film feel more authentic, as well as artistic. Special effects crew also worked with Kip Thorne, who is a theoretical physicist discussing the possibility of the black hole presented in the film. The amount of effort that Nolan and his team has put into the details are reflected through the quality of the movie itself.
Sound plays a major role in influencing the audience senses in Interstellar. pacing and arrange of the audio tracks in the movie give the audience a surreal experience. The use of ambient and tempting soundtracks composed by the legendary Hans Zimmer, slowly takes the audience through the journey, with harmonic organs and percussion to enhance the viewing experience. Silence have also played a major role, as the lack of sound created in many of the scenes allows suspense and tension to develop, creating an emotional connection between the audience and the characters on-screen. Use of abstract sound makes for a more involved cinematic experience. Organs have been known as the most complex instrument created by mankind. Zimmer pushed his musical boundaries by experimenting new areas and embrace the idea of escalating the loudness in his soundtrack. He gives a significant point regarding the idea that emotions and feeling are the most important dimensions of human experience. Consequently, the use of both silence and loudness in the sound design of Interstellar creates a great contrast and makes the viewing experience to the next level.
In conclusion, Interstellar can be use as a great example or case study of how and why it became successful in many perspective. The movie show a great risk taking through both of visually and conceptually and bring new experiences to the audiences. The production team has push their effort beyond limit in order to bring a rich story and create the whole new experiences to the cinematic art and motion picture history. Nolan clearly shows his sense and ability to work and get the most efficiency out of himself and production team to merge all of the elements and created a great science fiction with stunning visual and sound along with a unique storytelling techniques. With all of the reasons above, Interstellar is more likely to be an experiences to the audiences than just a movie.
-
I would like to begin this essay with the central question of What define human being and society as a whole? In what medium we have that separates us, humans from other beings? It’s my belief that our intelligence is shaped by how we communicate and using the skill of communication as a tool to leverage and persuade eventually lead us to the pathway of gaining trust amongst society we now live in. Meanwhile we seems to be at the frontier of evolution through optimism, hope, and expectation to live in a better society by questioning our nature of reality. Since art by its definition is define by technique of communication and reality can be reflect seamlessly through how storytelling turn to be. Filmmaking at the essence give justice by providing the tool to redefine story we want to tell. Like any other form of art is the process of providing personal statement to the public, waiting to be criticized by other as well as to gain reputation as the messenger. In this essay I will take my attempt to define the approaches of narration through what make Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve seen as directors who always push their ability to overcome one of the greatest storyteller, how both of their signature differ from another and most importantly, what bring them together on the journey in representing mutual understanding of our human conditions interpret throughout the harmony between three elements of narrative structure, sound design composing, and visual through cinematography.
Often both of my given directors including production team found themselves in the midst of high-concept narration far into the future of what world might become in our distance time, to the extent of reality we’re now live in. Will we able to prevent catastrophe from happening? As one of the similarity both Christopher and Denis has in common are their fascination on science fiction. About 500 generations ago what we called civilization began, 20 generations ago we learn how to do science and the internet became available to most people only one generation ago. By means of having better technological tools make us grow exponentially comparing to the past progression of humanity. In the developing world, humanity viewpoint and ways of life become more diversified as well as societal problems in which constantly mirror throughout art landscape. The quest of journey towards what is “unknown” to modern science left us with inner curiosity.
One of the key point that gave rise to the power of motion picture is the idea behind reconstructing narrative to emphasize greater conflict. The approach of rearranging narration often tackle the idea of achieving degree of separation between “us” and “them” and resonate how individual and social identity come to the alignment by narration. Reconstructing the timeline of when and where story are taking place reflects the potential possibility of narration and enrich the storytelling between nature of characters and world they surrounded by. Both Christopher and Denis have dedicate themselves to experiment on structural storytelling in hope to explore the possibility in projecting reality in their original approach to portray their inner statement through given subtext of their film. On the extent of collaboration between Denis and writer Eric Heisserer in trying to illustrate the flaw of human being as an intellectual specie that dominate the Earth in confrontation with dilemma of facing with unknown being from another planet. Which I believe bring us to the question of “How can we as a universalist manage to handle larger threat to our being?” Set around the hypothesis on how language can shapes our perception toward culture we surrounded by. Arrival(2016) protagonist Dr. Louise Banks needs to understand the intention of extraterrestrial approach through her profession as linguistic. In order to understand their origin and culture, she then require to study them on how they approach language in general through their form of communication.
In my opinion, the opening of Arrival itself pose challenges on the dynamics storytelling of present moment but underlying the complicated issues in the concept of general relativity on space and time. One of the clear subtext I sense from reading the first part of a screenplay in which overarching the whole storytelling technique of Arrival is the articulation on the idea of the beginning of the end, vice versa by defining time as circular in which fall into never-ending cycle. In fact, Max Richter is one of my all time ambient composer which his work “On the Nature of Daylight” also being used to emphasize even deeper on the brightest light on the darkest spot on first and last sequence of the film. Another point that pose difficulty to convey the core message that resonate protagonist, Dr. Louise Banks’s drive as her career in linguistic specialist strongly correlate with what and how general communication take form. The classified messages between Dr. Banks and her close friend along with the urgency of the mission give me sense of threatening tone that gradually rise variation up together from Banks’s living room sequence to first encounter of the extraterrestrial site. There are such element of subtle surprise and anticipation combined together in building tension to the moment character facing real threat that not taking in the form of objectivity, but subjectivity as such consciousness. Banks want of love and acceptance from others in order to justify her means. She want to generalise the situation to the level of her subjective understanding and expecting to assist on military protocol in order to dilute the global panic then build holistic approach toward understanding the culture stagnation.
However, I’m convinced after rewatch Arrival for a couple time and came to my conclusion that the underlying major challenge of Arrival narrative is about the duality between systematic approach of the authority and emotional intelligence of human being in dealing with supernatural power. On the account of dealing with the unknown, Interstellar(2014) Directed by Christopher also do portray a similar view toward understanding of space and time in term of trying to implement the value essence around human emotion on love and affection throughout space exploration. To save mankind from extinction lead by Cooper carry us with his ambitious scale of necessity conflict on the interstellar travel journey to find new habitable planet that can sustain and hold future of humanity, separating him from his beloved daughter, Murph. Nolan approach toward hard science fiction reflects how he really pursue his vision forward pay respect to his role model director Stanley Kubrick eye-opening 2001 A Space Odyssey(1968) and to give back the value of filmmaking to the scientific community during their collaboration with well-known American theoretical physicist Kip Thorne. Many of the film industry deeply give contribution to the science institution in through sense of our imagination and how we perceive world problem around our daily life. The process of illustrating the possibility in what future of humanity might hold simply turn out to be the result of our extrapolation in storytelling. As Dr. Brand said during interstellar journey across the galaxy “Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t understand it.”
Given that filmmaker like Christopher and Denis take their vision seriously in trying to come up with unique and originality to tell theirs story. The big underlying theme of science fiction on how technology growth and advancement bring us to the point that intercept with biology redefine who we are as human is strongly imply on Interstellar(2014) and Blade Runner 2049(2017); upbringing from both directors appreciative toward legacy around original body of works done by sentimental directors such Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott. Since both of the original considered cinéma vérité as “truthful” in the extent that made their works standalone from the other. Christopher and Denis challenges on approaching the work again as the adaptation. It is my belief that the approach on music composition and sound design turnout to be similar between ambitious journey of space travel to sustain humanity from extinction on Interstellar and a story about quest to find nature of identity of Blade Runner 2049. Exploring the idea could means that sometimes answers are not found and resolution at the end of film might turn we as the audience in open up the bigger question to ourselves. As both of the film composer turn to be Hans Zimmer who have been working along with Nolan on numerous projects. It seems to me that Blade Runner 2049 and Dunkirk(2017) were premiered on the same year of 2017. Which bring us to differentiation between composing for post-war dystopian cyberpunk and frontier push to end historical World War 2. Since tragic death of composer Jóhann Jóhannsson who had done number of collaboration with Denis in the past, left nearly complete composing work of Blade Runner 2049 to be finish. Ultimately, the process was being transferred to Han in closing the final touch. **
In the aspect of holistic approach on sound design and arrangement on both composer backgrounds in term of sound design and arrangement. **Comparably, Dunkirk and Blade Runner 2049 focus to endure the idea of repression on constructed world that characters are living in. Which bring us to certain narration that rely on premise through captivation of character’s conflict. In order to throw us, the audience into bombardment of feeling, the aim for both films is to forms somewhat immersive experience in letting the audience be part of the narrative journey. As filmmaking career of Christopher and Denis usually emphasize their vision on the importance of humanism, allowing audience to become one with well craft journey. Han and Jóhann methods on sound design aim play significant role of saturating audience’s emotion, by composing sets of music that deal with continuum wavelength of pitches to affect audience’s cognition through principle that simply target intends emotion and set to the sound. By implementing plausible element of realism, letting subjective cynicism come to play, without doubt, enrich the essence of storytelling and resonate the value of how filmmaking execute their narration.
It would be a crime not to mention how visual play the role in Christopher and Denis directing career. To provide my point of view toward pure cinematography through the lens of Dutch-Swedish Hoyte van Hoytema and Roger Alexander Deakins. As mentioned earlier about both directors philosophy on cinéma vérité in combining direct with observational cinema approach expect to underlie factors that contribute to explanation about our human condition. Given that Dunkirk bring audience into the element of realism using IMAX which vitalize resolution, brought authentic feel of historical battle to modern cinema. On the account of past common trait around projects that both cinematographer did work on which is the franchise of James Bond. Equally spent their time on the genre of spy action, experienced and overcome the number of challenges in term of technicality in which enrich deeper understanding of their approach on versatile cinema.
On the whole consideration of their long extensive cinematographer which rooted in the philosophy of cinéma vérité and Roger’s observational method from his early career as a documentarian, lead us to their crucial path on Dunkirk and Sicario(2015). Hoyte and Roger illustrate their fascination on humanist in questioning the ethical landscape, tackle through the idea around our nature of reality resonate from the affect of psychology contribute to the human behavior against the authority and justice on their process of perfecting mise-en-scène. Both taking exceptional step around cynicism to pure cinema in different why reflects through the core conflict between Dunkirk and Sicario. In the journey of portraying universal conflict from European humanitarian crisis during World War 2 all the way to ongoing war on drugs. Both film present the messages on division between internal conflict of character deal with greater authority which captivate powerful concept between liberation and equality. With Roger work on Sicario give us the sense of the extremism approach on violence along with the idea in shaping history through history of wars, erupt within those people on their intellectual choices that ultimately act on behalf of other in restoration of order. In the basis nature of human violence that is extreme align together as our history is a history of wars. It is a story without end, a history of repression which bring us to the central question of What define violence and how we choose to overcome it?
It seems to me that both cinematography push the boundaries to illustrate the abstract idea of culture construction is quite fascinating in setting part into the reality of our world. Similar to the concept of each ideology from political world plays on distant of power or even the origin of Democracy occurred during the Greek classical period which intended to form unique and distinctive rules for the society that hopes to achieve a better society with peace and happiness. However, with the attempts to unify the society and exceed the previous achievement always require satisfaction both from individual and associate movement to represent collectivism. By putting that in mind, both Hoyte and Roger brilliantly illustrate how and why the concept of character trying to overcome their internal conflict amongst greater societal conflict is often follow by doubts for us to question the mere impossible, whether our action lead to satisfy consequences or not and, or how it meant to live under authority.
To conclude my point of the comparison between two of the most captivating director in our time Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve. It is clear that they both take messages seriously and transcend it further. We can all feel that when something is a fiction or a story which doesn’t mean to imply it’s bad or that it’s not important. It’s some of the best things in the world and the most powerful forces in the world are these shared fictions. Nations and corporations and banks and so forth, they are all stories we created, but they are the most powerful forces today in the world perhaps, far more powerful than our live. The key as a filmmaker is to remember that we created them to serve us, and not that we are here in order to serve them. In fact, the trouble mostly begins people throughout history and also today kind of taking it upside down. When people lose sight of the simple reality that we are real and they are not. For example, they think the nation is more real than me and or media represent truthful world. Motion picture do serve tremendously in the storytelling by presenting values through core conflict of the message and truthful cinema if done in the right direction as both Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve direction approach reflects big crucial hallmark and set the standard to illustrate in how media industry have been evolves throughout our modern cinema history as Christopher always say “I’m a firm believer in sticking to your gun”
Works Cited“Cinéma Vérité.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinéma_vérité.
Emmastefansky. “Why Christopher Nolan Didn’t Want to Direct ‘Blade Runner 2049’.” ScreenCrush, 8 Jan. 2018, screencrush.com/christopher-nolan-blade-runner-2049/.
“Experimental Film.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_film.
Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens. Random House UK, 2019.
Quartz. “Why Widescreen Feels Epic.” YouTube, YouTube, 13 Dec. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUtyrSKXjNo.
-
Before I begin my analysis through great director’s works that I foresee as one revolutionize artist of the 21st Century motion picture industry. I would like to provide number of statement I feel necessary to draw out the baseline and perhaps, give reader a better understanding of where this writing would lead to by providing the bigger picture in concept around the power of media and the influence on society in general. In providing the gap between space and time give us timeframe **within the timeline: the unit of measurement straight from the motion picture industry. There were a time when a group of people bet on the hypothesis that when horse is running fast enough their feet will levitate up from the ground. Eadweard Muybridge long-time landscape photographer who lived during 19th Century laid his hypothesis will do whatever it take to prove his point while the other see it as their passive leisure spending. Muybridge committed to his action by placing number of still-image cameras along the tracking field while the other grouping up and try to come up with cynical point to bet their money on. The horse run off the gate striving toward the finish line when camera out there snap rapid still-images of horse’s motion running across the field where the value proposition is on the whether horse’s feet is levitate or not. Now, the story of who won the bet or what cost one man to prove his objective should be put aside, instead you are acknowledging the birth of motion picture or film up until this point. Frame by frame, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour spent on finding and prove what he believe to be right; it goes as far as gaining social acceptance. The moderation of horse situation or storytelling has its own potential depend on individual interpretation and adjustment in different variation to best fit personal agenda. Such one idea might become too many to perceive and prime idea rise above the sentiment in which eventually become socially acceptable.
The early stage in the rise of motion picture are generally to give the viewer or audience sense of real-world dynamic in term of psychological resonation. The universal method is well known through Soviet montage theory called Kuleshov Effect in which reflect how through reconstruction of sequences that affect our emotion and furthermore give us the aspect of how simple propaganda can be construct by portraying military activities. It seems to me that ‘communication’ is a term that cover the broad definition of art, and by that I mean all kind of expressionism can be turn into the body of art around the question of how and why. Art on the holistic viewpoint is abstractionism in which fall into the grey area of individual’s interpretation toward his or her subjective to formulate the assumption and possibility of what could the body of work can possibly be. Filmmaker job is to emphasis on the core conflict by consistently forming the arc of storytelling through cross-sectional collaboration between different department in the area of such screenwriting, cinematography, sound design, production design, and editor. As a result of flow and systematic collaboration that result in such authentic outcome. In the extent of humanism’s aesthetic would conclude that the beauty is in the eyes of beholder and I strongly believe that Christopher Nolan and his production team do bring out the best of what human are in the most ambitious and elegant way I ever see in the present western film industry.
Christopher Nolan directing career based wholly on the intervening elements of realism and ambiguity that play around human condition, in the journey of questioning our nature of reality through the interaction between characters and setting. I personally fascinate in the overall aspect of storytelling especially influence I got during my study about European history in between 16th to 20th Century. From my perspective, the overall ideology of ambiguity and approach on Greek’s art in general are, in someway is similar to the principle of Nolan on implementation his ideology onto motion picture. On the fundamental level, Greeks held on the principle of their ideology on physical beauty that it had to be along with moral and intellectual of subject which why we see most of their sculpture conveying an idealized look, position, and proportion of the body. Greeks got influenced from the concept of the idealized human figures that portray geometrical designs, in order to create the harmony of the body structure. There were the ideologies expressing that “man is the measure of all things” due to the structure of the sculpture conveying the exact measurement of each part of the body referring it as “the canon” because it illustrate the principles that set in Polykleitos’s canon of proportion which can be interpreted as the visual expression that man is standardize of measurement. Many of the Renaissance artists such Michelangelo’s David were influenced by classical Greeks artists in which effectively reflected their culture in their art as we can see difference in the early and high classical period which slowly develop the element of realism and reflects emotions such as anger, love, eroticism, and aging.
The Greek analogy can be match with the concept of basic storytelling which character’s conflict play the role in turning the direction and eventually shape how the story come to an end. As the time goes by, we as human started to understand the problems of an imperfect world, and that is the turning point of their art which slowly diverse our intellectual to create something that differ us from the past but still ground on the basic principle we learned. As a consequence, I believe at this point if we compare to our postmodernism era, Nolan would be quite best fit around these idea in term of revolutionize the way non-linear story work by taking us back to the basic of how can we construct narration by manipulating storytelling techniques. According to the idea of forming a new reality through conducting the sequence in term of redefining what is motion picture evolution in the 21st Century could bring us into.
As the major archetype of narrative done by Nolan often played with the element of constructivism since his early direction on Memento(2000) that involved used of reverse narrative in the process of unravel character’s internal conflict from the end to the beginning and his well-known approach to hard science fiction focusing between subjective phenomena around the world of interplanetary travel to save mankind from extinction in Interstellar(2014) which based on overlapping structure of narrative align with each and another to connect the universal timeline of past, present, and future together as a whole. I’m fully convinced that every piece of film he done always goes back to the manifestation on the concept of structural narrative in which distinctively portrayed through number of his works that clearly complied back to the whole idea of non-linear storytelling.
Looking from the holistic point of view in how Nolan always ended up conducting story that has such lasting and captivating effect for the audience came from the balance of collaboration between each of the departments. It is my belief that the core balance of good storytelling lay between choreography between images and sound design. Which bring us to the point of the role of cinematographer and music composer. To illustrate my point on how Nolan handle interplay between the role of visual and sound I would like to bring you to his latest work Dunkirk(2017). It seems to me that we are living in the post-truth era in which the internet constantly generate and distribute information from each and other side.
It’s hard nowadays to get a grasp on what we really need in general daily life due to the overflow of information and one’s life might easily lead to chaos just from the consequence of what happening around us. Dunkirk is the reflection of pure human subjective experience toward threat in the form of war that ultimately define the nature of our being. The overall narrative is done quite effectively as a result of submerging the audience into narrative and be part of the role that character portray during the battle against Nazi. The film set audience right into the event since the beginning without giving any previous subtext in which allowing viewer to emphasize on what going on between character and surrounding. In using technique of intertwining foley and ambient sound design result in making audience feel like they are living in the scene and face the conflict similarly to character in the set.
A legendary music composer Hans Zimmer came up with his unique approach of blending environment audio with soundwave that ending up affecting our impulse which subsequently take us right to the middle of the chaotic warzone of Dunkirk. On the other hand, director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema who have been working with Nolan since Interstellar mentioned in LA Times in wanted viewers to have a visceral experience during cinema viewing. Hoytema is one well-know vivid cinematographer who portray his vision that give authentic harmony to Dunkirk on the approach of naturalistic in large format IMAX film. Hence in using IMAX that give immersive viewing from its aspect ratio of 1.43:1 and enhance the resolution beyond what digital cinematography can achieve nowaday, bringing us into the historical battle of Europe is quite genuine and signify the great revolutionary story in term of how Nolan approach to our modern viewing experience by revive film aesthetic and push the new frontier of cinema to the market.
In stating my conclusion, I would like to point out to our horizon of possibility in what Christopher Nolan and his production team leave us to consider as what drive modern cinema experience forward. We’re now living in the streaming era where entertainment and media are right in out hand all the time as in smartphone and computer we have. In the world that technology curve getting closer to align with our biological evolution and slowly becoming interplanetary specie. Nolan does bring us back to appreciate our progress in humanity by taking us along the journey that defined who we are through conflict we overcome and take those path for granted. His vision as the omniscient director reflects through both on and behind the scene, thus make his work timeless in the way body of work always questioning the boundary of our logic and emotional intelligence through human condition. From my point of view, Nolan is one of the director that constantly searching for the common ground between scientific mind and abstractionism in which we’ve seen similar trait through Stanley Kubrick and clear distinction source of inspiration for Nolan in the process of making Interstellar to push to share his regard to 2001 Space Odyssey(1968). I believe by what I’ve written that many would notices my points that reflect gradually emerging career of Christopher Nolan as one of a director which worth to study in term of how he constantly pioneer us to the new frontier of our future cinema experience. **
“We’ve always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments, these moments when we dared to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known, we count these moments as our highest achievements, but we lost all that. And perhaps we’ve just forgotten that we are still pioneers, and we’ve barely begun, and that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, because our destiny lies above us.”
Cooper Monologue from Interstellar Teaser
Works Cited“’Dunkirk’ Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema Wanted Viewers to Have a Visceral Experience.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 9 Jan. 2018, www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-en-mn-crafts-dunkirk-20180109-story.html.
“Eadweard Muybridge.” Eadweard Muybridge and the Bet That Led to Moving Pictures, agilewriter.com/Biography/Muybridge.htm.
Gilbert, Creighton E. “Michelangelo.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 25 May 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Michelangelo.
Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens. Random House UK, 2019.
Murch, Walter. In the Blink of an Eye. Silman-James Press, 2001.