How far does the impact of the films you have studied for this topic depend on distinctive uses of film techniques? La Haine

La Haine

The scene within La Haine where the character Vinz is being shown by the use of a split screen shot with Vinz's face on the left and what he is witnessing on the right. The use of the use depends on the distinctive use of film techniques by the split screen shot it shows Vinz as a reaction shot and what he is witnessing on the right hand side of the screen. On the right hand side of the screen it shows what Vinz is seeing, where a gun being shot is shown, at this moment on the left hand side of the screen it shows Vinz's reaction in a reaction shot to what is actually happening at this actual moment in time. The use of this film technique has a big impact towards the film as it shows Vinz and how he handles crime first hand, in comparison to earlier within the film where he was watching an action movie at the cinemas showing crime to Vinz in third hand. This film technique has a big impact on the film because it shows the character Vinz face of shock and awe to witnessing crime happen in real life where it is out of control. The use of this is to represent the difference between reality and what is not reality. This shows what impact violence has towards Vinz, although Vinz may be highly influenced under crime because of films and controlled fighting it doesn't effect him the same way to cause him to aspire to a life of crime. Another use of this split screen shot of Vinz's reaction is also to show that everything on television fake and fantasy where as in the real world it shows Vinz does not find violence acceptable or at the very least he does not aspire to a life of crime even though previously in the movie he has pretended to point a gun or pointed a gun and has not shot multiple times, he is also neutral when doing this, his reaction never phases from a neutral expression when witnessing crime until he sees it happen first hand, which the reaction shot within the split screen shot that real violence can conjure up much more or actual emotions more than film does. Linking to another scene where La Haine shows further dependences on distinctive uses of film techniques is earlier on within the film where the character Vinz impersonates a scene from the film Taxi Driver which features Robert De Niro, the scene that Vinz is impersonating here is the infamous "Are you talking to me" scene, the reason that this links within this scene is because it shows Vinz being influenced by the use of crime and action within films but again is not actually phased by it within this scene also, this shows that until he witnesses with real guns with real violence he is not phased by it at all until he witnesses it first hand which leaves him in despair.

La Haine 4 words

The first word I have chosen to best describe the film La Haine is pessimistic. The reason that I have chosen this word is because throughout the whole film there are consistent signs shown by the characters that they are very doubtful about everything. An example in the film featured to show this is where the character Hubert suggests he needs to leave the area and that the society is not good for him and he wants to leave.

The second word I have chosen to best describe the film La Haine is innovative. The reason that I have chosen this word is because the film shows a lot of new ideas. There are plenty examples of this shown within the film and a few of them are where The Dj is mixing songs from a western hip hop song into a traditional French song by Edith Piaf, I felt that this in particular was very innovative because of the suggestion behind it of the factor that the races are mixing with each other which supports diversity among society. Another example that I felt was innovative was where a poster said "The world is yours" in french which Said spray painted over to change it to "The world is ours" which suggests that everyone is equal and there shouldn't be one more person dominant over the other which I felt was an innovative ideology.

The third word I have chosen to best describe the film of La Haine is real. The reason that I have chosen this word is because it represents real life situations in the underbelly of France in lower socio-economic classed areas. An example that I particularly liked within La Haine which suggested realism was the scene where Said tries to click his fingers to turn off the Eiffel Tower lights, to which Vinz responds "That only happens in movies". The reason that I liked this was because it was strongly suggestive of a sense of realism in the film as to it being a fairy tale for such a thing to happen and that it represents an ideology of a fake world and real world in society and which is real and as to why society is bad in this particular film.

The fourth word I have chosen to best describe the film La Haine is hopeless. The reason that I have chosen this word is because the group of Said, Vinz and Hubert, whilst all mentioning in the film of what they want in their lives or how they're represented, for example Vinz is a dream and Hubert says he wants to leave the area and Said wants everything to be equal and everything to change. The fact that their society is so hopeless is shown by the fact that at the end of the film none of these three achieved their ambitions and that their future is hopeless.

La Haine 6 pictures that represent it. separate to 6 words, 2 power discuss 2 conflict, 2

6 words:
Liberty
equality
fraternity
Misunderstanding
tri colour
ethnicity

2 scenes of power: One scene of power in La Haine is when Vinz pulls out a gun towards the camera.

Another scene of power is where the cops are outstrengthing Said and Hubert where the two are being held hostage.

2 scenes of conflict: One scene of conflict in La Haine is where reporters pull up and accuse Hubert, outstrengthing  and Said of being at the riots.

Another scene of conflict is where Hubert and Said are being held hostage by crooked cops and being abused by them.

2 scenes of poverty: One scene of poverty in La Haine is where the youth are on top of the flats and they are cooking and eating food up there which makes them appear homeless.

Another scene of poverty is where the 3 are sitting with a younger kid and there are needles on the floor which have been used which suggests they are in a poorer area.

Annotated Catalogue Christopher Nolan

Connor Rowe

Christopher Nolan Annotated Catalogue

Subject of study: Christopher Nolan

Resources: 3 Films, 4 Books, 3 Websites, 3 interviews, 5 rejects

 

Title: Does Christopher Nolan use a recurring theme of flawed male characters to classify himself as an auteur?

Films:

Item 1) Focus film: Inception (2010) Director: Christopher Nolan

'Inception' is my chosen focus film, the reason from this is because the whole film including its core plot line and the resulting end of the film revolves around the main character being flawed. Within this it represents the characters emotional wellbeing and his past life and how it is effecting him in the current day situation. In specific in part of this film there is a scene where the character ‘Cobb’ sees his wife ‘Mal’ and apologises for creating an ‘Inception’ in her mind, which ultimately lead to her having a sense of ‘simulacra’ leading to her death, which shows that Christopher Nolan uses a recurring theme of flawed male characters to identify himself as an auteur.

Item 2) Batman Begins (2005) Director: Christopher Nolan

'Batman Begins' is another film I have decided to choose. The reason for this is because although the character of Batman is vastly wealthy and a muscular hero and a man who preferably does not kill. There is a very deep back story as to why he became the man he is today and the reason as to why he became Batman is because of his flawed past life and even his deepest fears. Within this film Christopher Nolan again uses a flawed male character to identify himself as an auteur, this time with the use of the character ‘Bruce Wayne’ who has already lost both his parents where he stood there helpless, this then led to him trying to become strong and brave by creating his alter ego ‘Batman’ who is meant to be an independent hero, however he is named after what he fears most from when he was a child where he fall into a pit filled with bats.

Item 3) Memento (2000) Director: Christopher Nolan

'Memento' is the final film I have decided to study. The reason for this is because the whole storyline revolves around an imperfect man who cannot recovery his real memory which again leads to the topic of a flawed male character, even more so than Inception, however this is not my main focus film as I am not as familiar with it as Inception. Within this film Christopher Nolan uses a flawed male character again (‘Leonard Shelby’), a character whom cannot identify themselves as they suffer from memory loss caused by ‘amnesia’, the character cannot trust into believe who he really is and uses photos of people and captions which he relies upon which shows the character again has helpless and flawed, again helping to identify Christopher Nolan as an auteur.

Books:

Item 4) The Cinema of Christopher Nolan: Imagining the impossible (2015) Author(s) by: Jacqueline Furby and Stuart Joy

Over the past fifteen years, writer, producer and director Christopher Nolan has emerged from the memory, time, trauma, masculinity, and identity, and considers the function of music and video games and the effect of IMAX on his work. This book does support my point as the male characters consistently struggle to identify themselves which makes them flawed. The reason that this is very useful is because it refers to characters being flawed in many different ways, for example memory links particularly well to ‘Memento’ and the character of ‘Leonard Shelby’ within the film because of memory loss it leads to him not being able to find his own self-identity which is also referenced in the book and can support my point of Christopher Nolan using a recurring theme of flawed male characters.

Item 5) The Fictional Christopher Nolan (2012) Author: Todd McGowan

The book shows that characters in the films directed by Christopher Nolan constantly find themselves deceived by others and are caught up in a vast web of deceit that transcends any individual lies. This supports my point that the male characters are flawed in films made by Christopher Nolan as they are always in trouble or in many bad situations, this book also references to the three films that I have chosen to study.  The reason that this is useful is because it refers to all of my chosen texts and describes in specific detail how characters are flawed for example how Batman is described as flawed in the book as he is afraid of living in his father’s shadow and his father not being proud of him and his lack of identifying himself as ‘Batman’ (his alter ego) or ‘Bruce Wayne’ who he actually is and no-one knows that he is ‘Batman’.

Item 6) Memento (2009) Author: Andrew Kania

Within this specific book it discusses about the film 'Memento' in vast detail and strongly refers to the main character and about how the main character is represented including the characters personal identity, their memory, emotion and self-consciousness and also their free will and responsibility within the films structure, which shows that book does support my point of the male characters being flawed within Christopher Nolan's films. This is again useful as it goes strongly into detail of flawed characters which supports my point of flawed characters being used to identify Christopher Nolan as an auteur because in specific it describes the character ‘Leonard Shelby’ and his amnesia state of not being able to find or learn about his actual personal identity and doesn’t know what to believe.

Item 7) 'Teach Yourself Film Studies' (2003) Author: Warren Buckland

Within this specific book, the definition of a film auteur is stated on page 50 within the book. It defines an auteur to say that "a director’s film reflects the director’s personal creative vision". Which I believe supports my point that Christopher Nolan using a flawed character in most of his films to classify himself as an auteur, because the three films I chose reflect the factor of Christopher Nolan's vision because it represents as the character as emotionally or mentally damaged which is his own unique vision in his given films.

Websites:

Item 8) http://movierdo.com/the-flawed-heroes-of-christopher-nolans-films-the-evil-in-the-good/

This website shows the main characters within Christopher Nolan's films and states in short the flaws of the characters including of the characters of the films I have chosen. These all suggest the characters emotional and mental problems and backgrounds within the films and shows exactly how much it contributes towards the film, for example 'The character Cobb portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Inception' it states his emotional wellbeing caused due to the death of his wife and his own mental world of her existence. Cobb's character being flawed is a subplot discussion throughout the whole film of Inception. This therefore makes it a useful source.

Item 9) https://narrativeinart.wordpress.com/nolan/

This website again also supports my point to represent Christopher Nolan as an auteur because it states the fact of characters Leonard Shelby and Cobb from the films Memento and Inception respectively as being flawed, mainly focusing based on Cobb's mental state again from Inception how his last dream goes into a place out of control which represents the character or Cobb's emotional wellbeing in his life and represents him again as a flawed character.

Item 10) https://filmandphilosophy.com/2011/09/15/memento-mind-memory-and-personal-identity/

This website specifically discusses the character of Leonard Shelby from Memento. It goes into great detail about the characters flaws which supports my point of Christopher Nolan using recurring themes of male flawed characters to be classified as an auteur. Evidence that supports this point from the website is that it clearly states that the character of Leonard Shelby suffers from a very particular disability of a form of amnesia which is where someone loses all sense of memory. The character of Leonard Shelby because of this struggles to form old memories and lacks his own sense of personal identity. This again supports my point of Christopher Nolan using male flawed characters to be considered as an auteur.

Interviews:

Item 11) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmmakersonfilm/7894376/Christopher-Nolan-interview-for-Inception.html

This interview taken from 'The Telegraph' supports my point of Christopher Nolan using flawed male characters to classify himself as an auteur because it goes into very short detail of Inception character Cobb and Batman Begins character Batman, although this is in very short detail it gives me a lot to discuss about because it is very meaningful in its detail to support my point as it suggests Cobb's struggles with his undying passion for his deceased wife within the film, which represents the character as emotionally flawed as he is still emotionally attached to his wives death excessively and this supports my point in specific because he is struggling emotionally. It also goes into discussion of how Christian Bale's character Batman is tortured, but doesn't define what context as if it means physically which I can take my own interpretation of in the way of his emotional scars and fears from his childhood which is shown in a scene within the film of Batman Begins. This makes it a useful source because it shows clearly Christopher Nolan talking about his characters and indirectly stating that most of them struggle with many different issues leading the characters to be flawed which helps to identify Christopher Nolan as an auteur.

Item 12) http://www.mtv.com/news/2764224/interview-christopher-nolan-talks-inception/

This interview also goes into great discussion of specifically my main focus film Inception but also does mention the film Memento. This interview also supports my point of Christopher Nolan being classified as an auteur due to his recurring themes of flawed male characters. Although Nolan doesn't specifically talk about the characters being flawed within this interview he does however mention Memento and how the film uses memory loss and how it can change and manipulate the characters mind within the film which shows the flaws of a character within the film and also goes into deep discussion of dreams with Inception as to suggest the real world is not good enough and the dreams anything can happen whether it be an emotionally stable or unstable state.

Item 13) http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/10/16/christopher_nolan_ii_interview.shtml

This interview goes into discussion about the film Memento about how the characters are portrayed within the film and how the character was portrayed well by Guy Pearce of the flawed male character Leonard Shelby. This interview supports my point of Christopher Nolan being classified as an auteur because of the recurring theme of flawed male characters as it continuously suggests the character of Leonard Shelby being flawed in specific due to the characters amnesia and memory loss which causes the character a lack of sense of identity which supports my point.

Rejects:

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Director: Christopher Nolan

The reason I have decided not to focus on this film is because it shows the least amount of detail of the character of 'Batman' being represented as a flawed male character and also because I have already chosen a similar film to that of 'Batman Begins' from 'The Dark Knight Trilogy' and this shows less representation of Christopher Nolan's vision of flawed male characters.

The Dark Knight Trilogy Books (2012) By: Christopher Nolan

The reason I have decided not to focus on this book is because it focused on all three of the Batman films of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, I have only chosen Batman Begins as one of my focus films to discuss so therefore the book would not have gone it to any detail about the other two films of Inception and Memento that I have chosen to study and it also would have been very minimum on the detail of the film Batman Begins I have chosen to study.

http://www.timeout.com/london/film/why-christopher-nolan-is-not-the-new-stanley-kubrick-1

The reason that I have decided not to focus on this website as it doesn't support my theory of Christopher Nolan being classified as an auteur due to his recurring theme of flawed male characters and it instead discusses how the director Stanley Kubrick is superior to Christopher Nolan and goes into very little detail about Nolan's films and when they are mentioned it is always a negative response that does not support my point.

http://www.nolanfans.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3419

The reason I have decided not to focus on this website is because it does not support my point of Christopher Nolan using recurring themes of male characters that are flawed and it instead discusses if Christopher Nolan dislikes women and complains about the lack of use of women in his film or killing them off because of the main character. This led me not to using this website because it gives me nothing for discussion to support Christopher Nolan being classified as an auteur.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/christopher-nolan-interstellar-critics-making-760897

The reason I have decided not to focus on this interview is because it again does not support my point of Christopher Nolan being classified as an auteur due to his recurring theme of flawed male characters. It instead discusses about Christopher Nolan's personal life including his family and how he came to where he is today. For this reason I have decided not to focus on this interview as he rarely talks about any of his films and never in great detail.