This Images is me testing out my deep focus skills and my understanding of the technique. I set the focus to different levels for different images.

This picture shows my ability to understand the shutter speed of a camera and overexposure.

Breathless (1960 , directed by Jean Luc – Godard ) challenged the established conventions of editing by employing jump cuts which help  to remind the audience that they were watching a movie which was unheard of at the time and Godard employed the technique because the New Wave movement was concerned with challenging the established conventions of films due to the Algerian war and the way that the French establishment treated the youth and this was a reaction to that oppression and the way this film was edited was a deliberate act of subversion against the established norms of the film world.

Breathless challenges the established rules about narrative because the characters have long conversations about trivial things that seemingly don’t contribute anything to the story and this subversive as the established rules of cinema say that every piece of dialogue should contribute to the story. Furthermore , the trivial dialogue slows down the pace of the film and it is nice for the audience to be able to relax and enjoy the film and it creates a high amount of verisimilitude because the film would be reflecting something that people actually do in real life.

Furthermore , The black and white cinematography helps the film to create it’s own distinctive tone for while it is a thriller  and this may be a conscious allusion to films like the Maltese Falcon ( 1941 , directed by John Huston) which stars Humphrey Bogart who is someone who is alluded to in the film  , the tone can be remarkably upbeat at times and  this can sometimes border on being comedic and this makes the choice to film in black and white , seem like a conscious one that was made in order to challenge established tropes in the cinematic medium.

Finally , Breathless challenges the norms of film by using all of the aforementioned techniques in order to draw the attention of the audience to the fact that they are watching a film and this is not supposed to happen as films are supposed to serve as an escape to another reality , but Breathless is realistic and it creates a sense that  the film could be happening and it does not  provide the audience with an escape , instead it holds a mirror up  to our world.

Strike (1925, directed by Sergei Eisenstein ) uses many versions of montage in order to convey its message to the audience.

The type of montage that is present most often is intellectual montage which combines two unrelated images to create a new meaning and this is used when Eisenstein inter cuts images of  the government men with animals and this helps the audience to immediately creates a negative connotation in the mind of the audience. For example , at the end of the film , the slaughter of the workers is compared to the slaughter of a cow and this conveys the message that the workers are considered to be less than human.

Right at the beginning of the film Eisenstein uses the tonal method of editing to create an idea of reflection and pensiveness. The workers walk through a puddle on their way to work and this scene is remarkably modern and it shocked me when I first saw it  I thought that it was from a modern film and this proves that Eisenstein was ahead of his time in terms of tonal editing  and almost a century later.

strike-opening

As Strike is a silent film , metric editing like what is displayed in Whiplash ( Damian Chezelle , 2014) will not have that much of an effect as Strike is a silent film and metric editing first developed after the intoduction of sound and this was only two years after strike was released and this shows how films are shaped by technoogical developments.

Moving on , the scenes where the strikers are being killed by the soldiers is a prime exaple of rythmic montage because it combines the dynamics of the action with the need to tell a continuous story and this  also enables the film to tell the stories of multiple characters at once and this gives the audience a sense of the scope of the story  and it helps them to empathise with the characters that you see on screen.

I belive that Eisentsien uses all of the editing techniques that were availible to him at the time in order to make us empathise with a wide range of characters and it gives the audience understanding of the events that are happpening on screen and it aids them in making sense of what occured on screen. Additionally , I was shocked about how modern the film looked due to its use of techniques that are commonplace today and I fond myself being absorbed by the story that was being told.

In the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920 , directed by Robert Wiene ) there were many innovations that helped to change the medium of film.

Firstly , the mise en scene is used to create a distorted reality – all of the sets are distorted , for example , the protagonists home town is tilted at an impossible angle and all of the buildings are twisted -this sends a clear message to the audience that things are not as they seem and it may unnerve them and make them uncomfortable . In addition, the characters costumes and makeup reflects  the broken mentality that was the norm in  Germany in the early 1920’s  and this is particularly evident when it comes to Cesare  , his dark makeup reflects the dark mood that was present at the time and in the narrative , the costumes and the makeup can signify the morality of the characters and this is a helpful shorthand for the audience as it tells them who to oppose and who to root for. Everything around the characters is distorted and this all makes sense at the end when it is revealed that the main character is insane and that he made everything up.

The cinematography in the film is innovative because the cinematographer , Willy Hameister , was able to make the film visually interesting without using color and the  cinematography helps to build the verisimilitude and makes the film seem like it could happen in reality.  The cinematography in this film can be regarded as innovative because it helps to reinforce the theme of mental deterioration and it communicates this to the audience in a tasteful and subtle manner so when they discover that the narrator is actually insane , the audience will not be that surprised because they would have been visually primed  to expect that everything is not as it seems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Pk1bIiCaI

Finally, the editing in this film is innovative because it makes the audience uncomfortable in a subtle manner and it makes them excited for what will come next. For example , this film famously uses iris shots when there is a transition between different scenes and this makes the film slightly disjointed and the audience  feels anticipation for what comes next because they won’t know what to expect. In addition , when Cesare awakens , the camera focuses on  Caesar’s face and it then cuts to the amazed audience – this tells the audience that Cesare is considered to be a spectacle for their amusement  and this is an example of the Kuleshov effect and it tells the audience what is happening without the need for sound and this film helps to develop cinema as a storytelling medium that is distinct from all other forms of visual media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEEOEnAmGl8

Firstly , I think Citizen Kane (1941 , directed by orson Welles) is one of the greatest films of all time because the story is about an ordinary man , Charles Foster Kane , who has lived an extraordinary life and it is a story of his life and and it is quit candid and realistic and it is the realism of this film that drew me to it because , despite the fact that Kane was wealthier than I could ever imagine , !  could actually feel empathy for his man and his wealth and behaviour did not isolate me from him and that allows me to begin to understand him because Kane’s desire for love and admiration is a very human desire that we all have and Kane’s desires touch so many people because we all have them and it creates a universal experience between the audience and the characters.

Secondly , the film was a scathing indictment of the newspaper magnates who controlled the American media in 1941 and, although  the film was scathing , the film is subtle in it’s critiques and it is not a heavy – handed morality tale , it just points out the faults in America’s media at the time by examining the life of Charles Foster Kane and the film depicted how powerful the newspaper magnates really were , and from the point of view of a modern audience  , the power that they held was shocking , especially when you remember the fact that  Citizen Kane was released less than a century ago and the audience can look at the current media landscape and realise that , although a lot of things have changed for the better , there is still  a long way to go in terms of a few people having control over the media but things are steadily improving.

Thirdly , the film effectively shows how wealth can isolate people and this aspect of the story makes the film seem more like a cautionary tale against the allure  of wealth , although , money itself is not the problem in this film , the problem is with how people with money acts and how easy it is for money to turn someone into a terrible person , in the film we see Kane make this transition from a respectable newspaper owner , to someone who is concerned with power and little else and parallels can be drawn to real – life figures and this is true in both 1941 and 2018 and this helps to make the film , a timeless classic.

To conclude , I think that Citizen Kane is one of the best films of all time because it helps us to empathise with a person who we wouldn’t usually invest our time and energy into getting to know and as we learn about his life , we begin to see him less as a repulsive human being and more as a flawed person who only wants love and he unfortunately never gets the love that he was seeking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svu5YR-4xYo

My favourite scene in Citizen Kane (1941, directed by Orson Welles) is when Charles Foster Kane dies at the beginning. I like this scene because it provides some exposition without giving away the plot of the entire film. Furthermore , the scene creatively uses panted backgrounds and actual sets to create an atmosphere that is somewhat realistic and this adds to the verisimilitude and it makes the audience think that Citizen Kane could possibly happen in the real world and that helps the audience to feel an immediate connection to Kane and his struggle.

The beginning of the film creates a mystery that causes the rest of the plot to come to fruition  and it helps to frame the rest of the film and to put it into a reasonable  context because the the newsreel reporters  are trying to find out the meaning of Kane’s last words which was “Rosebud” and it helps to drive the narrative forward without spoiling the plot and it immediately makes Kane seem like an enigmatic figure to the audience and they spend the entire film trying to figure out who he was in his life and the opening allows us to go in this journey with the newsreel reporters in order to figure out who Kane was.

Furthermore , the word “rosebud” has connotations of innocence and the fact that “rosebud” was Kane’s last word suggests that when he was dying , he was longing for the childhood innocence that had been ripped from him at a young age  and once we learn the context of Kane’s last word , it immediately makes the audience feel pity for him as the audience values childhood immensely and it would sadden them to see the childhood being ripped away from Kane. In addition , roses are associated with love and “rosebud ” may also be a reference to how all Kane really wanted was love and this desire for love is what drove all of his actions in the film.

The snow globe could symbolise Kane’s life – when it breaks it symbolises that Kane’s life is over and that he is no longer present. Additionally , the snow globe could be another symbol of Kane’s lost child hood , in this case , the symbolism of the glass shattering is more blatant than the word “rosebud” and this could indicate that Kane’s childhood was ripped away from him quickly and abruptly and that it left lasting scars on Kane’s mind and that it was the underlying motivation for all of his actions that we see.