Oli + Mine

Reflection: I found this task slightly challenging as I wasn’t comfortable with the layout of a screenplay. However, I found it allowed me to be quite creative with the world building by creating the dystopian image through the setting.

What is a Screenplay?

“A screenplay, or script, is a written work by screenwriters for a film, television program, or video game. These screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression and dialogues of the characters are also narrated.”

Examples of classic Soviet construtivist films:

Claire Denis’ visually striking ‘Beau Travail’ and David Fincher’s sardonically incendiary ‘Fight Club’ from the same year of 1999, both attempts to criticise the traditional structures of gender, specifically the dangers of toxic masculinity onto the men which perform it. Both feature films target the fragile nature of hyper-masculine performativity, and the perils which result from enacting such a mindset. As a result of this overarching theme, I have heavily referenced queer theory and Judith Butler’s ‘Gender Performativity’ theory to aid my comparison between these two films. Furthermore, I have decided upon these two films for comparison as the films were produced and distributed under different cultural contexts. ‘Fight Club’, an American film distributed under the massive conglomerate of 20^th Century Fox, is a stark contrast to ‘Beau Travail’s distribution under the minor Parisian distribution service of ‘Pyramide Films’; the alternative countries these films were produced in also furthers the bridge between these two film’s cultural contexts. Likewise, the oppositional genders of Fincher and Denis allows the subject of masculinity to be presented from the male and female points of view. 

Named after S. A. Gerasimov, the film school began in 1919 and is the first and oldest film school in the world. During the period of the Soviet Union, it was a requirement of the state to attend VGIK in order to be allowed to direct a film. The institute has an impressive alumni, with renowned filmmakers such as Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky and Alexander Sokurov all studying there.

Its work in the early years was restrained by the shortage of film stock, forcing classes to be taught around the art of montage; the institute would import random film rolls for the students of the school to cut and edit back together, forming new meanings through montage. Nowadays, the campus is still functioning, teaching classes in directing, screenwriting and cinematography. However, its renowned reputation has kept up with itself, with an acceptance rate of below 10%.

The Soviet Constructivism art movement is known as originating from a position of anti-art, where Russian artists began to reject the conventional frameworks of elite-art. Constructivists used stripped down, geometric forms and used practical instruments, such as rulers and compasses, to achieve this style. Sans-serif fonts and the dominance of red and black also stick out as clear conventions of this movement.

Constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban life. The movement rejected the abstract and over-stylisation of art, in favour of the industrial and symmetrical appearance of real life architecture in Russia.

“Of all the arts, for us cinema is the most important.”

-Lenin (founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924)

The Soviet Union had its origins in the Russian Revolution of 1917 after leftist revolutionists overthrew Russia’s Czar Nicholas II. However, the Soviet Union was only instated after the defeat of the White Army during the Russian Civil War in 1922.

Soon after the rise of the Soviet Union, cinema was utilised as a propaganda machine to achieve and maintain power over the public. It also allowed the political ideologies of the party to resonate with the the workers of Russia, as the general public would have watched the movies for entertainment purposes; this allowed many of the underlying themes of the propaganda films to be unconsciously idealised.

TOPIC AREA	FILM 1	FILM2	CONTEXT	QUESTION
Representation of masculinity	Beau Travail (Denis,1999)	Fight Club (Fincher,1999)	Social Historical Cultural	How is masculinity represented in ‘Beau Travail’ and ‘Fight Club’?

In the 1990’s, many filmmakers began to resent the industrialised direction much of the film industry was headed. Big-budget blockbusters designed to attract sales over artistry polluted the landscape, provoking Danish directors Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg to commence the Dogme 95 movement.

The movement attempted to reinstate realism into the film industry, with a strict manifesto being formulated which directors had to follow if they wished to release a film under the Dogme title. It attempted to rid filmmaking of the confinement mainstream films placed onto the art by outlawing things like excessive special effects and props which weren’t available to the director in the real world.

The ‘Vow of Chastity’ (The rules of the Dogme movement):

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (2015)

George Miller’s 2015 Mad Max is the forth instalment in the franchise and pairs visually striking cinematography with fast-paced editing which keeps the momentum of the movie continuous and spontaneous. ‘Mad Max: Fury Road‘, whether it being consciously or sub-consciously, exhibits many influences from late German Expressionism. The stark and ghoulish make-up of the War Boys demonstrates clear similarities with early German expressionist character makeup, for example Cesare from ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari‘ and The Cashier from ‘From Mourn to Midnight‘.

Clear influences can also be seen in the over-exaggerated settings, expressive character types and visually telling costume choices. The setting design in Mad Max offers connotations of German expressionism through its’ purposeful and dramatic nature, often visualising the turmoil and agitation which saturates the characters’ thoughts and actions. Many shots from cinematographer John Seale feature aspects of the set obscuring the view of the characters or acting as a visual barrier between character and audience; this use of setting and blocking of the characters as a storytelling device (highlighted in pictures 1 & 2 down) reminisces techniques of German expressionism where the relationship between setting and character are used to further accentuate key themes or character elements.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001)