Homework Movie - Peeping Tom

When you have been living with the idea that your life is completely normal being terrified by your parents, the thought of harming someone else doesn't seem to enter your mind. That is the first impression I got from the movie Peeping Tom by Michael Powell in 1960. Upon further viewing, this movie is so much more than that, as the main character is attempting to become more main stream talking to Helen.

His torment began when his father would capture him on camera after throwing a lizard at him or catching him watching someone else in a romantic interlude over the fence. We never see Mark's father during the action in the movie, but his work is seen through Mark's actions and reactions to the terror in his victim's faces. The difference between Mark's victims and Helen is that Helen was never scared of Mark, only fascinated in his upbringing.

Mark knows what he's doing is wrong, but it's something that has haunted him since his father's passing. His plan to end his own life on film was creative and very clever for the time when this movie came out and to see it now, it's still remarkable that there hasn't been a movie today that has used his demise.

Of the movies we've watched this week, Peeping Tom seemed the most realistic. Quartemass 2 had an interesting story, but the devices were a bit clunky and ill fated for horror. Especially for today's audiences, the monsters of these early films seem to be more laughable that terrifying. The Crawling Eye gave me a few laughs in class as it lurched towards its victims. With Peeping Tom, the character of Mark could possibly exist, which makes the film more grounded and therefore more horrifying.

Homework Movie - A Woman is a Woman

This story has been done in various forms over and over throughout the years in different cultures. What I enjoyed about A Woman Is a Woman was the use of different camera edits like in the opening few minutes when the other "dancer" was showing her costume change. Going from one side of the screen, crossing the 180 line in the new outfit was genius. Long time collaborators Jean-Luc Godard and Raoul Coutard, the cinematographer, have worked together on almost a dozen films (most with Anna also) in the 60's through the 80's.

The sudden starts and stops of the sound to match or not match the scene was a bit alarming at first. Something like that takes me out of the movie experience. Perhaps it was intentional, but that didn't come across to me.

Also, what I found fun was to see that the main characters were really playing to the camera in some scenes. Anna Karina and her boyfriend in the movie Jean-Claude Brialy, were really funny when they were fighting in the apartment scene and they stopped in the middle of it to talk to us. However, in the similar scene when the titling came across telling the story before it unfolded, it was unnerving to me.

Homework Film - 400 Blows

Going from the documentary High School to The 400 Blows was seemingly simple. 400 Blows is the first movie from French Director François Truffaut, the movie follows a character based on his own life, so it feels like a documentary. Using real locations such as the carnival ride where Jean-Pierre Léaud, who played Antione, is playing hooky with his friend looked incredible. Later on, I was disapointed that his friend Rene couldn't visit him in the reform school. Come to find out that was based entirely on real events from Truffaut's life.

I noticed there were longer takes and less different angles for takes even for close up shots. It must have been difficult to set up for those shots back then, but it really shows how much thought was put into every take. The scene near the end of the movie where he was running must have taken tremendous effort and planning. To set up that long of a shot, and to have the young Leaud run that in one take looking like he wasn't breaking a sweat, could have been a scene from a running documentary.

In Class Movie - Rashomon

Watching Rashômon in class was a real treat. I wanted to watch another Akira Kurosawa movie for a while. Set mostly in the woods, Kurosawa used them as a backdrop for a domestic crime. Toshirô Mifune plays the Bandit, who becomes exuberant when asked what he did in the woods just three days earlier. Having to sort out the details from four points of view was an incredible experience. The bandit's story points him as a larger than life character trying to win Machiko Kyô's heart away from her husband. Her story places her as a horrible victim, and the late husband's story told through a medium explains a balance between the two previous stories. To paraphrase the scene with the commoners, "Why would a dead man tell lies?"

The truth came out in the final explanation of someone not directly involved. The wood cutter found the body, but wasn't part of the plot. His version shows the woman as a whore trying to leave her husband for the Bandit, and neither one wants her. She ends up calling them both cowards for not wanting to fight for her hand. They reluctantly did fight, but neither men wanted to.

I don't think the Bandit killed him. The wife looked most likely to have done the crime. Her sob story doesn't fool me. She wanted to leave him but under their beliefs they couldn't unless death.

Ultimately I think the woodcutter came out with the dagger in the end. He found the body and when he was explaining the story, he said there wasn't a dagger, but the husband was killed with a sword.

Mifune had a standing position in Kurosawa's films. He's done over half a dozen films with the director. They have worked on cultural adaptations of Hamlet and other novels.

In Class Movie - Bicycle Thieves

Written, produced and directed by Vittorio De Sica, The Bicycle Thief takes us on a real journey of Lamberto Maggiorani who plays Antonio Ricci striving to put food on the table and be a good role model for his young son Bruno, played by Enzo Staiola. Of what we have seen so far in class, Antonio's struggles are very relevant even today, families looking for work so they can survive. To make matters worse, his only means of getting to work is stolen in the first third of the movie, and without it, Antonio doesn't work. His mission becomes to find the thief and bring him to justice, all while keeping his family fed and keeping his job.

Using very real and desolate actors (both father and son were first time actors), the director puts us into the situation of his main character in a very real way. Around where we left off, Antonio is justifying if only to himself to steal a bike in order to keep his job, all while in front of his child.

In-Class Movie - Sullivan's Travels

Sullivan's Travels was written and directed by Preston Sturges in 1941. The movie stared Joel McCrea as the title character, and the lovely Veronica Lake as The Girl. As the story unfolds, we see that Sullivan is a big time Hollywood movie director that wants to make a movie about living the life of a hobo, to which his producers tell him he knows nothing about being a hobo. He tells them that he will go out and live that way and then come back a report on it. They agree and then he's on his way. But much to his surprise, they follow him for the first leg of his travels. It doesn't work and Sullivan finds a ride from a young boy to prove a point. I thought it was rather funny to see the "Land yacht" going through the field and wreaking havoc in the passengers inside (including the cook going through the roof for a moment). He explains to his producers that he'll give them Hell if they follow him more and they agree to not follow him further. He's made his point and we see him attempting to make his own way. He finds Veronica Lake's character in a diner where she buys him ham and eggs and he gives her a ride home. She pleads with him to take her with him on his search for trouble. They continue their travels and get into many different catastrophes that are easily solved.

The movie is a great fish out of water story. Sullivan tries to go somewhere he knows nothing about in the beginning and finds out more about human nature than he would have imagined. I noticed that when there were large crowds the dialogue was replaced with montages. It was and still is a good way of transitioning many scenes together at a time. Like when "Sully" and the Girl are in the soup kitchen. It takes up a few moments of time in the movie but it is shown to have been days in the film. I urge anyone who enjoys films to see this movie more than once. For more info, check IMDb.com.