Homework Movies - Frances (1982)

This willful defiance of power is directed by Graeme Clifford and the director of Photography was László Kovács. Jessica Lange portrays a young woman from the country destined for the big troubles of Hollywood and how quickly her life was turned upside down when she rose to the top only to fall fast.

The lighting set up was really well done. Most of the time, she was on a set where they could use the "stage" lights as practical lighting. One of the night set-ups that I thought was incredible was when she was driving away from a party drunk. The lighting was shadowing her left side in a weird way. There was a line on the side of her face and it stayed there for a while even though she was moving in the car. I also noticed that when her mother was in the scene the light was a yellow tone more so than when it was Frances and her gentleman friend Harry York, played by Sam Shepard.

In Class Movie Comparisons - Night & Fog, High School

Alain Resnais' documentary Night & Fog - 1955 (Nuit et brouillard) is one of several true-life accounts of the horrors of German Concentration camps. Taking actual footage from the times and inter-cutting newer footage of the locations current to filming doesn't change what they were. He tells a story of vacationers stopping to take photos in front of a crematorium as if it were a friend’s home. It's very difficult to imagine that there are people that don't believe the Holocaust ever happened.

Frederick Wiseman's portrayal of High School in the late sixties was a fly-on-the-wall depiction of schools of the time. Today's teachers would be fired for how the detention instructor talked to the boy wrongfully detained for something he didn't do. There were also a number of stereotypical teachings being shown in this particular high school. The girls were mostly taking typing classes and fashion design. The Beatnik teacher reading a Simon & Garfunkel poetry reading also illustrated what was happening in that time period.