Tarantino Appreciation

Last week I re-watched Kill Bill Vol. 1& 2 and Quentin Tarantino has quickly become my favourite director of the moment. I’m quite certain that he’s an absolutely crazy genius (in the best possible way) and a brilliant filmmaker.

Tarantino has such a distinct style and always creates unique films that are an amalgamation of so many different genres. How do you classify his films? They’re of their own genre entirely! He clearly has an eclectic film taste and pays homage to other films so well. He doesn’t just repeat what other people have done before him, he recreates and reimagines film conventions with his individual twist.

You can tell that he is someone who loves films and the whole process of filmmaking. All of the elements are so well thought out and with so much detail and passion involved. This passion translates so well on screen and it grabs the attention of the audience and makes watching his films so ridiculously enjoyable.

As someone who wants to work in the industry, his type of respect and enthusiasm for films is inspiring. He’s not someone who makes films to make money. He’s doing it because it’s what he is passionate about and that’s the attitude I have and hope to always have towards filmmaking.

Frankenstein Part Two

The screening of Danny Boyle’s theatre production Frankenstein was last night. I think that filming theatre productions is a great concept because it allows people around the world the opportunity to see some excellent actors on stage in fantastic productions, which they wouldn’t normally get the chance to see.

Before the screening we saw about 15 minutes of footage about the making of show, how it was envisioned by the writer and brought to life. This was very insightful to see and it also emphasized the themes of the play, ensuring that the audience thought about these things during the production. 

There were about three or four cameras set up in the theatre recording the play, so that what we saw was part film/part play as we were able to view the performances from different angles than a normal viewing in the theatre – yet we could see the audience there as well, so it wasn’t completely like watching a film.

Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein’s bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the friendless Creature, increasingly desperate and vengeful, determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal. Urgent concerns of scientific responsibility, parental neglect, cognitive development and the nature of good and evil are embedded within this thrilling and deeply disturbing classic gothic tale.

I’m not very familiar with Mary Shelley’s novel but like most people I know the 1931 film version with Boris Karloff as the Monster. The monster in the film is quite aggressive and unable to learn and doesn't really have a form of intellect. However in the novel as with this theatre adaptation, the creature is intelligent, having the ability to learn, talk, reason and feel emotion.

The Creature is taught to speak and read by the blind peasant De Lacey, the only person who accepts him as an equal, as he is the only person who cannot see him and therefore is not disgusted or frightened of him and can see his true nature. The Creature quickly learns the ways of the world and they are quite a confronting reflection on humanity.

As he says the most important thing he learned was how to lie. He points out the flaws of humanity – how we don’t want to be lonely and just want to be part of a community, we move to cities to become closer to other people and yet at the same time we fight wars and kill each other off so readily.

He questions our behaviour because he is an outsider and can see how wrong things are – whilst we may agree that these things are indeed wrong, we accept them as a part of life and become desensitized to some of the horrific things that go on.

The themes of Frankenstein are still relevant to society today with scientists playing god, creating life artificially and the moral implications of this. Elizabeth makes a point to Frankenstein – if he wants to create life, to create another human, why can he not the same way that everyone does – why must he experiment and create a monster like this?

The servant/master relationship is explored in the production as well but they go one step further by swapping the roles of the two main actors each night. When I saw it Benedict Cumberbatch was Victor Frankenstein and Jonny Lee Miller his Creature. It would be interesting to see them in the reverse roles to see their similarities and differences and to see if there is something of Frankenstein in his Creature.

All of the elements of the production were excellent from the costumes and props to the set design and the use of lighting. I also really enjoyed the music because it had a very industrial, metallic sort of sound that you can hear in the trailer I posted on Tuesday.

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is adapted for the stage by Nick Dear and realised by Danny Boyle in his return to the theatre after winning the Academy Award for best director for Slumdog Millionaire. Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller will alternate the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature.

I’m going to see a screening of Frankenstein tomorrow night, so I’ll probably write about what I think of it after that, but in the meantime, here’s a trailer for it…

Character

In a narrative the agents of cause and effect are characters – they create and react to events and drive the narrative forward. They are complex and well developed (in a well written narrative) and may possess several traits.

Character archetypes fulfill a particular role in the narrative. They are the characters that are always there, that we are familiar with and intuitively recognize because they have been present since the earliest stories, since legends and mythologies.

So, what are these archetypes?

- Protagonists or driver characters:   Commonly known as the hero, they are the central characters that drive the action and the narrative.

- Antagonist:   “Bad guy”, they are directly opposed to the protagonist, they attempt to defeat the protagonist or stop them from achieving what it is they want to achieve. They drive the external conflict against the protagonist.

- Guardian:   Teacher or helper who aids the protagonist. They are the mentor or “wise old man/ woman” (think Gandalf or Dumbledore)

- Contagonist:   Hinders and deludes the protagonist, they are the temptation and desire. Unlike the antagonists who exist to prevent the protagonist from moving forward, the contagonist is there to hinder or delay the protagonist

- Passenger:   Sidekick, they show unfailing loyalty and support (Samwise Gamgee or Ron Weasley)

- Skeptic:   Disbeliever, doubts everything

As I was writing this, I was thinking of examples of each archetype and I found that they were easiest to identify in fantasy or science fiction. This is because these stories are normally about a protagonist who goes on a journey and encounters different characters, which may assist them or cause conflict and hinder their progress. It does sound like a generalization, but it’s an integral element to these types of narrative.

This brings me to characters that are not clearly or easily categorised because they may have facets of various archetypes. This makes them more complex and at the same time more realistic, because each of us contain these archetypes within us (to varying degrees). 

I watched the first episode of Boardwalk Empire and it’s a classic example of characters that are an amalgamation of facets of different characters. It is very much film noir in style - there is a blurring of the lines between the typical good and bad and you get a protagonist who is deeply flawed and not entirely a “good” character.  Despite this, they are likeable or generally have the support of the audience.

(Spoiler Alert!) Set during the Prohibition period in the 1920s, Boardwalk Empire focuses on Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson (played by Steve Buscemi and based upon Enoch L. Johnson) the corrupt Treasurer of Atlantic City and very powerful figure who deals with gangsters, politicians and government agents. He is represented as a hypocrite - supporting Prohibition in public and gaining the support from the community whilst at the same time planning deals with people illegally producing and selling alcohol in order to make himself a profit.

Margaret Schroeder, a pregnant young Irish mother turns to Nucky for assistance, which he seems to resent at the beginning. Nevertheless, he gives her money and has his driver drop her home. While this appears to be an act of kindness, he didn’t give the impression that he genuinely cared and was just doing what was expected of him. Then when Nucky discovers how badly her husband treats her and how her husband took the money and used it to gamble with, Nucky starts to show that maybe he does care about her or what his money is being used for. Finally he has Margaret’s husband killed after he beats her and causes her to lose her unborn baby – the audience see this as a positive thing and support Nucky's actions because he was doing the right thing for Margaret by getting rid of her horrible, violent husband.

Thus, Enoch Thompson is an ambiguous protagonist who is corrupt yet shows compassion and ensures that those under his control get what they deserve.

Never Let Me Go

As children, Ruth, Kathy and Tommy, spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults, they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other, while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them. (IMDb.com)

I’ve been anticipating the release of Never Let Me Go since I first heard about it last year. I tried not to spoil the story before I actually saw it, so that everything would be new and surprising when I finally did. Now that I think of it, I’m not sure I ever saw a trailer for it - not this year at least.

So I got the chance to see it at last and I was not disappointed. It was such a beautiful film both in a narrative and stylistic sense. This is very much a character driven film and the acting was so strong from the whole cast. The three leads: Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield certainly proved themselves in this film, bringing the characters to life, making them believable and pulling off some very emotional scenes.

Their young counterparts were just as impressive – Isobel Meikle-Small, who played young Kathy (Carey Mulligan) looked so similar to Carey that I was certain that they were somehow related. Each of their characteristics followed through from child to adult, making it that bit more convincing to watch. 

In Dan Jolin’s review for Empire Online, he dubbed the film a “sci-fi weepie” – while the themes of the film are science fiction, it’s not set on a space ship, far in the future or even a different planet. The story takes place in 20th century England, albeit in an alternate one where the children are raised to become donors for the people on whim they are ‘based’, before they ‘complete’ which is their term for dying. It explores themes of love and existential questions about life and fate.

Steve Weintraub said of the film:

I managed to see a screening here at TIFF and the film really hit me.  Normally when I see a movie, I immediately want to talk about it with friends.  But after watching Never Let Me Go, I didn’t want to talk to anyone.  That’s because the film deals with big issues and it tackles them without telling you how to think – which is one of the best parts about the Alex Garland script and Mark Romanek’s direction.

The film is very emotional and haunting, especially the way in which the characters calmly accept their fate, because they have known no different their whole lives and therefore don’t even attempt to flee from this captivity.

The score carries the emotion of the film and assists in creating the atmosphere of the film. This beauty is reflected in the mise-en-scene of the film from the costumes, which remain quite constant, with a 1960s feel to them, the colours of which reflect the setting of the English countryside – with many shades of green and brown.

One thing that particularly stood out to me was the cinematography. The colour palette used enhanced the story in so many ways and helped convey the atmosphere of the film. I noticed how well each shot was composed, the movement of the camera was fluid and un-obtrusive and kept with the rhythm of the film. The film was softly lit and naturalistic and made everything appear subdued yet colourful at the same time.