The Night of the Hunter

The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American thriller film directed by Charles Laughton. It is actually based on a novel by Davis Grubb. It is exciting, beautiful, and the fact it is in black and white makes it that much more bone-chilling. It is one of the few films from the 50's that has still remained relevant and is referred to when learning about cinema. Funny enough, at the time of its release, it actually did very poorly. It was considered so odd and against the grain of normal cinema that it was highly rejected by the public. So badly, in fact, that Laughton decided to never direct another movie.

Absolutely terrifying shot of the family home.

This classic film is about Harry Powell, self appointed reverend turned serial killer who travels around the country, luring unsuspecting widows to marry him. He then proceeds to kill them and take their money, believing he is doing "God's work." He is however arrested and thrown in jail for driving a stolen car. His cellmate is Ben Harper, who killed two men during a bank robbery. Before his arrest, however, Harper entrusted his children with the secret of where he hid the money from the robbery. Powell tries to extract the knowledge of where the money is hidden from his cellmate, but gets nowhere. Harper is then executed for his crimes, and Powell is released, and spends the rest of the movie getting close to the family in order to find the loot.

An important cinematic element to note about the film is how its setting is invented outside of conventional realism. The town where the film takes place seems almost too perfect, but yet distorted and you get the impression that despite its "Christmas card" looking appearance, something is drastically wrong. The family house looks too small to be lived in and is composed of odd angles. It is evident that it is inspired by German expressionist filmmaking. A lot of the scenes aren't made to look real, for example, when the children are on the boat escaping from Powell, they are surrounded by a sky filled with overly-bright stars. Each scene has a very unsettling and nightmarish quality about it, adding to the effect.

The children making their escape.

Powell's character is like a real life boogeyman in the film as he torments the children in order to find their father's stashed money. In fact, it is filmed in a way that relates to nightmares, in which no matter how fast the children run to escape, the evil man chasing them manages to keep his pace and find them. There is one scene where the street lamp casts a the terrifying shadow of Powell across the walls of the children's bedroom, just like something straight out of a nightmare. Music is also used as a motif with Powell's character, where whenever he enters a room there seems to be a sort of eerie hymn. Not to mention in the river scene where Powell loses the children, his scream becomes distorted in an almost demonic way.

It is also very interesting to note Powell's character progression throughout the movie. At the beginning, when he is first introduced to the town, he is very well loved and no one could suspect him of anything sinister. However, as the film continues, he breaks bit by bit. It becomes obvious that he can no longer hold his holy and calm composure even though he is so close to finding the money. He kills Willa, threatens the lives of the children, is faced in a stand-off against Rachel (who can see right through his demeanor). The film ultimately ends with his arrest, and in fact, an entire band of townspeople looking to lynch "Satan hiding behind the cross." We never entirely learn what happens to Rachel and the children though, but we can determine our own happily-ever-after ending, if we so choose.

Did someone say lynch-mob?

Symbolism is also a major part of the film. There are often clips from nature inserted. Some examples are foxes prowling around and an owl attacking a rabbit. This plays two roles in the film: one is to show how unrelenting Powell is, much like nature itself. The other is how Powell is stalking his prey, which is Willa and the money. Lighting also plays a major role. Because the film is in black and white, the use of bright white lightening is often used to foreshadow or show purity and innocence against the stark darkness of Powell's character (who appears as a dark shadow). For example, Willa is framed by a light while lying in bed.

Personally, as interesting as I thought this movie was, I couldn't grasp a few things. One of the major problems was just how strangely and irrationally John behaves. John is wary of Powell's character the entire movie, but during the scene where he and his sister escape from Powell down at the river, he immediately falls asleep as the boat catches a current and floats off. He suddenly just becomes careless. This is absolutely ridiculous because he isn't even that far away from Powell. Only moments before, he was so frantic to escape, but yet he doesn't even look to see if Powell is going to swim after him, get his own boat, or find another way to pursue him. I feel like it's a very bad time for a nap and makes no sense. But other than that, I don't really have an quarries with the film. It was overall pretty enjoyable, and I wish that Laughton had've continued his directing career because I would've been really interested to see what else he could do.

Works Cited:

Barsam, Richard Meran, and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. Print.

The Night of the Hunter. Dir. Charles Laughton, Perf. Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish. 1955. Film.

"The Night of the Hunter (film)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 03 June 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

All images were found on google.

Juno

One of the most popular indie films of all time, Juno tells the story of a sassy teen who becomes impregnated by Paulie Bleeker, a boy from her school. Despite teen pregnancy and the topic of pro-life and pro-choice being addressed in the film, the main plot line actually follows the life of Juno, her decisions, and her developing relationships with the other characters, rather than the pregnancy itself. Her character is quirky, witty, and hard not to love.

Despite this movie's low budget, it boasts a variety of talented actors and a killer soundtrack. On top of that, it is a cinematic masterpiece, using lots of symbolism and thematic elements.

One of my favorite songs in the soundtrack, Sonic Youth's "Superstar"

It seems impossible that this film could be culturally invisible. The setting is in the modern 21st century, and teen pregnancy is a major aspect of the movie. However, the film remains unbiased in the way that it doesn't seem to choose sides on the topic. Juno does not have an abortion, appealing to the pro-life crowd, but chooses on her own accord not to have an abortion, which probably pleases those that are pro-choice. This is very controversial and hard to do without at least offending one party, but Juno avoids the conflict in a clever way that leaves everyone pretty happy.

Well, for the most part they try not to offend anyone

An important thematic element to note is how time is manipulated in the film. The story takes place a little over the nine months in which Juno is pregnant, comes to term, and gives birth. However, the plot only highlights important or significant events during this duration of time. For example, how her relationship with Bleeker evolves, important moments she spends with the adoptive father, and the actual birth. It is not a day by day recollection of pregnant Juno but rather a collection of events.

A technique used throughout the movie is invisible editing, in the form of parallel editing. A good example of this is when Juno is at the abortion clinic for her appointment. In this scene, cutting is used to show Juno as well as her point of view (what she is seeing). The symbol of fingernails is also prominent in this scene. Immediately before, Juno is informed that her unborn child has already developed fingernails. This is obviously on her mind since the scene is filled with a variety of fingernail references and noises while in the waiting room. The scene shows Juno listening to a noise, and then cuts to her perspective, so we can see what is making that noise. This is obviously building up tension and ultimately causing her to run out of the clinic, not having the abortion. It also causes a lot of tension with the viewer.

In sum, Juno is one of my favorite indie movies. Its light hearted and witty humor speaks to me, as well as the protagonists teenage angst. Not to mention it caused me to develop a deep love for Kimya Dawson and it was early enough in Michael Cera's career that I didn't feel like he played the same character in every movie.

Juno and Paulie jamming out to some Kimya Dawson

Sources:

Barsam, Richard Meran., and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2010. Print.

Juno. Dir. Jason Reitman. Perf. Ellen Paige and Michael Cera. 2007. 20th Century Fox, 2008. DVD.

Sonic Youth. "Superstar." Delaney & Bonnie. If I Were a Carpenter. 1994. Music Video.

All photos and gifs were taken from tumblr.

The Matrix: Pills, Y2K, and Wonky Sunglasses.

"The Matrix" is one of those few movies that you can casually mention to any group of people and odds are: most of them have seen it and love it. Occasionally, there is the one person who shyly says "I've never watched it" and everyone has to re-evaluate their friendship with this person. Personally, I think that finding out you have a friend who hasn't seen this classic is an excellent excuse to sit on the couch for hours and introduce that friend to the mind boggling sci-fy that is "The Matrix."

Besides, this movie leaves the biggest "what the hell did I just watch" on people's faces. Which in my opinion is almost as entertaining as the movie itself.

The basic plot of this movie goes as follows: We get introduced to the protagonist Thomas Anderson (a.k.a. Neo, the chosen one, or "can you please take off those sunglasses." Whichever you prefer) a computer programmer and hacker who finds a strange message on his computer telling him to "follow the white rabbit."
Upon a semi-random decision to go to a nightclub (following a punk rock female with a rabbit tattoo), Neo finds himself talking to infamous hacker Trinity, who informs him that a man named Morpheous will show him the meaning of "the Matrix" and that there are forces at power that are out to stop him from finding out the truth.
Backtracking before this moment, it's important to point out that the world Neo lives is in seemingly normal. He has a normal room, a normal job, leads a normal life and is surrounded by "normal" people.

The reason this is important is it proves that the film follows the cinematic pattern where films begin in a normal world, and then gradually become weirder, so that the audience can adjust to seeing things they would not see in real life.

After a brief running and capture by men in black suits, Neo finally meets the elusive Morpheous, who gives him an ultimatum which is symbolically represented by a red and blue pill. Depending on which one he takes he will either learn the truth about the Matrix or forget everything.
Of course, Neo chooses the red pill which will show him the truth. He wakes up in a terrifying reality (where the weird, out-of-this-world kicks in): naked, bald, and attached to tubes that keep him submerged in a strange pod filled with a jelly-like substance. Of all the places to wake up in after a rough night, this is probably the worst I can think of.
Upon his waking, he is rescued by Morpheous and his crew and is told the truth. The reality that he once knew is basically a computer program created by Artificial Intelligence in order to breed humans for a fuel source. If that wasn't hard enough to believe already, Neo learns that this crew, lead by Morpheous, believes that he is the chosen one who is meant to bring down the robots and save humanity from the Matrix.

Good thing he chose the red pill or else that would've been a very anti-climactic movie.

Now before we go any further into any type of plot line, we need to take into consideration the time period in which this movie is from. "The Matrix" came out in 1999, which I would say is a very strange time for the human race and their logic. Technology in the 90's had been advancing at a staggering and awesome pace. The World Wide Web was invented, and e-mail became a popular form of communication. Businesses began to use e-commerce as a performance tool. The use of CDs became increasingly popular and video cameras became far more used and affordable. The basic summary of this decade is that the world was moving quickly into a technological craze. And because of this increase in the use and power of technology spawned the Y2K scare, which was believed to be the end of the world because of our computers wouldn't be able to handle the shift of going into a new millenium.

This is a phone very similar to Neo's. Wow, much cool very technology.

That being said, this movie is obviously inspired by both our fascination and fear of technology and artificial intelligence. One could even say that this movie is a possible scenario of Y2K where technology overtakes the human race. The directors Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Wachowski Brothers) depicted this in a variety of ways. Their use of CGI to portray impossible spaceships and computer technology is frightening, especially for how advanced it was in 1999. The use of lighting in the movie creates an ominous effect, most scenes have a very green tone to them. Green can be associated with the color of computer hard drives as well as the color of the coding in the matrix. This makes the viewer feel truly like they are in a computer program. The use of slow motion was also very prominent in this film, especially in the fight scenes. Characters jumped to impossible heights and dodge bullets, all being shown with both fast and slow motion action shots to create a dramatic and surreal effect.

Neo fighting Agent Smith, notice the lighting?

Getting back to the plot, Neo gets downloaded with a bunch of badass fighting skills into his brain hole connector, but due to the prediction of an Oracle, doubts his abilities and destiny. This sassy cookie-baking oracle basically told Neo that he wasn't the chosen one. But Neo seems to keep pretty quiet so that he doesn't disappoint the rest of the crew, especially Morpheous, who the oracle says will die to save him. There are multiple battles where he attempts to fight the agents (projections created by the Matrix in order to dispose of resistors and keep humans under control). Cypher, one of the crew members, also makes a deal with the agents which leads to Morpheous' carpture and the death of many crew members.

This scene is important because it shows the cinematic technique of invisible editing. Cypher exits the Matrix before the rest of his crew members and reveals to them that he's a rat. While talking to Trinity on the phone, the audience sees Cypher looking at his plugged-in crew mates. We never actually see Cypher pulling the plug, because the editing always switches to Trinity as she watches her teammates fall down dead.

This is where things start getting intense. Neo and Trinity go into the Matrix to save Morpheous (with Neo realizing that if Morpheous doesn't die, he will). During this time, Neo gains more confidence in his abilities, and by the end of the movie begins to control the Matrix. This comes at a pretty good time considering Neo has to single-handedly battle an agent (which has never been done before without the human dying), and ends up killing him!

The fight scene uses another important type of editing, cutting on action. While Neo and Agent Smith fight, we see from the other's perspective, but the clips still flow in a way that it seems to be a very fluid fight scene. Of course the scene was filmed multiple times from multiple angles, but the audience doesn't think about that because of the way the clips are edited.

But of course, you kill one agent and out comes many more ambushing and shooting Neo multiple times. I am pretty lenient with my criticism towards sci-fy films, since their logic doesn't normally make sense. But the very ending of the movie makes me think that the writers had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to end such an epic and long film. For example, despite being shot multiple times with almost certainty of both death in the real world and Matrix, Neo doesn't die. I guess that being the chosen one gives you some sort of immortality. Then comes the kissing scene where Trinity says that it was her destiny to fall in love with the chosen one, which honestly kind of comes out of nowhere. There wasn't any real type of flirting or even romance between them the entire movie and out of nowhere she admits her love to him.. but I guess if you have a movie over two hours long, you have to include some romance to compensate for the action, right?

"We've only known each other for a few days but I love you okay it's my destiny whatever"

In sum, "The Matrix" is an awesome movie. It went where no movie had ever gone before and leaves you questioning reality when it is finished. This movie is still very relevant because with the invention of new modern technology and our creation of REAL artificial intelligence makes us still fear this scenario and think it possible. The action scenes are captivating, the concept is well thought out, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat trying to figure out if Neo being the chosen one will actually work out. Will he be the chosen one? Will he fail? Will he ever realize how ridiculous he looks in those sun glasses?

Oh, 90's fashion.