The Incredibles - Feminist Film Theory

Introduction

Disney cartoon can be said to be feminist cartoon, especially the Disney princess series. From the Snow White in 1937 until the latest, Frozen, these cartoon always passing the message of girl should be strong and kind. Not every princess need a prince or somebody to rescue her. Girls can think and make their own choice, where they start to be independent. But today my topic is not about the princess, I would like to discuss another film from Disney Pixar, The Incredibles. There are some female characters that show different characteristics in feminism.

Theory Discussion

Feminist film theory is a theoretical film criticism started in 1920s. This film theory focuses on women’s expression of her own subjectivity. Then, this film theory matured in late 1960s, after radicalized feminist movement of sexual liberation and political debate of female representation. The feminist film theory analyses the social or historical position of women, which is subordinated and social relations of patriarchy. Woman does not have a place in earlier society. They had been oppressed and exploited. They are under male domination, been controlled by father, husband or son. In this case, feminist theory films are viewed as reflection of society. It shows the ideological and social construction of women in that time.

There are four theories in feminist film theory which are oppression, stereotyping, objectification and patriarchy. Oppression is women being prolonged cruel or unjust treatment for a long time. They been controlled and repressed by men. Stereotyping is a thought of generalization to certain group of people no matter good or bad. In this case, women always being seen as a weak side, they cannot defend the men. For example, woman is born to reproduce children, if she does not do so, she is wrong. Objectification in feminism means looked women as object. Women often seen as a kind of advertising or incentives to attract men's attention. Patriarchy is a social system which males are the dominant and in control of everything. It is very popular among the Asian countries as males hold the dominant power from political leadership to households.  

Synopsis

          The Incredibles is an America computer animated superhero film produced by Pixar Animation Studios, and released by Walt Disney Pictures in 2004. This film is written and directed by Brad Bird. The story is about the family of Incredibles. After the marriage of Bob and Helen Parr, who known as Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl. The government forces the superhero to hide their superpowers and become normal people due to several lawsuits over peripheral damage caused by their crime-fighting activities. Then, Bob and Helen have no choice but to live like a normal family with their children, which are Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack. Bob is not happy with this life and his white-collar job. He longs for the glory days as superhero. One day, Bob finds a message for a mysterious woman named Mirage, who convinces him to become superhero again and give him a mission to destroy a robot. But actually all the things is planned by Syndrome, who wants to avenge Bob. The Incredibles family need to learn how to against the enemy to save the world. At the same time, they need to overcome their own troubles.

Theory Application

Helen Parr / Elastigirl

Normally, we can look at various female representation in film and compare them to seek out the final resolution of “preferred” female representation. One of the main character in this film, Helen Parr, who known as Elastigirl as well. She is Bob’s wife and mother of Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack. Helen is a strong female representative. Before she gets married, as a superhero, she is brave and strategist. She has to finish the robber on the rooftop quickly, so that she will not be late for her own wedding. As a wife, she controls her husband sometimes so that they can keep their family low profile and their “supers” identity will not be discovered. She also tries to talk to Bob fist instead of just quarrel with him in the living room. She investigates her husband carefully so that the harmony of family can be maintain. As a mother, she needs to take care of her family well. She plays a good housewife jobs. She prepares the meals, cleans the house, fetches the children from school. When her children are in danger, she also put their safety at first. She hugs Violet and Dash in her arms when the airplane exploded. She also appeases them not to panic when they fall into the sea. These shows that she is a dominant and independent woman. She knows what to do even though her husband does not by their side. Her superpower is elastic body. This superpower indicate that she is flexible to all incidents or challengers that she faced. She is a family oriented woman. She is protective to her children. She makes her own choice to look for Bob at Nomanisan Island. She also decides to stands with her husband to fight the robot. Helen is the representative of strong female.

Violet

The second female representative is Violet, the daughter of Bob and Helen. Violet is shy, obedient and lack of confidence. Her characteristics just like her superpower, the invisible power and force shield. She is shy, so she uses her invisible power to hide herself so that no one can see her. She always covers half of her face with her hair. She did not dare to speak with the boy she likes. She even doesn’t like people talk about what she likes. For example, in dinner time, when Dash says about the boy Violet likes in school, Violet is not happy and starts to quarrel with Dash. She always listens to her mother, Helen. She does not use her power because Helen said so. When Helen asks Violet to use her force shield to protect the airplane, she starts to panic. Because she remembers that Helen asked her not to use the power before. She also not confident to do it. She does not believe in herself. But slowly, Violet changes. She practices to use her power when they hide in the cave in Nomanisan Island. She forced to use her power to protect Dash when they attacked by Syndrome's guards in Nomanisan's tropical jungle. But then she realizes that she can do it. She overcome her low confident by saving her brother. She starts to control her power well. She also saves her family by force shield at last when the helicopter falls towards their house. We can clearly see Violet changed and become more confident to herself. She puts her hair back with hairband and starts to talk to other friends. She even invited by the boy she likes to watch movie together. Violet shows us that women should be confident and take charge to their own life. 

Mirage

The third female representative is this film is Mirage, the femme fatale representative. Mirage is beautiful, sexy and mysterious. Her slim body and bright silver hair makes her looks more attractive. She works for Syndrome to find the superheroes and convince them to work for Syndrome without knowing the truth. At last, those superheroes die. We can see that Mirage is an attractive and seductive woman, especially one who will ultimately bring disaster to a man who becomes involved with her. She is beautiful but dangerous. She knows what she wants. She is clever as she can convince the superheroes to work for them. In this film, Mirage also makes her choice to help the Incredibles. She understands that Syndrome is wrong and she decides to betray him to help Mr Incredible to rescue his family as well as the world. In this case, Mirage as a femme fatale character did not get serious punishment like those femme fatales in earlier time film. It is because women are not allowed to fight for what they want. When they did, they will categorise as femme fatale and will get punished. But in this film, Mirage has the chance to change. She decides to do the right things which is helping the Incredibles.

Conclusion

          In a nutshell, this film shows several female representatives to bring out the message of woman should make their own choice for their future. Helen choices to stay with his husband to fight for what they love, Violent choices steps out her comfort zone to change and be more confident, and Mirage choices to change her vision and fight for what is correct. People always said that animation is just for children, but how many people can really understand the deeper meaning of it.

Bicycle Thieves – Italian Neorealism

Introduction

Film is not just an entertainment, but also a way to express feelings and thoughts. The filmmakers can speak out their ideas to the audience through their films. There is a kind of film that brings put the conditions of historical cases, which is Italian Neorealism. Italian also known as the Golden Age of Italian Cinema. It is a national film movement that describe the difficult economic and moral conditions of post-World War II in Italy. It represents the changes in Italian psyche and conditions of daily life, including poverty, oppression, injustice and desperation.

Theory discussion

            The World War II destroyed the Italy national cinemas and affecting the economic stability of the cinema industries. The Nazis destroyed pre-war European economy and sets up their own economic threshold. But by the end of World War II, the Nazi economy was eliminated. The Marshall Plan which is the European Recovery Program is operated to rebuild the European national industries. This allow the production to go on a large scale. For Italy, due to the early surrender, the production facilities were pretty much intact.

            Cesare Zavattini was the theoretical founder of Neorealism in 1942. He suggests a new form of Italian Cinema that repeal contrived and planned plots, he wants to use real people and locations so that direct contact is established with contemporary social reality. He looked at plots as a fake structure of “everyday life”. The professional actors in Italian Neorealism film are complimented the falsehood. This kind of film unconditional emphasis on the ordinariness of today, today and today.

Synopsis

            Bicycle Thieves or known as Ladri di biciclette in Italian is a 1948 Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica. The story starts with the Rome after World War II, a poor father, Antonio Ricci is desperate for work to support his family. He manages to get a job of posting advertising bills. Unfortunately, his bicycle was stolen on the first day he starts to work. He has no choice but to look for his bicycle with his son, Bruno, or else he will lose his job. Finally, Antonio has no choice but to steal others bicycle but he was caught.

(Source: https://filmandphilosophy.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/bicyclethieveslarge1.jpg)

Theory Application

            This film used mixture of professional actors and non-actors to emphasize the real emotions of the people that suffered in this era. The scene when the film is just started, a group of men gathered around and try to look for a job from a job distributor. I am so shocked when I know that the only professional actor is the job distributor. Others are just non-actors, which means they are the ordinary people even the main character, Antonio, too. I can see they are desperate to get a job to survive in their life. Antonio even lied to the job distributor he has a bicycle so that he can get the job. This shows that after the World War II, the economic is being affected. The people is hard to get a job and this also makes them become more poor. The people who experienced such miserable life do not need a planned plot also be able to involved in those scene as this is totally what happened in their life every day.

            Besides that, the scene when Antonio discuss with his wife, Maria, to get a bicycle. They need to exchange their bed sheets at the pawn shop to get money and uses the money to exchange Antonio's pawned Fides brand bicycle. And there is a shot shows the sheets being added to a mountain of bedding pawned by other families. This shows that the people in this era are very poor, they are willing to pawn anything they have just to survive. The can be proved when the shot that shows the pawn shop is crowded with people.

            About the setting of the film especially the location, we can see that the surrounding is a post-war environment where everything is destroyed in the war. For example, the scene when Antonio meets his wife, Maria, the place that she gets water, the place only fenced with thin wires. The country is being rebuilding, thus old and new buildings can be seen throughout the film. In addition, the scene when Antonio is chasing the suspected old man, the church is crowded with people and they provide barber services and free food for those people. All these shows that the people are suffer after the war. They live in poverty and desperation. People may lose their home, job or family in the war.

         This film also shows socially-conscious and humanistic POV. The film is simple in construction but rich in human insight. For example, the scene when Antonio wants to catch the thief but the neighbourhood around there stop him and blame him. Although Bruno fetches a policeman to search the thief’s apartment but they cannot find anything. The policeman tells Antonio that it is difficult as Antonio has no witnesses and the neighbours are certain to provide the thief the alibi. This shows that this kind of unfair cases always happened in the post-war era. The vulnerable people do not get any help even the police. People simply so something so that they can survive no matter right or wrong. This is unfair. Just like the thief, steal somebody bicycle without getting any punishments.

Conclusion

    In a nutshell, Bicycle Thieves reflect the greatest strengths of the Italian Neorealism which is emotional clarity, social morality, and brutal reality.

The Maltese Falcon – Film Noir

            Film noir is a term coined by French critics, Nino Frank, in 1946. It is a type of American films that “invaded” French cinemas after World War II. Film noir emerged from a period of political instability, which is around 1941 – 1958, the time of WWII and the Cold War in United States. This was a time of represents insecurity as the Americans question their national identity.

The term of noir means dark and black. So film noir is generally refer to dark film or black film. It features a world of criminals, dark and violence with characters’ central motives are usually greed, lust, ambition and drench in fear. The film shots in black and white. Visually, film noir looks dark with lots of shadows. It has high contrast lighting or we called as low key lighting. It also consists German expressionistic which we can see the oblique vertical and horizontal lines in film. The scenes in film noir are usually lit for night. It always has some locations like alleyways, cramped corridors and etc. to create the sense of distorted, silence and oppression. The setting normally is city-bound, comprising of rain-washed roads and dimly-lit interiors. On the other hand, about the thematic of film noir, it usually looks dark, cynical and pessimism. The film usually features a narration with corrupted characters, fatalistic themes, hopeless tones, blurred morals and intellect. It is a tales of criminal motives or we should call it “crime film”. There are some main characters normally appear in film, the femmes fatales, doomed heroes or anti-heroes, and detectives who tough, smart and cynical. Time flies, film noir also evolved. This movement has changed into a genre lately. We called as post noir or neo noir. Slowly some neo noirs are shot in colour and began to change the trends of the characters and treatments, incorporate more iconic and thematic development especially the female anti-heroes and femme fatales. But film noir slowly decays due to the technological advancement in colour film stock, the public’s fascination of sensational crime stories and noir sensibility among contemporary filmmakers. These reduce the number of audience that interested in film noir.

            The Maltese Falcon is a 1941 film noir directed by John Huston based on the same name novel by Dashiell Hammet. The story takes place in San Francisco in 1941, a private investigators Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer meet their client Ruth Wonderly. She claims that she is looking for her sister who run with a man named Floyd Thursby, whom she is to meet. Archer decides to follow her that night and help to get her sister back after they received a substantial retainer from her. Unfortunately, Archer has been killed that night. Spade has no choice but to find out who is the murderer or else he will become the target of police. Then he slowly finds out that truth of the Maltese Falcon. Wonderly is actually men of the fat man, Kasper Gutman. She wants to kill her partner after they found the Maltese Falcon so that she can pockets it by her own. In order not to be reported to the police, she also pretends weak to win Spade sympathy. But Spade, despite his feelings for her, and turn her over to the police because she is the one who kills Archer.

           This film, the Maltese Falcon, has clearly interpret the ugliness of human nature, people will do anything to achieve their goals no matter good or bad. It is a good example of film noir that features the darkness of world and reality. For example, Sam Spade. Sam Spade is not a totally good kind as a private investigator. He is a typical businessman. He just does somethings that will get advantages. This shows when Ruth Wonderly (Brigid O'Shaughnessy) pays him a substantial retainer so that he can help to look for her sister. He also did not help his partner, Archer to find the murderer at first, he does so because he is being suspect by the police. In order to save himself, he needs to find out the truth. Another example is Spade’s secretary, Effie Perine. She follows Spade’s instructions blindly, do not care about the truth. She helps Spade to lie to the police officers. This shows when Effie receives the phone call from Brigid, but Spade asked her to tell the police that is Spade receives the call instead of her. This is not the truth.

            For visually technique application in this film, there is high contrast lighting or low key lighting in film. This create the sense of mystery for the film as the environment looks dark with lots of shadows. We also can see in the angle that everyone has a dark shadow, means that everyone has a dark side. German expressionistic shows in this film as well. We can see the oblique vertical and horizontal lines in the design of mise-en-scene. For example, in Ruth Wonderly’s room, she wears a cloth with vertical line and the background shows the shadow of window frames in horizontal. Same concept, the scene when Spade wears a blazer with vertical lines and the background shows brick walls with horizontal lines.

            In thematically, the setting of this film looks dark and there is suspicious anywhere. Every characters have their own intention, you can trust no one. A pure good character will not exist in film noir. The narrative diegesis of this film full with corrupted characters, fatalistic themes and blurred morals. For example, the character of protagonist, Spade and femme fatale, O'Shaughnessy. Spade is often side-lighted to enhance the profile from one side and leaving the other half of face in dark, thus pointing to the moral ambiguity of this main character who is neither a good person nor completely bad. O'Shaughnessy is active and smart. She knows how to use her sexuality benefits as a woman to get what she wants. In order to achieve her aims for the Maltese Falcon, she does not hesitate to deceive anyone include Spade, she even killed Archer. But usually such femme fatale character will pay for what they have done before either through death or submission to the patriarchal system. In this case, O'Shaughnessy is caught by police as Spade gives her up.

            As a conclusion, we can see how film noir articulated the repressed needs of America culture. It is real in portraying human fears and desires because it shows the truth of darkness of the society. Audience can identify the issues of corruption, redemption, and loyalty of people easily.

In the Mood for Love - French Impressionist Cinema

Today, I would like to discuss about French Impressionist Cinema, which also called as the first avant-garde or narrative avant-garde. It is a term applied to a group of French films and filmmakers in 1920s. After World War I, French filmmaking never fully recovered. The industry tried to recapture the audience by imitate Hollywood production methods and genres. Then, they emerged a movement which is Impressionism that consist of young directors such as Abel Gance, Louis Delluc, Germaine Dulac, Marcel L’Herbier and Jean Epstein.

French Impressionist Cinema is a movement popular from 1919 to 1928. It explores psychological causes of the film. It gives the narration considerable psychological depth and revealing play of the character’s consciousness. It also concerns about the mental state of characters, either is in dreams or fantasies. This impressionist manipulates plot time and subjectivity by showing the flashbacks or memories in film. There is some visual depiction of metal states via cinematography and editing, which are use of irises, distorted visuals, point of view (POV) editing and camera movement. The filmmakers use irises, superimpositions and masks to indicate the characters’ thought and feeling. The visuals are distorted or filtered or vertiginous the camera movement to show the effect of dizzy or drunkenness in film. POV and rhythmic editing are used in film to show the experiences of particular situations of characters. In French Impressionist Cinema, camera movement is smooth. It can be brought about by frame mobility. For example, the camera can be tied to cars, wheels, bobsleds or cables. Unfortunately, French Impressionist Cinema was trigged off slowly due to lack of interests by mass and also rising of cost of production.

(Source: http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/ab3219/in_the_mood_for_love.jpg)

In the Mood for Love is a 2000 Hong Kong film directed by Wong Kar Wai, starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. It is a love story between Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li Zhen (Maggie Cheung). In Hong Kong in 1926, Chow Mo Wan, a journalist, rents a room in an apartment of a building with his wife. On the same day, Su Li Zhen, a secretary from a shipping company, rents another room next to him with her husband. They become next-door neighbours. Then, they find out that their spouses having an affair with each other spouses. This is where they begin their delicate relationship.

According to David Bordwell’s theory, French Impressionist Cinema can be shown in four main aspects which are camerawork, mise-en-scene, optical devices and characteristic editing patterns. As I mentioned above, French Impressionist Cinema focuses on exploring the psychological causes of the film. That means the film shows the audience what actually the characters think and feel. In the film, In the Mood for Love, there is several scenes that showing the mental states of character via cinematography and editing. The director, Wong Kar Wai, uses the irises, superimpositions, and masks to indicate characters’ thought and feeling. For example, in the scene where Su Li Zhen (as “Su”) finally receives a phone call from Chow Mo Wan (as “Chow”) who disappeared for a few days, then she goes to meet him at the hotel room that Chow rents before so that they can work together on the martial arts serial for the newspaper without attract attention from others neighbours. This particular scene has some shot that shows the character’s feeling. When Su is on her way to meet Chow, there is a close up of her in the car to show her expressions. She looks very eager and anxious. Another part is when Su reaches the hotel, and she goes up the stairs then goes down then goes up again. This editing shows Su is struggling whether she wants to go to meet Chow or not. It also emphasizes her eagerness in this particular scene.

Besides, mise-en-scene also plays an important role in this film. In the scene where Chow is smoking in his office, the audience see him from back first then the camera will focus on the smoke that drift above him. The visuals are edited to show the sense of dizzy of character. The smoke represents Chow’s annoyance. His mind is cloudy like the smoke as the relationship of Su and him is unclear and complicated. It is a visual communication with audiences.

There are number of POV editing and rhythmic editing to show character’s experiences. The scene when Su goes to buy noodles at the noodles stall and Chou eats noodles at the same stall. This shows that they are both lonely person who do their things alone and eat alone without accompany of their spouses. Another one is when Su cannot go to meet with Chou for a period as her has warned by the house owner. She has no choice but to pretend to join the mah-jong game among the neighbourhood. This scene goes in slow motion to show that this is a hard time for Su. Time goes slowly, she is not enjoying the mah-jong game but she has to pretend to look happy. All these scenes are accompanied by the background music, Yumeji's Theme. It makes those scenes look like repetitive and similar.

In this film, the director also manipulates plot time and subjectivity which is flashbacks and memories. The scene where Chou is looking for something in his apartment in Singapore but he cannot find the thing he wants. Then he saw a lipstick stained cigarette butt in his ashtray. The actual timeline is Su goes to Singapore and visit Chow’s apartment secretly. Then she smokes a cigarette, that’s why the lipstick stained cigarette comes from. Then she calls Chow, who is working for a Singaporean newspaper, but she remains silent when Chow picks up the phone. She takes away the slipper that she left in Chow’s Hong Kong apartment last time when she leaves. This is the reason why Chow is desperately searching for something in his room at first. He is looking for Su’s slipper that he brings along to Singapore from Hong Kong as a momento.

In conclusion, the director, Wong Kar Wei, uses a lot of techniques to show the psychological and mental of characters. He uses a different way to interpret the love story between Chow Mo Wan and Su Li Zhen. He focuses on the spouses that being cheated compared to the cheating one. They don’t even show up the face. Even today, when a director wants to show a character’s feeling in some abnormal state of mind, French Impressionist techniques of camerawork and editing which are the blurred imagery, superimposition, slow motion, accelerating cutting and etc. are used. 

Dark City - German Expressionism

Today, I would like to discuss about German Expressionism, which is a creative movement beginning in Germany in early of 1900s. Besides, I also will discuss about how this movement relates to film industry and also the film of this week, Dark City.

As I mentioned above, German Expressionism is a creative movement that appeared in Germany from 1919 to 1926 and reached a peak in Berlin during 1920s. German Expressionism is influenced by the Expressionist movement in modern art of early 1900s. There are some themes that highlighted in this movement which is self-analysis, revolt, sexual savagery, madness and primitive. It is widely used in many industries such as literature, architecture and theatre. It spreads into cinema in term of narrative, set and mise-en-scene. It is most apparent in set design and chiaroscuro lighting which is low key lighting. We can see that German Expressionism’s style includes oblique camera angle, distorted bodies and shapes, gothic style in looking and framing, high contrast lighting that creates dramatic shadows, and the content is usually about surreal and gothic, unnatural acts or realities. This movement can be said that is brought in from Germany to USA as the filmmaker migrated from Germany to USA, and they bring their making practice into Hollywood. This has a great influence on horror film and film noir.

(Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=dark+city&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwirpOrG4ILOAhXKvI8KHQ4fCZQQ_AUICCgB#imgrc=Hf4CpjfkVcR8eM%3A)

About the film, Dark City. This is an American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas in 1998. The screenplay was written by Proyas, Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer. The story starts with the main character, John Murdoch, woke up in a bathroom and there is a naked woman dead body around him. He becomes the suspected of murder but he can’t remember anything even his wife. So he was trying to find out what happen to him and the city where he lived. Slowly, he approaches the truth while he is running away from the police and a group of mysterious group known as “Strangers” who want to kill him.

There are some German Expressionism elements that we can found in this film. Firstly, the chiaroscuro lighting, which is the most appeal in visuals. There is a low key lighting shown in the set designs of film. The high contrast of lighting creates an obvious shadow. This can enhance the investigative nature of the film. The audience will be curious and want to have a closer look to that specific scenes. The high contrast provides the audience a sense of mystery. They will want to know what will happen next in the film. For example, when John Murdoch wakes up in the bathtub, the entire bathtub is very dim. This will make the audience has an idea like “Where is this place? Why so dark?”. Then they will pay attention on it. Furthermore, the narrative also sets that the whole story happens at night, there is no day time in the film. This also highlights the dark, damp and cramped atmosphere.

The second element is primitive sexual savagery. It means the killer was targeted to murder. All the victims are women. The weapon is also a very traditional murder weapon, a knife. For example, the murderer in the film, Mr. Hand, kills the victims (all are women) by knife. He even depicts spiral patterns on their body with that knife. This will bring out the sense of sick and madness of the murderer.

Then, we can see a lot of gothic, bizarre and stylized design in the film. There is distorted sets and bodies in some scenes. For example, during tuning, the sets and buildings are spinning and changing differently. Besides, the Strangers also have a different look with normal human proportion. Their body looks longer and higher and they always wear in black. This also makes their walking style looks different with human. The setting of the Strangers’ movement that are reminisce of the past events shows a Gothic style design. It looks dark and depress.

As a conclusion, a German Expressionism film shows a highly stylized visuals, chiaroscuro lighting and strange camera angles. It shows a big contrast between light and dark. The storyline need to be match with the visuals in term of lighting. That’s why the horror film and film noir much influenced by German Expressionism. It creates a dramatic effect on feeling. The audience will feel like this film is sick, depress and gloomy.

Before I wake

Today, I would like to discuss about the movie “Before I Wake” by Mike Flanagan in 2016. I will discuss the genre of this movie and how it relates to the semantic and syntactic approach.

Genre is a way of organizing films according to type. As Rick Altman said, the best method of categorizing films is semantic and syntactic approach. Semantic means the visuals, mise-en-scene of the films, which are locations or settings, makeup and costume, lighting, and actor’s behavior and movement. Syntactic means the themes of the film and we can derive it from the narrative of the film. Genre analysis must only be made by combining both components, semantic and syntactic.

Why we should have genre for the films?

The film must possess universal semantics and syntaxes that found in corresponding genres in order to fall into any particular genre. It can be the guideline for the director to do a film. It also lets the audience has a choice to choose what type of film they want to watch easily. Genre can display the characteristics of the film by semantic and syntactic approach. The director knows that what scenes should be include in the film to humour the audience’s expectation. For example, in an action film, there must be extended chase scenes, fast cuts shots to show expression of every characters and repeating scenes in different angle. These is what audience expect to see in the film. When directors are familiar with these “laws”, they try to innovate new things into the film so that the audience will not be bore.

(Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=before+i+wake&

espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiiidbA2u_NAhWHuI8KHVC4BHYQ_AUIBigB#imgdii=OpLFSYe3xNu9tM%3A%3BOpLFSYe3xNu9tM%3A%3BFLZ6yrAoUqyN-M%3A&imgrc=OpLFSYe3xNu9tM%3A )

Back to our film for this week, Before I Wake. It is an American supernatural fantasy horror film directed by Mike Flanagan and co-written by Flanagan and Jeff Howard in 2016. The story is about Jessie and Mark, a couple who just lost their son Sean, adopt a new foster child named Cody. This child is really lovely and pleasing but the problem is he refuse to sleep at all. Slowly they found out that Cody’s dreams will become reality. Jessie attempts to use Cody’s power to meet with Sean. But nightmare comes one after another and starts to harm their life. In order to save their family, Jessie and Mark must find out the hidden secret behind Cody’s dreams.

As I mentioned before in my several blogs past few week, horror is one of the oldest genres from Hollywood. Horror is the main genre for this film as it contains a number of scenes to frighten the audience. There are a few subgenres under horror categories which is unnatural, psychological and massacre or slasher flicks. This film is in the unnatural as Cody has the supernatural power. The nightmare that created by Cody, Kanker, actually is himself, he tries to protect himself as his dying mother told him “I’m always with you” when he was really young. He does not understand what is cancer that time so he read it as “kanker”, where the nightmare come. There are also some old tricks that usually used in horror film. For example, the children ghost hide under Cody’s bed, there is someone behind Jessie who she can’t see but the audience can, and the dead child, Sean, comes back to interact with parents. The bathtub scene where Sean accidently die is really a horror scene for me especially when Jessie came through a room and she saw the same things happen in front of her. But actually it is an illusion created by Cody’s nightmare. We can see that Jessie is really anxiety and miserable. She is struggling whether will she goes to the bathtub or just ignore it and goes to save Cody in another room.

The idea of this film is very interesting and attractive at the beginning, but the ending seems like not following the usual horror film trend. I think that the director wants to combine horror film and touching storyline to show the love between mother and son. It looks like a combination of genre in this film but not mixed very well. The child has supernatural power but ended with actually the nightmare is himself. It is an anti-climax for me. The story ended with Jessie hugs Cody and tells him all the characters in the story will have a happy ending. The point is the film did not tell the audience how about the innocent people that eat by the nightmare? Where they go? It looks like an open ending for the audience to imagine and no too much explanation for Cody’s supernatural power.

Lastly, genres evolve from times to times until now. The combination of genres makes the narrative different so that the audience will not be bored. But genres should have to be audience based, following the expectations of industry. For this case, I didn’t not see what I expect in the ending.

ParaNorman

Today, I would like to discuss about genre which means categories of film and film types. According to Rick Altman, the method of categorizing films is semantic or syntactic approach. Semantic means the visuals, mise-en-scene of the films, which are locations or settings, makeup and costume, lighting, and actor’s behavior and movement. Syntactic means the means the themes of the film and we can derive it from the narrative of the film. For example, types of characters, hero vs antihero, ideologies and structures of film. Genre analysis must only be made by combining both components, semantic and syntactic.

The movie poster of Paranorman.
(Source: https://www.pinterest.com/rottentomatoes/)

The movie that I want to relate with these ideas is Paranorman. It is an American 3D stop-motion animated horror comedy film produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Featuresand. It was released on 17 August 2012. The story is about Norman Babcock, an 11 years old boy who can speaks with the dead. His strange behavior makes him always bullied by his peers. The town where he lived is being cursed by the witch who died unjustly 300 years ago. Norman uses his special ability to speak with the dead (zombies and witch) to save his town.

(Source: theconceptartblog.com)

There are some genres we can classified for this film such as horror, comedy and adventure. This combination makes the film content and narrative more interesting.

HORROR

Horror is one of the oldest genre from Hollywood. Normally, it is designed to frighten and makes the audiences panic. It is often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining the audiences at the same time in a cathartic experience. There are a few sub-genres for horror film such as unnatural, psychological, massacre or slasher flicks. The film, Paranorman, is under unnatural, which is the zombies. In this film, we can clearly see that the zombies enter to the town where Norman lived from their grave after they arise by the witch’s curse. This is one of the main idea for horror genre, threat to normalcy, which means an external force threatening civilians.

 Judge Hopkins, the leader of the zombies.(Source: http://www.moviemail.com/img/blog/headers/939_139.jpg)

Another six cursed zombies.
(Source: https://i.imgur.com/6BaCTkS.jpg)

We can see semantic approach in this film. Some scenes bring out the sense of depressed and scary with the lighting. Some scenes bring out the sense of unbalanced with play around the mise-en-scene. There also can see the makeup (design) for the character is done to show the bodily mutations and mutilations of zombies, such as the brain is hanging out of the head, the bone can be seen without the skin, the dead’s skin is in blue or green colour and etc.

(Source: http://aboutzombies.tumblr.com/post/41373924994/paranorman-zombie-monster)

(Source:http://aboutzombies.tumblr.com/post/41373924994/paranorman-zombie-monster)

(Source:http://aboutzombies.tumblr.com/post/41122008083/paranorman-braaains)

(Source:https://www.reddit.com/r/HighQualityGifs/comments/2kw1gy/zombie_attack_from_paranorman/)

COMEDY

Comedy is designed to draw laughter out of audience. Exaggerations of situations, characters and their behaviour, language and action to entertain the audiences. There are four types of comedy which is slapstick, screwball, dark comedy and parody. But there just slapstick and dark comedy appear in this film. Slapstick is a universal comedy with broad, aggressive, physical and visual action. The characters required a well performance skills so that the film looks funny. There are some funny scenes appeal in this film. One of them is when Judge Hopkins, the leader of zombies drops on the wind mirror of Mitch’s car. Zombies should be scary in this film, but this scene is a spoof.

(Source: http://van-kuver.livejournal.com/)

Another one is the vending machine snack scene. The zombies approach when the guy is buying the snack at the vending machine. He keeps looking and waits the snack to drop out from the machine but he is so scare because the zombies come nearer and nearer. He runs away when zombies almost one step distance with him. But then the snack finally drops out and he keeps shouting and returns to the vending machine to collect the snack and runs away again.

(Ckeck out the video of vending machine snack scene in  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvXRlnIyLKk )

Dark comedy are dark, sarcastic, humorous and sardonic stories to help the audiences examine otherwise ignored darker serious subjects. For example, death. Norman can speak to the dead such as his grandmother and Mr. Prenderghast. Actually both of them already die and this is a sad thing. But Norman still able to talk with them just like they never leave before. The scene where Mr. Prenderghast die also is a funny scene. He was in his room and die in a sudden stroke. At first his soul comes out from the body and back into it again, and he said “Not yet, not yet.” The audience will think that “OK, this guy still has some time…” but suddenly he dies and the soul cannot be back to his body again. He is die for real this time.

(Source:https: //ilackfocus.wordpress.com/2015/10/30/paranorman-31-days-of-halloween-day-25/)

ADVENTURE

Adventure is a genre that revolves around the conquests and explorations of main character to find the truth or treasure. The film normally take place in many locations and play historical myths. For Paranorman in this case, Norman takes his adventure to solve the witch’s curse. He has no choice but to come out from his ordinary world which is his normal life, and reads the book in front of the graves just like what Mr. Prenderghast asked him to do. He faces some difficulties at first but then he gets help from his fellows. They move together to the goal. At last, he found the truth about the witch, Agatha. He able to persuades her to stop to hurt everybody. Norman reminds her that there must be someone who was kind to her. This is the journey where Norman learn and grow. No just him, but everyone. His family starts to accept who is he and his ability that can speak to dead.

I think that genre is important in film industry. It is not just a guideline for the film making, but it also gives the audiences to choose the categories of film that they want to watch easily. Combination of genres will make the narrative more interesting and complete, it also will attract the audience from different preferences.

Let's have some rules before you SCREAM

I am not that kind who like to watch horror film. I’m fine if the film has violence and bloody scenes, but I cannot stand the pressure of psychological oppression. When my lecture, Mr. Joe introduced this horror film to the class, I feel like finally there are some horror film for the people who want to watch but too afraid and not dare to watch, just like me. The film is horror, but not too horror, and a little bit funny.

The movie is Scream.

The movie poster of Scream.
(Source: http://i.mtime.com/eagle4/blog/6307521/)

Scream is an America horror film or slasher film directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson. This film successfully revived the slasher film in 1990s. The dialogue between the actors in the movie is used to irony the horror bloody film is being formulated gradually. The mask wear by the killer in the film has become a classic merchandise in Halloween.

(Source:http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/95344531.html)

The story starts with a high school student, Casey, who live in Woodsboro town is alone at home when her parent night out. Suddenly she receives a harassing phone call and the man keeps asking her questions about horror movie. The moment when she receives the call, she had become the target of a mysterious killer. Then, her boyfriend, Steve, and she was killed by the killer and her body is hang on the tree in front of her house. But these scenes just indicate there is a killer in this town. The main story starts when the main character, Sidney, becomes the target of the killer. And the people around her such as her boyfriend, friends, the policeman, the reporter and etc. have been involved in this mystery killing incident.

This film has a lot of bloody and death circumstances, and the general plot of horror film looks like, which is the identity of killer will be only known when the film is about to finish.

The film combines some different genres to satirize the cliché of horror film. Some genres that I can found are horror, comedy, mystery and action. The combination of genre also makes this film different from the other horror film at that time. It makes the narrative more interesting and not just a normal horror film that scare the audience.

HORROR

Let’s start with the first genre, horror. As I have mentioned in my last blog about another horror comedy film, Zombieland, horror film is designed to frighten and makes the audience panic. This film has a lot of bloody and chasing scenes that can makes the audience feels terrified and shocked. We can clearly see that the sub-genre for this film is massacre or slasher flicks, which is the killer who wearing a mask. Killer is very important character because he is just like the nightmare in this film. The audiences will feel nervous, uneasy and uncomfortable when he appears, just like the characters feels in the film.

Some of the bloody scenes. (Source: https://www.tumblr.com/search/the%20scream%20trilogy)

The killer who wearing mask.(Source: http://popkey.co/m/GMNVQ-scream-movie-murderer-scare-scary-horror)

COMEDY

The types of comedy in this film is slapstick. I found that the action of the killer is a bit clumsy sometime. He keeps falling down or hit by other things when he is going to kill the target. The audience is panic while watching the film because the killer is chasing the target with a knife but suddenly the killer falls down with a funny pose. This totally change the mood of the film.

Another example is when the killer attacks Sidney in her house, Sidney runs to her room and close the door then blocks the door with another store’s door. When the killer come, he can’t enter the room and he just stuck in between the door slit. 

This is one of the scene where the killer wants to attacks Sidney in the school toilet but she avoids his attack and he just bumps into the basin.

MYSTERY

I say this film is some kind of mystery or detective film because the audience will keeps guessing who is the killer. It gives audience time to think and imagine the truth and the identity of killer. But there are also some misleading clues so that the audience will not know the ending before they finish watching the film.

For example, when Sidney attacked by the mystery killer, her boyfriend, Billy appeals at her house at the same time. So Sidney thought that Billy is the killer and she runs away. Then Billy is arrested. But Sidney receives the killer’s phone call again when Billy is in the police station. Sidney starts to think that she is wrong to Billy. Besides, the police officers also found out that the harassing phone calls are not called out from Billy’s cell phone but Sidney’s father’s phone. But actually the killer has two people and one of them is Billy. He traced the calls to Sidney’s father’s cell phone to frame him that he is the actual killer.

The audience will not think that Billy is the killer or even there are actually two killers at first because the story showed Billy seems to be being wronged, and all the evidences are pointed to Sidney’s father, Neil Prescott.

ACTION

Action scene showed when Sidney is fighting with the killer to survive.

(Source: http://wifflegif.com/tags/90541-sidney-prescott-gifs?page=4)

Sidney found out the killer actually is two people, Billy and Stu. She fights with them with the help of reporter, Gale. At last, Stu is killed by Sidney. Billy attacks Sidney but also killed by her by shooting on his head.

(Source: http://wifflegif.com/gifs/483007-sidney-prescott-neve-campbell-gif)

(Source: http://wifflegif.com/gifs/474587-sidney-prescott-matthew-lillard-gif)

There is also a lot of chasing scenes in this film, when the killer is chasing the target/victim all over the house. The killer chases Sidney when she is alone in her house. This is their first met.

(Source: http://wifflegif.com/gifs/483038-sidney-prescott-neve-campbell-gif)

Lastly, I think that this horror movie is more entertaining the audience compared to scare the audience. The story line is more twisted as we cannot figure out who is the killer before we finish watching the film. The combination of genre allow this film has an interesting content.

There is some rules for horror film.
Don't have sex with others.
Don't take drugs or alcohol.
Don't say "I'll be right back.".
Don't ask "Who's there？".
Don't check the source of weird sound alone.

Or else you will die.