MY FILM BLOG
Jiazhen
A college student
Blog post 1: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
(1:29:37~1:30:12)
The shot takes place between at her boyfriend's house after celebrating his mother's birthday and running to see her roommate. The shot that is selected is preceded by Otilia at her boyfriend's house, celebrating his mother's birthday with her boyfriend's parents and their friends at the dinner table, and then having an argument in the room with her boyfriend about abortion. After the shot is taken, Otilia enters the hotel and rushes to the room to check on Gabita's health. This shot records the change of Otilia's mood, from her disappointment and anger in the quarrel with her boyfriend to her concern for her roommates and the feeling that as a woman, she needs to save herself from being dependent on others.
The atmosphere of this scene is dark and cold, even desperate. It goes on almost silently, except for the occasional sound of a car passing nearby. This picture is very appropriate to show the situation of the girls represented by the two heroines at that time who are pregnant but unable to raise their children. They are helpless and desperate, but they have to be strong enough to face the unpredictable things for the normal life of themselves and their companions. The sound of passing cars also reminds the girls and viewers that their plight has nothing to do with anyone else -- not even their boyfriends and their families. Other people's lives go on, even happily, like the laughter at a birthday party. The people at the dinner table were not unrelated to Otilia, and would one day become her in-laws. However, there is no real discovery of Otilia's uneasiness and tension and only mutual sarcasm for the countrymen. The only people who have to face problems and solve them are the girls and they are forced to a certain extent. The streets were empty, perhaps the director wanted to show other people's ignorance of the girls' situation.
Otilia had left her boyfriend's house and was walking down a path when she suddenly began to run. Then she leaned against the wall and spat it out. In that frame, there was only the sound of her puking and the faint sound of the car next to her. Her reaction is not just a physical reaction but more due to her psychological discomfort. When she had sex with the so-called doctor to pay for Gabita's abortion, she was so ashamed and disgusted that she could not talk to her boyfriend and get comfort. Moreover, Otilia and her boyfriend in the room on the topic of abortion is not harmonious. Because boyfriend thinks they shouldn't dwell too much on things that didn't happen. However, this is the most unsettling place in Otilia because she needs a commitment fr
om her boyfriend even if it is just a simple word. She was angry and disappointed at the same time. Her boyfriend's answer and roommate's situation made her feel insecure. So, she ended up throwing up.
This shot is generally a track shot and starts from an eyelevel Angle. It shows Otilia running for a while until she stops and throws up. The track shot worthy of study is the wobble and blur to clear film frame respectively. On the one hand, its Angle to the audience is like running quietly behind Otilia, keeping pace with her. This kind of shooting technique can make the audience have a sense of immersion and can feel her mood. The director used this technique very cleverly because it was not used too much, which would cause the audience to feel bored when watching the film. In other words, the director used a shaky shot in the heat of Otilia's emotion, which also foreshadowed the occurrence of Otilia's physical discomfort later. Shaky shots are thought to have been shot by a cameraman with a hand-held camera. It provides dynamic instability and tension to the viewer with a sense of reality (“Shaky camera in films: pros and cons”, 2012). On the other hand, the sharpness of the frame changes over the course of a few seconds. The more the camera shakes, the more blurred the frame becomes, and vice versa. This can also reflect Otilia 's chaotic mood at that time. When the frame is clear, it seems to indicate that the risk of pregnancy is finally borne by the girls themselves and the strong mutual help in this grim social environment.
Referencing list:
Shaky camera in films: pros and cons. (2012). Retrieved January 12, 2020, from:
https://bzfilm.com/filmmaking-tips-sources-tools/shaky-camera-in-films-pros-and-cons/
Blog post 2: My Life to Live
In the French New Wave, the director's film style was influenced by the historical environment and philosophical thoughts of France at that time. After World War II, French society was in a period of transition between old and new systems (Cui & Zhao, 2020). In the midst of the economic recovery and an ideologically complex life,French culture and artistic creation were energized by the trauma of the war. Before a group of young and modernist film critics created a new mode of directing French films, the French film entertainment market had been dominated by American films from Hollywood and traditional French industrial films. At that time, the films before the emergence of the French New Wave mainly relied on the literary standards of the script, and the themes of myth and allegory were the mainstream at that time (Darke, n.d.). The Hollywood-style film mainly represents an immersive and entertainment- oriented type of film produced by the big studios.
A group of directors led by Godard embarked on a low-budget filmmaking style with creative control over their work.Compared with Hollywood-style films and traditional films, the works in the new wave can better highlight the artistic identity and thoughts of the director himself. Through a series of shooting techniques such as jump cut and track shot, the films in the new wave period will generate a sense of alienation from the audience and a form of presentation similar to discourse. This kind of film is more like a cryptic treatise written by the director himself than a story of ups and downs. The life of the French people in the real world was the basis and material for the directors, and the directors of these French New Wave films hoped to bring conceptual meaning, graphic aesthetics and authenticity to the movie-goers. In My Life to Live, the director divided the film into 12 scenes, omitting the unimportant moments of each segment and no cut scenes. Consequently, audiences are no longer addicted to the immersive watching experience but understand the emotions of characters and interpret the artistic discourse behind the film. Secondly, Godard's creative style was also influenced by Hegel's dialectics and existentialist philosophy. Compared with the passive expression of characters' thoughts in traditional movies, the New Wave movies explicitly apply "existence before essence" to actual shooting. Human beings create and choose themselves in activities, thus forming essence. This requires the director to be creative for his film, whose thoughts and emotions are actually reflected by the words and actions of characters in the film.
Not only in My Life to Live, the female images in Godard's other films are highly symbolic as well. This important feature is where Godard's films have a special significance for the French New Wave movement. The emergence of his film semiotics is mainly based on the criticism and subversion of the Hollywood-style films which put too much emphasis on the plot and made complex and grand films, and the traditional French films which relies too much on the script and the book. At the same time, he also has philosophical thinking and contradictory aesthetics for the narration and scenes of several Carina films and related social phenomena. In My Life to Live, through the recording of the plot and the dialogue between the protagonist and others, we can get the existential point that the director wants to express, which is, you need to take responsibility for what you do. This shows that its philosophy is individual-centered and values people's individuality and freedom. In addition, Godard's film plot composition also has some contradictory aesthetical. In My Life to Live, the poetry and the discussion of the contents of The Three Musketeers by characters in the second half of the film is an abstract expression of consciousness. In addition, Nana's life experience is relatively authentic in the film.
Godard's film is a new exploration and display of the female image at that time. For the social situation in France at that time, Godard's films played an important role in the construction of gender identity (Holmes, n.d.). This could bring a new concept of values and power relations to the people of the time, especially the young people.
On the one hand, in My Life to Live, many film clips show the denotation of some female images represented by the heroine Nana in the 1960s. For example, the scene of intense kissing and the scene of women standing on the street smoking and looking at men passing by all show the existence of sex transaction on some women. On the other hand, which is behind these symbolic abstract contents is actually the director's observation and rebellion towards the real society. The connotation of Godard's combination of these images into the film is his understanding of the consumer market and how modern society constructs the existence of women through money and sex. Through the image of the heroine and the record of her fate story, the director presents a meaningful topic of that period. In the middle of the film, many shooting details, such as the separation of sound and visual images and the way the heroine looks at the camera, can help the audience to view the female images oppressed by capitalism from their own perspective. The processing of these frames and sounds makes the image of the protagonist more independent from the narrative and avoids the appearance of too many male perspectives.However, this strong attitude of opinion does not entirely arise from the dialogue and plot that films traditionally have in the past. Godard's style has always been one of wanting the audience not to be so limited by the plot that they lose sight of their own critical thinking. Because characters don't have to be recognized by the audience.
In general, the emergence of the French New Wave period is actually a rebellion and innovation against the previous Hollywood style and traditional French films. Godard's films, as representative works of the French New Wave, are influenced by philosophical "existentialism" and have a new understanding of the relationship between female images and the consumer market.
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References list:
https://francis-press.com/uploads/papers/o94v9P6oT9greERLWiCdKeX4ZwZBi9YjXLtFkCAr.pdf
Darke, C. (n.d.). The French New Wave: INTRODUCTION. Retrieved January 12, 2020, from:
Holmes, D. (n.d.). Sex, Gender and Auteurism: The French New Wave and Hollywood. Retrieved January 12, 2020, from:
