Akira Kurosawa

One thing I found interesting about Kurosawa's films was the chronology they portray of his changing opinions. Each film we watched had a different sort of hero, reflecting Kurosawa's changing view of what a hero is. The first, "Stray Dog," had a hero in the generic sense that most people think of. He (Murakami) not only chose the righteous path in becoming a police detective after the war, but he acted for the safety of those around him at all costs, and saw the good in everybody. His ultimate goal was to get his stolen pistol out of the hands of a dangerous criminal, but his efforts were impeded by his belief in the inherent humanity in all people. Sanjuro, the hero in the second film, "Yojimbo," is a bit different. He feels the need to help the helpless and innocent, but he doesn't hesitate to accept payments. In "Yojimbo," he is a ronin who wanders into a town run by two gangsters and cleans it up. He goes to each boss resquesting a job as a very highly paid bodyguard. However, he turns on his masters and ends up taking their money while he cleans them both out. As a samurai, Sanjuro's lack of loyalty to his masters is unusual, and shows that Kurosawa believed that a hero's actions didn't need to be as selflessas and sacrificial a samurai's, as long as they wanted to do good and help others. In the third film, "Ran," Kurosawa seems to have nearly abandoned the idea of a hero. The youngest brother of a ruling family, Saburo, is the closest we come to a hero in the movie. He was one of the few people willing to speak up to his father when he was making a bad decision (to pass his authority to his oldest son, Taro), and was banished for it. He tries but fails to help out more at the end of the movie, and ends up dying. The tragic ending with everyone's death seems to show a sense of hopelessness Kurosawa has in people and heros.

Scorsese Study 3: Raging Bull

"Raging Bull" is a tragic story about up-and-coming boxer Jake LaMotta. The project was suggested to Scorsese by Robert DeNiro, who found the book he wanted to base the film on, and was eager to star in it. At the time, Scorsese thought it would be his last picture, so he put extra effort into it to keep his name in tact once he was finished. However, this effort led to his rebirth in film, and he ended up making a number of hit movies after "Raging Bull." DeNiro won best actor in his role as LaMotta, the tough-but-psychotic fighter who works his way to becoming middleweight champion, before losing it and being forced to retire. Cathy Moriarty plays his wife Vicki, and Joe Peschi plays his brother and manager, Joey.

One thing Scorsese did a good job of in the film was to bring the audience in to see and feel the brutality first-hand. During boxing matches, the camera is always close to the boxers so we can see their rage and the pain of their punches. He even shows closeups of them getting hit in the face so we can see blood gushing out of their heads. This harsh portrayal of violence and anger is often seen in Scorsese's films, including "Goodfellas" and 'The Departed." All three make us feel the pain of the victims, especially thanks to his closeup shots and use of very graphic violence. In both "Raging Bull" and "Goodfellas," we see violence outside of the "business" world (mafia and boxing) as well. In "Goodfellas," Henry's wife pulls a gun on him when she finds out he is cheating on her. Once he calms her down, he turns on her and starts to beat her. In "Raging Bull," Jake beats his wife when he becomes suspicious that she's seeing other men. These relationships and the one in "The Departed" also show a negative opinion on relationships themselves. In "The Departed," the main female character is tied between two men. The man she officially dates is a crooked cop who works for the mob, and the other man is an undercover cop she thinks is a criminal. From her point of view, (an outsider's view), the cop is an attractive young guy and the criminal is a drug seeking low life. The undercover cop ends up dying, and only then does she find out who he really was. This shows that relationships are flawed from the start; that we are dependant on first impressions, and it takes so long to get to know who a person really is, it is nearly impossible to have a truly connected relationship.

Alfred Hitchcock

Commonly regarded as the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock is very consistent in how he makes movies. His main concern is to please the audience, and he carries many recognizable characteristics from film to film.
One thing Hitchcock has in a lot of his movies is a blonde leading-lady. In the three movies we watched in class, there was Pamela from "The 39 Steps," Lisa from "Rear Window," and Judy/Madeleine from "Vertigo," all blondes. Not only were they all blondes, but they each had similar relationships to the main male character. In "The 39 Steps," Pamela is very resistant to Hannay at first, and only begins to like him near the end. In "Rear Window," Lisa and Jeff are in a troubled relationship, where she wants to get married but he doesnt. In "Vertigo" John and Judy eventually fall in love, but Judy turns out to be under a false identity in order to involve John in a murder plot. What's more, Judy seems to die twice, once as the copy of Madeleine (where the real Madeleine dies), and again at the end as herself.
Another Hitchcock signature is his use of almost exclusively nondiagetic sound in some parts of his films. He did this to use the full potential of the screen by telling a story purely by what he shows us. The longest of these scenes we watched were in "Vertigo," when we followed John and Madeleine around. Hitchcock showed us clues and key parts to the story without using dialogue to explain their significance. Instead, he showed them to us in context and let us figure out their meaning. In "Rear Window" there are similar scenes when the camera pans between the different apartments. Though here there is diagetic sound, it is muffled and relatively insignificant, so the story is still being told by what we see. We see Ms. Lonelyheart alone in her room, Ms. Torso getting hit on in hers, the pianist struggling in his, and the newlyweds closing the blinds in theirs. Throughout the film their stories develop through the same panning shot, to where they've all changed by the end.