In the Mood for Love by Kar-Wai Wong

            French impressionist cinema, also known as the first avant-garde or narrative avant-garde is a term to represent the association of French films and filmmakers during the 1920s. During the World War I, French film industry was attacked and caused the film studios or operating places were shirted to wartime uses. There was no proper growing of French film industry which led to the American films industry started to flood into the France film market as they needed to fill the vacant screens of theatres. Therefore, the Hollywood cinema dominated the market by the end of 1917. After the war, French filmmaking was still not fully recovered as the Hollywood cinema had big influences toward the French audiences. Some French filmmakers tried in recapture the French film market by imitation of Hollywood production methods and genres. Impressionist movement had affect the film industry by giving narration which considering in psychological depth, revealing the play of a character’s consciousness as the interest falls not on external physical behaviour, but on inner action of the character too. Therefore, I would to discuss about the characteristics of the French Impressionist film in the contemporary film with the film analysis of “In the Mood of Love” by Kar-Wai Wong. 

            Based on Bordwell and Thompson (2010) mentioned that films that are made within a particular period and nation share a significant traits of style and form. This can be explained with the French Impressionism’s films during the period. There is a significant characteristics can be identified as a French Impressionism’s film. Firstly, the emotion of a character is important in a French Impressionism film in order to lead the audiences to feel the same way. As art is a shape of expression which allows the artists’ perspective to communicate with audiences through their acting, performance and emotion express. So that audiences can understand the emotion and meaning behind the scene even without a word of dialogue. Emotions and feelings are not a form of art but it delivers a form of expression or suggestive manner to the audiences to experience more in the film. The type of film triggers the audiences to have an immediate connection in emotion to the character’s perspective. It is also centred on the play of the character’s consciousness to give narration through the character’s psychological state of mind. Besides, French impressionism’s film is more centred on the abstract visuals which allow filmmakers to emphasize on temporal form or graphic to portray some emotion or meaning behind the film without including a narrator. It creates personal space for the audiences to experience and understand the emotion behind the films. Furthermore, film form of French Impressionism also used rhythm editing based on the visual pace. The lengths of shots and attentive juxtaposition of the movements within the certain shots of film create a sense of rhythmic feel. This allows the film to present the flows of the story and enables the visuals to narrate themselves so that audiences can understand the convention of the scene and emotion. This rhythmic editing also helps in showing the mental states of the characters. 

            Next, we found a few French Impressionist traits in the film “In the Mood for Love” by Kar-Wai Wong. This film is starring by a man, Chow Mo-Wan, a newspaper editor who moves into a new building with his wife. At the same time, Su Li-Zhen, an attractive lady who work as a secretary and she move in to the building with her husband. As both of their spouses often outstation or overseas, Chow and Su spend most of their time together as friends. They have everything in common from their daily routine. Soon, they noticed their spouses are having an affair. They feel a similarity between themselves as they are in the same boat. They find comfort in their growing unusual friendship and soon they struggle their love with each other as they don’t want to be like their unfaithful mates. 

            From the film “In the Mood for Love”, a few French Impressionist characteristics can be found in the film where the slow motion scene of Chow and Su spend their daily routine in buying noodles at the noodles stall. It is a showing of repetitive scene, shot and music of the story to show the feeling of constantly repeating life in emphasizing their lonely marriage life. This is also a part where they started to build connection with each other as they found the senses of similarity between them. It is consider as French Impressionist as this convention does not directly tell us what the message about but it is an abstract visual where audiences can feel the character’s loneliness, emptiness and also the emotion between the Su and Chow. Next, during the part where Chow had conversation with Su and they discuss about the topic of “life before marriage”, then he backed to the office and smoke. The mise-en scene of the particular scene where shows Chow’s back with the heavy smoke above him and his eyes looks moody and not concentrated which show his frustration and struggle toward the unusual love on Su. It is portrayed the struggle emotion of his imagination about how is it like if he still single and he can be with Su together. This gives audiences more experiencing the character’s emotion rather than just telling through narration. The visual leads the audience’s emotion into the character’s perspective. Moreover, during the scene where Su and Chow leave the hotel room, the scene freeze and stop to indicate the character’s perspective of the things happened between them will ever become memories. It is an abstract way of showing the convention of the character’s mind instead of knowing directly. This is shows how the cinematography and editing play in portraying the French impressionism characteristic in the film. Throughout the whole film, the Chow and Su are actually rehearing how it is like when having affair with each other. But indirectly, they have created an unaccepted love between them and they struggle with it as they don’t want to be like theirs unfaithful partners. These leads the audiences to feel the struggles by showing the characters’ play on their consciousness. 

            In short, French Impressionist film is a very artistic form of film that allows the audiences to react with their emotion and feeling into the film. It should be applied frequently in the contemporary film to create an abstract play of film to give a new life of French Impressionist film. However, this is widely popularise due to the market does not has much interest in these kind of film. As the contemporary films nowadays are mostly depends on the market’s needs but not filmmaker’s intention.  

Dark City: German Expressionist Film

            German Expressionism is an artistic genre that invented in Europe in the late 1920s. It is refers as a number of related creative techniques that began in Germany before the First World War. These expressionism developments in Germany were associated with the European culture in aspects of architecture, dance, painting and cinema. The German Expressionist movement was initially confined due to the economy crisis of the country during the World War One. The government banned the foreign films and the demand of the local Germany film increased. In that particular period, Germans had more freedom in creating the film because it helps in increase the country’s economy. However, in 1920s and 1930s, German Expressionism influences the Hollywood films where these German directors found U.S. movie studios who willing to embrace them (Andrew, 2002). As a result, the German Expressionism able to doubtfully far ahead of Hollywood film during the same period (Merton, 2009). Therefore, in this essay, I would like to discuss the traits and characteristic that can be recognized in a German Expressionism film.

          

            German Expressionist style can be identified through the Mise-en-scene of a film. A formal element that can be found in a German Expressionist films is the Chiaroscuro lighting, which the lighting in the scene that shows extreme contrasts of light and dark in order to create a sense of dramatic shadows in the scene. The use of low key lighting able to give the filmmaker to stress the links between the character and the setting in order to create the distortion and tension sense of feeling. As the contrast and imbalance of the visual elements shows the characters are trapped and reigned by their madness, revolt, self-analysis and primitive or sexual savagery. Next, the next element represents the German Expressionist film is the use of anthropomorphism, which is a non-human form character that attributed from human form, human characteristics as well as human behaviour in creating it. In addition, abstraction is the one of the style that used in German Expressionism film. It is a style of art that privileges internal from over pictorial representation. It is different to the traditional styles of art because it more centred on the use of imagination or ideas expressed through emotion or perception. Besides, the content of a German expressionist film is usually surreal and gothic which refers to unnatural acts or realities those are not usually perceived in everyday life. Moreover, the distorted bodies and shapes of the props can be found in the German Expressionist film where we can identify by its unrealistic form that we recognized in our life. As these distorted elements in the film is to counter the sense of balance and with the heavy shadowing in the scene which suggest a warped or perverted perspective of the world in the film. Therefore, German Expressionist film can be explained as a film movement that emphasizes on the expression of inner thoughts or emotion through the design of the stylistic elements of the film.

            Dark City is a 1998 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Alex Proyas. In order to further understand the influence of German Expressionism toward the contemporary film, we will look at the thematic and stylistic elements that can be adapted from the film Dark City. Dark City is a story about a world where an unnatural human form creature known as “Strangers” have taken control over the human’s mind. John Murdoch, the main character who awake in a strange hotel and lost his memory. While trying to piece together his past and fight for the truth toward the current world, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by these “Strangers” who possess the ability to put people to sleep and “tune” the city structure and human memories. He will find a way to stop them before they take control his mind and destroy him as they realize Murdoch has possess theirs power. 

            There is a few German expressionist traits can be identified in the film Dark City. Firstly, the primitive sexual savagery where occurs on the kid form Stranger who have violent and primal instincts. For an example, he is the one who idealizes the intention in killing Murdoch. He loves and finds pleasure in killing women and craft arts on the dead bodies. Besides, the kid Stranger bites Murdoch’s hand instead of using knife or proper weapon is an act as a representation of dark primal instincts. Next, the distortion of the reality can be seen in the film where buildings and interior of the house undergo tuning as the shape changed. These buildings able to twist, turn, expand, and become higher, longer and others form when Strangers undergo tuning process. For instances, the dining table becomes longer and the setting of the dining room becomes luxurious as the Strangers tuned them. These unnatural or counter reality traits enhance the feeling of unpredictability and insecurity in experiencing the film. Besides than building or props, the distortion form of human can be found in the Strangers too due to their gothic and dark appearance. The strangers have longer finger, pale face, rigid and constricted movements where is abnormal form of human that we perceive in reality. They even have the ability in putting human to sleep. This emphasizes the Strangers are not human and their dark appearances outfit represents as evil. Next, the chiaroscuro lighting of the film creates heavy and dramatic shadows which play a significant part in the film to create an intense mood and sense of tension. The film plays with this technique of lighting in the starting of the film where the Murdoch is in the bathtub and a very low key lighting in the bathroom. This enhances the sense of instability and leads audiences to evoke their fear. 

            In conclusion, we can still identify the convention of German Expressionist traits in the contemporary films. It is commonly used as the technique being practice by the filmmaker to create the certain sense of the story. Therefore, it is consider as one of the successful convention had done during the development of film from the past until present day. Besides, it is a very important for the filmmaker or film practitioners to understand and analyse the convention of others film’s canon or expressionist in order to learn more about the element of film.

ParaNorman

      

ParaNorman is a 2012 American 3D stop-motion animated horror comedy genre film directed by Sem Fell and Chris Butler. It is a story about a boy who gets misunderstood by the people that tries to save his town from a centuries-old curse. It is one of the successful hybrid genres of animated film in the industry. Through this film, I found differences genres of film such as Action, Horror, and Comedy. In this essay report, I am going to explain the Rick Altman’s semantic and syntactic approach of genre in related to the example of this film. 

            Genre is used for the filmmakers or audiences to classify a film. It is can be categorised or analysed through difference keep components in the film such as characters’ performances, plots, location, prop, music and sound, etc. It is important for the filmmaker to understand the genre and create the film based on what genre of the film is. So that audiences able to recognize the elements of the film that can be related to the genre and this gives audiences a sense of satisfaction. However, genre is still a very common and confusing term to be used by the filmmakers or critics to analyse or criticise the film genre as there is no proper guideline or theories to support their criticism, ideas and opinions. It creates a platform of critics that is mixed up with doubt, confusion, conflict and discrepancy due to the lacking of adequate theory to support the words from the people towards the genre study. Therefore, a theorist wanted to design a solution for these issues by considering a more advanced theory to the genre study. The theorists who name Rick Altman wrote a book Film/Genre to backing the genre study research by proposing the Semantic and Syntactic Approach of the film genres. Semantic approach is related to the kind of music, prop or setting of the film that can be defined, recognized or categorized in the particular genres of film. These elements are used in the way how genre communicates to the audiences. As differences genres have differences kind of elements convention to provide an iconography for a particular genre. For an example, the setting of a horror genre film should be low-key lighting and the props of the monster will be shown in the scene. Another approach proposed by Rick Altman is syntactic approach which is related to the interaction between character and the setting. It is also known as the narrative structure of the genres. For an example, in a horror film we expect the character will keep him alive from the monster and he will either fight or solve the monster problem in the end. Through this semantic and syntactic approach, people able to produce a more refined reading of the genre. Nevertheless, this approach will still depended on the audience’s interpretation as different audiences have different response toward the genre texts. 

            ParaNorman is a story about a boy who name Norman Babcock able to see and speak to the spirit, no one would actually believe him except his new friend, Neil, believe his ability is real. One day, Norman’s uncle who has the same ability told him to finish the important annual ritual in order to protect the town from a curse cast by a witch. At first, Norman doesn’t believe at all until his uncle’s spirit entrusted his last wishes to him and went to heaven. Norman gives it a shot, things not smooth enough as Norman face a few obstacles during his way to finish the ritual. But, he missed ritual timing and the walking dead arise. Unconscious, Norman has a dream and realizes the witch is a girl who name Agatha that was wrongfully convicted by the town council and end up she cursed these town council. Norman decided to find the grave and convinces her. Agatha recalls the happy memories with her mother that triggered by him and she found her peace and her soul went to the heaven. Norman becomes hero and everyone accept Norman for who he is. 

            In the film Paranorman, the main genre that can be found in the film is horror. Horor is a genre that gives a negative emotional reaction to the audiences by frightening, shock, disgust, etc. In this film, the sematic study that can be found in the horror genre of the film is the color tone of the film. As the film is more toward to greenish color in the shadow light of the scene which is also represent the setting of the horror film (G.Fallin, 2013). Besides that, a horror genre film is usually centered on the monster such as zombie, vampire and more. In this film, walking dead is the one of the reason that the Norman wanted to get rid of by reading the storybook to stop the curse that awake the dead. The syntactic of the horror genre is usually about how character wanted to solve the monster problem in order to stay alive. For an instance, Norman wanted to save the village by reading the storybook to hold the curse in order to prevent the dead awake, this is part where the character and the monster have conflicts to ensure his survival. Besides, the character will usually run or hide from the monster in a horror film. For an example, Norman and Alvin hide from the zombies when they stuck in the room. Next, comedy genre is also recognizable in the film as it contains some humorous scene in the film. Dark comedy can be found in the film as it is a humorous action or sense the based on problems of a personal or social nature. For an example, when the zombies are in the Prenderghast’s room, Norman was hiding under the bed, suddenly the zombie drop its ear in front of Norman and Norman feel disgust and puke which create a funny sense to the audiences. Moreover, Paranorman is an action genre film as it has lots of physical stunts, continuous high energy throughout the story. An action film normally contains a chasing scene as the syntactic approach of the genre. For instance, the Norman and Alvin were running away from the zombies in order to keep them alive. Besides, in syntactic of an action film will be always focused on a character’s heroism, as he/she will be the one to contribute in saving the world. In this film, Norman will be hero in saving his village from the curse. 

            Lastly, as genre is still has a very wide-ranging explanation in the study due to the different perception from one and another. Therefore, it is a must to have the guideline for the critic and researcher to refer on in undergoing the genre study.

References

Fallin, Garett. "Editing For The Horror Genre". Audiomicro.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 July 2016. Retrieved from: http://www.audiomicro.com/royalty-free-music-blog/2013/10/editing-for-the-horror-genre/