film midterm

staging, framing, editing, storytelling

4 elements of cinematography

méliès

technique serving dreams

lumière brothers

using cinema to show the world

sous les toits de paris

Albert, a street singer, meets Pola. His best friend and a gangster are also in love with her. They are together, until Albert gets framed for theft and sent to jail before being released. The gangster provokes a knife fight with the best friend, and Albert intervenes. He then realizes his friend is in love with Pola and gives her up to him.

Clair

Sous les toits de paris director

Duality of paris — singers associate with criminals, lovers are violent, under Parisian roofs there is also poverty, vulnerability, and violation

Takeaways from Sous les Toits de Paris

Les enfants du paradis

Frederick (actor), Baptiste (mime), Pierre (thief), Edouard (aristocrat) are all in love with Garance. She is with each of them at different points, but truly loves Baptiste. She is seen kissing Baptiste on the balcony when he is married and she is with another one of the men. Edouard is killed by Frederick and she leaves while Baptiste looks for her

carné

Les enfants du paradis director

2 sides: the scene and what happens behind the scene. Baptiste, for example, is a mime (fiction) while also having reality (loving Garance). Shows the confusing aspect of propaganda, showing the facade. Raises awareness for audience to think for themselves 

Takeaways from les enfants du paradis

Les 400 coups

Antoine, a young boy, is misunderstood by his parents. He quits school, steals a typewriter, and tries to sell it. his stepfather turns him over to the police. He spends a night in jail, and then is sent to a center for troubled youths, where he runs away on the beach

truffaut

les 400 coups director 

Paris from the POV of a child, not an artist/lover/village person. Hide and seek of tower,like his relationship with his mother

takeaways from les 400 coups

à bout de souffle

Michel, a car thief, kills a cop and flees to Paris. He seeks out Patricia, an American student and journalist and tries to convince her to move to Italy with him. They have a complicated relationship, and Patricia ends up turning him over to police. He flees, and is shot and killed in the back.

godard

à bout de souffle director

Dialogues written day-by-day, shot on location, quick shoot, no makeup or lighting or costume department. Uses the jump cut on purpose for the first time

à bout de souffle takeaways

jumpcut

sequence of shots that don’t respect rules of connection

cléo de 5 à 7

cléo gets a tarot card reading that says there is an illness in her future. over the course of the day, she has more and more genuine conversations and ends up having her most authentic conversation about death with a soldier named antoine

tells the story of Paris from the POV of illness and death. Both a documentary of Paris and a woman in paris

cléo de 5 à 7 takeaways

varda

director of cléo de 5 à 7

le signe du lion

peter learns his rich aunt has died and expects to receive her fortune. he borrows a large sum of money from a friends to throw a celebratory party, and receives an eviction notice. the inheritance goes to his cousin, and he loses his friends and home. his cousin dies and he receives his fortune after all, and he throws a celebratory party for his friends

rohmer

director of le signe du lion

Paris from the POV of a man who loses everything. The city and its people can exclude you when you have no money/food/friends. Music has no melody —> can’t find his place

takeaways from le signe du lion