Goodbye to Film Studies

I have enjoyed this class so much this semester. Especially as someone so interested in writing, I found analyzing the construction of the plot and language alongside the cinematic choices to be really educational. I've learned to look at what's going on "behind-the-scenes" a lot more, which I didn't used to do for a movie unless I really, really loved it. From learning about Orson Welles's complete control over Citizen Kane at such a young age to Aaron Sorkin's open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, I've realized that my understanding of a movie and it's subtext and messaging and purpose can be a lot clearer if I do some digging after watching the movie. I hate going into movies knowing anything about them, though, so I'm glad we didn't talk too much about the context of the movies we watched in class until afterwards. 

I'm really glad I learned about all the aspects of the moving camera this semester. There's so much there that adds to a viewer's subconscious processing of movies, especially with a shaky handheld camera, I think, and now that I know some of the techniques behind them, I'm more aware of them while watching movies. The other week, I joined a Zoom call with a film professor from Tufts where I'm going to college for a lecture on the moving camera, and I really enjoyed it. He talked about how really creative directors will combine various aspects of the moving camera to devise their own effects, like Spike Lee. Spike Lee created the "double dolly," which I guess is where both the actor and the camera are on a platform laid over tracks so that the actor looks like he's levitating or floating. There are some really cool scenes in Malcolm X and BlacKkKlansman that use it. 

Because I'm trying to catch up on "classics," I already had Citizen Kane on my list to watch; realistically, though, I doubt I would have ended up watching it. It was really interesting to watch in the sense that I learned about their hidden techniques for filming the movie that had never been tried before in other movies before it; there was the equipment above the fabric sheet ceiling, and the holes cut out of the ground to hold the camera and cameraperson for those low shots, and some surprisingly good age-makeup. I didn't really enjoy the movie, but it was educational, which I guess is the whole point of a film studies, anyway.

My favorite thing we watched was, I guess, the thing I watched: all the Wes Anderson movies. I loved this project because I had a lot of control over what I was going to be analyzing, so I got a lot of enjoyment out of watching analysis videos for the movies and his style, as well as reading articles about his movies and what went on behind the scenes -- Isle of Dogs was quite the endeavor, with almost 900 hand-molded, -painted, and -positioned characters. So cool. This was the project I found most meaningful in terms of really going all-in on film analysis of style, from dialogue to plot to color schemes to themes that lace through multiple movies. It was pretty eye-opening about what aspects make up a movie and how I can separate those to better understand how they work together, as well as how movies can exist outside of themselves and how each movie can act like a puzzle piece in defining a director's style (which is funny because Wes Anderson hates when people try to define his style -- it gets in his head, apparently). I've only ever really done that with Damien Chazelle's movies, and it was nice to try it with another director I really like. There was this moment when I was typing up my big, final summation 5th post of this project where I thought I deleted everything, and I physically could not have typed that all out again after having spent hours thinking through it all the first time. That was a sucky 3-minute period. But all was well. 

In terms of what I found most meaningful, I think the one-minute film project is up there. I was actually  nervous and kind of dreading it when I first heard about it because I felt like it had to be perfect or else, but I actually had so much fun filming it and figuring stuff out along the way. I thought I'd be someone who has to have everything storyboarded and figured out before I went to film, but my group came up with a lot of really cool stylistic ideas while we were "on set" filming around the school. Clearly making movies like this is about having fun and experimenting with the tools we've learned about in class. I think it would be really good for future HCHS FIlm Studies classes to keep doing this project. 

I really wish we could have covered 80's movies, especially those of John Hughes. I'm realizing as I'm writing this that this class was more about analyzing movies and the film industry in broad strokes rather than by specific topics. Still, I think watching one or two of John Hughes's movies could have been an interesting way to connect a movie to a cultural, social, and even political phenomenon; I mean, his movies exist outside of the 80s by simultaneously defining and validating an entire age demographic! There are a lot of crappy or way-too-cheesy 80s movies, but his, for the most part (probably with the exception of 16 Candles), continue to connect with what I guess you would have to call "teen angst." The first one that comes to mind is The Breakfast Club, which is actually a pretty nuanced movie if you think about it. It has some neat social and political commentary; kids from all different backgrounds slowly chip away at each other's phony exteriors to find what they all have in common. Cinematically, I'm not sure how much there is to his movies, but plot-wise, they're goldmines!

I also think watching a few musicals from the 50s would have been neat; we talked about 50s movies a lot in terms of their subversiveness during the age of McCarthyism, but there's that whole subsection of Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Fred Astaire musicals that have beautiful set design and cheeky dialogue. It'd be interesting to compare their dialogue and social norms to today's standard and see how they've aged. 

Much to my parents' chagrin, I'm considering a Film and Media Studies double major. I love writing and I love movies, so I think combining English/Creative Writing with Film could be a really neat way to think about constructing stories. This summer, I'm also committing myself here (I mean, like Erica said in The Social Network, "the internet's not written in pencil, it's written in ink") to studying specific directors and genres of film; I want to watch all Tim Burton, Kelly Reichardt, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Greta Gerwig movies, as well as 40s/50s/60s musicals and French New Wave movies, too. Damien Chazelle is one of my favorite directors, and as I've mentioned too many times on this blog, La La Land is my all-time favorite movie; the way he described how he feels watching the French New Wave musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is similar to the way I feel when I watch La La Land, so I'm really interested in seeing what similarities there are between these two movies. From Film Studies, I'm going to watch Breathless, Boyhood, and Lady Bird first, then The Apartment, Birdman, Trumbo, Casablanca, and The Godfather. And then a bunch more. Obviously. 

I was nervous and kind of dreading the "make your own one-minute film" project when I first heard about it because I felt like it had to be perfect or else, but I actually had so much fun filming it and figuring stuff out along the way. I thought I'd be someone who has to have everything storyboarded and figured out before I went to film, but my group came up with a lot of really cool stylistic ideas while we were "on set" filming around the school. Clearly making movies like this is about having fun and experimenting with the tools we've learned about in class. I think it would be really good for future HCHS FIlm Studies classes to keep doing this project. 

Like I said above, I really like watching video essays analyzing movies and directors that I really enjoy. I found that "Lessons From the Screenplay," "Behind the Curtain," "Nerdwriter1," and "Karsten Runquist" are my favorite channels to do that. (I really reccommend this one about When Harry Met Sally and "breaking genre conventions"). After writing all my posts out on the blog, I've realized how much I enjoy analyzing movies instead of just passively watching them and then acknowledging that they were good. I might continue making these by creating a new blog for myself, or trying my hand at a video essay like some of the ones mentioned above.

Thanks for a really enjoyable semester! I learned a lot about both film technique and the history of film, which I wasn't expecting. The development of the moving image through 50s McCarthyism was really, really neat, and it gives me a lot more context for watching movies from various time periods. I also appreciated the resources you sent out for short films and films of the decade and other things for us to keep considering. And, while in-class discussions would have been nice to keep having, it was really great that we could keep writing on our blogs and commenting on other people's thoughts. I'm really glad I took this class, and definitely plan on taking more film courses in the future.