I was recently advised by my philosophy teacher (who is also a film lover) to watch a film called Moon for it's connections into our Philosophy and Ethics lessons. Luckily enough this film tied into my media work as the film could be stated as a Psychological Thriller. It certainly gained enough of the conventions of a thriller, like the desolate setting and the many red herrings. But I just didn't enjoy the film, at all.
I was told this film was cinematic genius, and that it was brilliant. It's won several BAFTAs amongst many other awards but I felt it's thrilleryness (yes, I've reached a point where my thesaurus is exhausted and my last resort is making up words) was wasted on me. The entire film felt like an educational video on '10 Steps to Making a Thriller' rather than an actual film. With many other thrillers that I've seen, specifically take a look The Number 23 which also falls into the psychological thriller category, they take breaks from being full on thriller-y and this is what adds most suspense. I know when I saw The Lovely Bones during the scenes where it was just showing life, I knew that something was coming, an underlying thriller-y moment was about to occur. We were about to get the conventions of silence and so on. Even if we look at I Am Legend, which was one of my case studies, there is a scene where Robert Nevelle is reciting the words to Shrek. Now THAT adds something to the film, it detracts from the thriller-y part! It's like you're on a rollercoaster which is constantly rising, and you know it has to fall anytime soon... Moon was not at all like this. Moon just felt like the whole film was dropping. Arguably the film does represent the main characters state of mind in an extraordinary way, and arguably you can say that this constant use of thriller conventions is showing that this persons psychological difficulties are present constantly. But it didn't entertain, and what are films for if they don't entertain?
It's like if you're constantly in a little bit of pain, you'll get used to it, and after a while it will stop affecting you. That's really what Moon felt like to me... it just didn't work.
"Makes Your Bones Grow Strongerer"
No, this isn't a post about Petit Filous. Last night I went to the cinema to see a free preview screening of The Lovely Bones. It's new all singing, all dancing drama/thriller film at the hands of Peter Jackson. Granted he's well known and loved for his adaptation of Lord of the Rings, but it doesn't take a genius to put Lord of the Rings on screen. It takes a shit load of money. 'Visionary Director of Lord of the Rings' just seemed a step too far on my part. So I wasn't particularly too enthusiastic that this film would wow me. But it did.
However, If it hadn't been for my Media background (and the old man who laughed like an electronic Santa that's running out of batteries during crucially gripping scenes) I'd have enjoyed the film much much more. I was sat constantly pointing out to my friend Sophie that 'oooh, I liked that shot... oh that was a nice shot... hmm good symbolism!" and quite often I'd throw in those things that make film lovers cringe - continuity errors. Apparently this film is abundant with errors due to the clumsy adaptation by Peter Jackson himself. But as I've not read the book I didn't spot these, maybe I should've... who knows. "That's a good shot". But during the scene after Susie Salmon declares the day she is about to get murdered, Mr. Harvey wore his glasses, then took them off, went to the curtains to close them. From the outside you can clearly see a shadow which INCLUDED his glasses. Hmmm... clumsy indeed.
I thought the acting was pretty flawless too, this is of course if I wanna deviate from the poorly cast Mark Wahlberg the 90s rapper turned Hollywood Actor as the devastated father during the film. His acting seemed wooden, and the character poorly written. It was strange to see him contrasted with the pretty perfect Rachel Weisz, not sure what to make of Susan Sarandon in her awkwardly written role. (Which while we're at it seemed seriously out of place, it felt slightly like watching someone take a dump in the middle of a funeral ceremony. - Maybe I should stop writing the post, while I still like the film, Media A Level you are a cruel mistress) The 'child' actors were really well acted though. I thought they were very very very good and believable. The child actor who played the little boy managed to convey the sense of incomprehensible death of his older sister.
The film did however encase one the most butt-clenching scenes I've ever seen. Without screwing you over and spoiling the film, when Susie's sister is in Mr. Harvey's house prepared to be thoroughly gripped... and thoroughly thrilled. It was interesting to look at though because the scene featured no music up until one point, and it added more to the atmosphere than if the sound would have been there (much like the use of silence in Francis Lawrence's I Am Legend) I thought this was so interesting to see, that we're going to see how it's going to work in our own thriller when we come to editing. That's basically what this post was for, to tell you that minute piece of detail in a really long way. But I hope you've enjoyed reading my somewhat cynical view on The Lovely Bones... even if I did think it was fantastic.
Ignore these two posts, for tagging purposes :)
Have a nice day
The following is the short research task for Media 'G321 Thriller Research':
Thriller Films
Thriller films are difficult to stamp a definition on, this is mainly because they can cover such a massive range of different types of films. There are many sub-genres that quite often overlap, from erotic thrillers to physiological thrillers to erotic/physiological thrillers! Thrillers are quite often categorized by frequent action and are usually seen as fast paced, it also sees the villains usually getting punished. A few different types of thrillers can be seen below:
Action Thriller: Lots of violence, an obvious main character, can include large quantities of guns, explosions and quite often can involve large elaborate sets for the action to take place in. A good example of an Action Thriller would be the latest James Bond film ‘Casino Royale’ where there is indeed a lot of violence, James Bond acts as the man character and many elaborate sets were used like airports and hotel resorts.
Conspiracy Thriller: This is where we see our antagonist faced with a large, powerful group of enemies in which the extent of their danger is only seen by the antagonist themselves. A recent Steven Spielberg Produced film ‘Eagle Eye’ follows this setting as the large, powerful enemy is shown as a evil conspiracy that they have to uncover during the course of the film.
Drama Thriller: A Drama Thriller is essentially where a drama film and a thriller film meet. These are shown as reasonably slow paced films with little action and involve a lot of character development. An example of this would be the recent card counting film ‘21’ in which a group of MIT students learn card counting in order to make money in Vegas.
Physiological Thriller: This is the thriller which features hardly any physical conflict between the characters (often this is broken near the end of the film) as the conflict is very often mental and emotional. Many examples can be given here, ‘The Number 23’ which stars Jim Carrey as he finds a book about the number 23 and starts finding the same patterns in his real life. The film ‘One Hour Photo’ is another good one which features Robin Williams as an employee at a photo printing company who becomes obsessed with one particular family.
meaning when but into conjuction with that of the storyline catalyst, and I was torn between my disire to turn of the programme and sleep or watch and discover what happened to these reasonably beleivable characters. I chose to watch, and I'm glad I did. The film was simply fantastic! - In an odd kind of 'i'm-gonna-be-disturbed-forever' kind of way. But the characters ways of coping with the fact that one of their peers (and sibling of one, which did indeed make the first 20 minutes all the worse) had murdered someone in a sick sexual voilence act was brilliantly portrayed, and I think written too - and shot! There were many of the desolate shots of the yacht out in an open and lonely sea. I just thought the film was so interesting to watch, the way the characters changed so much in relation to death, and their fear of guilt and fear of jail (which says alot for the goverment system in the UK. I'm not sure if anyone else following my blog has seen this film, cause I would be intrested to find out what the rest of you thought about this film!
