Clint Eastwood #2: Letters from Iwo Jima

Whatever it may be, Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima does not feel so much like a war film. It does cover war, and it shows the brutality of the fighting that occurred over the 35 days that it took before the island of Iwo Jima was cleared by American forces. But it plays out differently, looking from the Japanese perspective at the men who fought on the island, showing their personal histories and experiences, and showing the mental struggle over what they were fighting for and what they were fighting against.

Like with Million Dollar Baby, Eastwood seems to cover the story the film portrays through a series of episodes that form the scenes of the movie, each of them advancing the plot or expanding on characters' stories or identities. This is sort of true for any director, but he doesn't cut time up during these periods or skip over anything. In short, you could say that his style is the anti-montage-sequence. Everything is shown in substantial chunks of real time, and it jumps the gaps in between, hitting the important bits of the story. As a result, some of the transitions and jumps feel abrupt or disconnected, but within a given scene, it works well to get the viewer involved in the moment and to take the point of view of the people involved.

This organization also makes sense because the scenes that appear seem closely chosen to expand on the characters. The connections that several characters have to their homes are shown, through flashbacks tied to letters that they read and write. There are plenty of scenes in which characters question why they are fighting, and ponder what will happen to them. The 'why' question and its tension peak when a wounded American soldier is taken. The Japanese colonel orders him cared for, before talking to him and revealing that he had spent time in America himself. The soldier dies from his wounds, though, and the colonel reads a letter that his mother had sent him. The letter connects his experience to that of the Japanese soldiers, whose own letters had held such similar messages, making them question what they have heard about the enemy. It takes only seconds after hearing the letter before their thoughts are disturbed by the explosion of enemy fire, and harsh reality takes over once more.

The film's episodes show moments of hard decision in war, and frame the tensions that drove the war effort. One example is when the protagonist Saigo and another private decide to keep fighting instead of following their captain and committing seppuku with grenades. Mirroring scenes show American and Japanese soldiers who choose to kill hopeless enemy soldiers instead of taking prisoners. An elite soldier explains how he was sent to Iwo Jima as punishment after refusing to kill a civilian's dog as a show of obedience. These scenes show how each individual follows a different course under the threat of war, and reveals his true colors in the process. In taking the perspective of the side that was isolated, outnumbered, and hopeless in the long run of the battle, the film shows the full force of war and sends the message home: that war really sucks.

Cure Rear Window Vertigo in 39 Easy Steps!

The impression I get from Alfred Hitchcock, from the three films we watched in class and from others that I've seen, is that he is a skilled filmmaker. His great talents, I think, are his understanding of the audience and his ability to make all sorts of stories work that you wouldn't expect to.

It's interesting to compare Hitchcock's famous movies to those of other 'great' directors. Some critics have suggested that interest in the Oscars this year will be lower, because the highest acclaimed Oscar contenders, There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men, fit the common mold of the critically-acclaimed-but-not-as-popular movie: bleak, somewhat depressing, and not having enough explosions/speedy plotline/Keira Knightley. Hitchcock, on the other hand, is as close as the 60s got to 24 or the Bourne trilogy: come on, he had Cary Grant get chased down on foot by an airplane, before finishing up with a nose-tickling cliffhanger on Mount Rushmore.

He knew that movies could have a dose of implausibility and absurdity without being stupid. Take The 39 Steps. Yes, I'm sure that some guy would take in a random woman claiming to be a spy, and not only believe her but take on her task once she is killed. But the film works because of what Hitchcock fills it with, like the clever scene with the main character's impromptu political speech.

Or look at Rear Window. A man looks out his window, and manages to convince himself and several others that a murder occurred before he has a shred of real evidence. But the movie creates a full story involving an entire neighborhood, works successfully with its windowside shooting perspective, and gets viewers to identify with the protagonists so closely that Mr. Thorwald's simple piercing look at the camera is actually alarming. People can look into the film's broader meanings, sometimes too far, but just on its own, the film provides a lot and draws the viewer in.

Vertigo has the most implausible story: A murder plot that is covered up by a ridiculously over-the-top possessed-by-the-dead fraud pulled by a woman playing the double of the murderer's victim, his wife. Add a romance between the unsuspecting fall-guy protagonist and the fake wife, and it sounds like the sort of crap that happens when the writers are on strike. But seeing the story unfold is something different. The mood of the film is creepy, due partly to a great score by Bernard Herrmann. The key is seeing how James Stewart reacts to and is affected by what happens. His madness after Madeline's death, his obsession for Madeline-who-is-actually-Judy, before and after her apparent death, and his freakish desire to turn Judy back into the woman who he thinks is dead give this twisted plot a bigger impact. What happens to Scottie is far freakier than the murder plot itself, and since he is the main character, who the audience is supposed to relate to, the plot is translated through his experience and is made more significant, dramatic, and involving.

I know that Hitchcock had a number of movies that were stinkers, or at least a lot more mediocre. But hey - what's life without a little excitem-WHAT'S THAT BEHIND YOU?!?!!!

Clint Eastwood #1: Million Dollar Baby

(I apologize for the image, a product of boredom and I don't know what)

My thoughts are mixed on Million Dollar Baby. My knee-jerk reaction after finishing the film was that it was caringly made and technically well-executed, and had strong acting as well, but the story was too cliched and the progression of events never really drew a viewer to root for Maggie (Hilary Swank), the lead character, who is helped by trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) to become an unlikely boxing champ. One problem may have been the way the film was focused. With the title being 'Million Dollar Baby', and with the story presented the way it was, the apparent inevitability of her story made me feel less involved in the film. (I should add, though, that I may have just been put off by our technical problems; the first DVD we rented skipped relentlessly.)

After thinking about it more, it seems like the way the film progressed may have been more intentional than a problem. Maggie's seemingly guaranteed against-the-odds success set the film up nicely for its tragic ending, which manages to come as a genuine surprise. Even more surprising, to not give too much away, was Frankie's decision and shift in opinion at the end. The film may come off as an overly-pretentious Oscar-fodder look at a controversial issue, but I think the focus is more on the changes and troubles of the characters than on the moral issue.

The thing that appealed to me the most in this film was the way it showed the true colors of several characters. Clint Eastwood's tough'n'gruff image fades through the film into the image of a man who is deeply caring and possibly over-protective. Maggie, who may appear as timid or over-enthusiastic as Danger, a skinny, hapless, perhaps deluded fighter who goes to Frankie's gym, turns out to be tough as nails, through to the end. Maggie's family, by contrast, is shown to be ungrateful, cowardly, and opportunistic in their relations with her. One of the only characters who stays as he is is the janitor/helper Eddie (Morgan Freeman), who counters to Frankie as the caring and helpful one in his gym, who we learn will still turn fierce and tough when he needs to.

The Blog Arises

So - a blog. I'm not really sure that using a blog to talk about film for a class is useful, but here it is. I first took Art of Film 1 last year, but I came back for the new class because I like films, and I wanted something enjoyable to give me my last lit credit :)
Other than that, there really isn't much to add, so let the movies begin!