Week Three Report
Lady-Bird is a coming-of-age comedy by Greta Gerwig. The film revolves around the life of a teenager who is not contented with the life she is going through as a teenager. The teen hopes for a better life out of Sacramento, a small town in California. The film uses realism to bring its point home, which is connecting to the lives of teenagers. Lady-Bird does not like her school, has conflicts with her mother, makes poor decisions, but eventually, she realizes that her mother was never her enemy but always wanted the best for her. Realism in this series helps to bring out the theme of teenagers growing up.
The film depicts the real-life that most teenagers, especially those from families that have financial struggles, go through. The main character is wearing a uniform and is in school most of the time. Teenage life revolves around school, home, and connecting with friends. Most teenagers also have a problem with accepting their conditions, just like Lady-Bird dislikes her real name and hides the economic status and identity of her parents because they are poor. Teenagers also have a hard time relating with their families, and the film depicts this clearly by showing how Lady-Bird and her mother continuously disagree until towards the end of the film when Lady-Bird goes to college and sees her mother’s letters and realizes how much her mother loves her. Lady-Bird also appears in this movie without any makeup, her face showing the acne, just like many teenagers are in high school.
Lady-Bird appears to be rude and selfish in this film and uses all the means she can to achieve her dream of going to the best colleges. She seems to question everything, including the ideas od abortion being immoral and believes in herself. This makes the audience feel like she is selfish. However, in the end, we see how apologetic she is, values friendship, and her family, although she is so determined to live Sacramento. The film also shows Lady-Birds mother to be so strict and harsh to her daughter until she turns back rushing to say goodbye and writes several letters to her daughter showing how much she loves her.
Week 5 Report
The 2019 movie Little Women, directed by Greta Garwig, uses formal techniques and modern screenwriting to convey the popular story themes of family, growing up, and independence. The film begins with our main character Jo March to have her book published. The film presents us with two timelines. There is the present where the film begins and the past which shows the early life when the girls were younger and living together. The film covers a timeline of over ten years and has a total of eight plotlines that are different.
The film uses different times to narrate the things that people go through in a family setting. Various things that happen in the past also occur in the present. For instance, Amy burnt Jo’s book in the past when Jo was away, showing that Amy was always jealous of her sister. In the present, Amy complains about still coming second to Jo when Laurie proposes to her. Eventually, Amy beats her sister in what she sees as a competition to win Laurie’s heart. However, during all these instances, Jo ends up forgiving her sister.
The film tells the story of sisters who live away from their father, who is working in the American Civil war. The storyline shows their family lives, friends, neighbors as they grow up, and as adults, they begin to carve out their independent lives. The four sisters choose different careers and lifestyles at the end. Jo, the main character, fights against the pressures of marriage, but she also shows how isolated she feels like a single woman. Jo tries to reconcile with her childhood lover Laurie changing and writes him a letter but finds out that Laurie has already hooked up and is marrying her sister Amy. She throws her letter and ends up being friends with Laurie. Jo ends up unmarried losing her man to her sister Amy who has ever been envious of her.
Week 7 Report
The cinematographic qualities in the 1994 movie little women, directed by Gillian Armstrong, do add to the mise-en-scene of the film. The movie is short in mostly low lighting, shot with a fast-moving camera so that the camera can quickly absorb the available light and a more steady camera. The movie many different framing styles, but the implied proximity is medium to medium short in many of the scenes of the movie, especially in the in-home scenes. Other techniques used are zooms, pan shots, tilt shots, and color grading.
The film conveys information depicted by the characters, such as the status of wealth and the period that the movie takes place. The film was shot using a 3mm instead of using a digital camera; this enables the audience to the texture of the movie, the general play, and the skin tones of the characters. The shooting also shows the different timelines that the movie covers. The shots showing the past where the four sisters were living together were long shots and wide shots. The film in the past scenes used a moving camera, which was not precise. In the present, the girls are in different places and alone. Therefore, in the present scenes, the camera is more still and more precise framing the characters one by one and not all of them at once like it were in the past.
The different camera shots, apart from showing the different timelines, show the loneliness that comes with living separate lives. The long shorts showed the family spending time together as a family, but after growing up, they left for different lifestyles, careers, and made different choices. Jo feels lonely being single, something that she had never felt before when she was living with her sisters. She realizes that she could use a partner and writes a letter to Laurie, but it is too late, Laurie marries Amy. Amy is also lonely, and Laurie sees the need to stay by her side.
Week 9 Report
Summer Rental is a comedy film directed by Carl Reiner in 1985. In this film, we meet the Chester family of five from Atlanta, Georgia, and they are on vacation in the fictional town, Citrus Grove. The father of the family, Jack Chester, played by John Candy, is the protagonist of the movie, and he, unfortunately, runs into many conflicts. Because of this, the film explores the theme of perseverance and enjoying the moment. Whenever things seem to be going well for Jack Chester, things start to go wrong. There are moments in the film when things go wrong. For instance, the family drives to an incorrect address of accommodation due to the false reading of the desired destination, and they are obliged to move out in the middle of the night, ending up in a shack on a public beach with beachgoers stomping through.
The scene of the movie is in Florida in a made-up beach name. The shots if the film Summer Renta; captures what anyone could have imagined as the beach life.the shots of the movie captured the sun shining its rays on the water when the family first arrives at their destination. Some scenes were shot during the sunset capturing the deep orange color depicting the heat present in Florida during summertime. The bright sun fills the screen during different scenes, and some scenes also show the flared edges. There is a shot that captures a plane with a banner advertising the regatta. The audience can relate to this with what happens in Destin. Planes in Destin usually carry banners with different local adverts. The scenes at the Florida beach also capture the white sand and the wind that blows on the shows of the waters.
The movie shows both the bright side of beach life and the bad side showing the tribulations that the family goes through. The problems started with the long journey to the beach, spending a long time arriving at the beach. The issues that the family faces like the new house owner chasing them from their rental house, and settling into the wrong home that the family had to relocate at night all tell the other side of beach life that is not fun.