POST 8: TIM BURTON: A biography

                                          Tim Burton

Fill in the gaps in this biography of Tim Burton

Tim Burton was born in 1958, in the city of Burbank, California.

He remains without question one of the most original film maker working in cinema today.

 Indeed, his talent and originality have kept him at the top of the profession where he occupies a very special place, somewhere between the mainstream and the avant-garde, in that region of cinema occupied by artists which worldview is not unconventional that it attains popular appeal.

In 1989, Tim Burton directed the hugely known Batman which, although his least personal film, was one of the most popular movies of all time and gave him unprecedented success in Hollywood, considering the originality and adventurousness of his previous films (for example Beetlejuice in 1988).

Edward Scissorhands (1990), another hit, saw him at the peak of his directing powers and established a fruitful working collaboration/partnership with actor Johnny Depp who played in his 2005 film version of Roald Dahl’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and who became one of his most esteemed partner since their first film together.

In 1992, Batman Returns was a way darker film than the original, a reflection of how much cinematographic freedom Tim Burton had won (producers Warner Bros were reputedly unhappy with the final result).

And even if Ed Wood (1994), his loving tribute to the life and work of the legendary ‘Worst Director of All Time’ Edward D. Wood, Jr., was a box-office disaster, it got some of the best critics of Burton’s career.

In fact, Tim Burton is known/famous both for his dark, quirky-themed movies like Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, or Dark Shadows (2012) and for blockbusters such as Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Batman, Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland (2010), one of his most successful films, which became the fifth highest grossing films of all times.

Burton has produced 18 feature films as of 2014, and has released 12 as of 2012  (among which the very nice Christmas tale called The  Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993).

All in all, Tim Burton’s films consistently challenge the spectator’s expectations, push forward the principles of filmmaking and bring to life previously unthinkable characters (like Edward Scissorhands).

Taken as a whole, his work is based on the confrontation between the fantastic and the horror, and the consequences of these two worlds intermingling.

Big Fish, Burton’s 2003 effort, is no different. And ___, somehow, it is not really the

_________.

On the surface, it would appear to have all the aspects of a classic Burton film: a magic screenplay, fairy-tale characters, flights of imagination, forces of nature (as well as the supernatural), far-fetched situations and vastly imaginative visual style and imagery. The movie is, in fact, fully packed with fanciful episodes that it begins to feel like a loose adaptation of The Odyssey, told from the mouth of an aging character named Ed Bloom, a story-teller and dreamer who sees the world with beautiful eyes.

                                                                        

 

                                                                  

POST 17: SPACES & EXCHANGES: ON THE ROAD / CROSSING BORDERS

A road movie is a film genre in which the main characters leave home to travel from place to place, typically altering the perspective from their everyday lives. The term can still apply to scenarios where it can be a misnomer, such as when the plot of a film involves off-road travel.
he genre has its roots in spoken and written tales of epic journeys, such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid. The road film is a standard plot employed by screenwriters. It is a type of bildungsroman, a story in which the hero changes, grows or improves over the course of the story.
The on-the-road plot was used at the birth of American cinema but blossomed in the years after World War II, reflecting a boom in automobile production and the growth of youth culture. Even so, awareness of the "road picture" as a genre came only in the 1960s with Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider.

 

Paris, Texas (1984)

The ultimate 'road movie'

I think this film can illustrate the notion 'Spaces and Exchanges' by maybe showing how the man (in general) looks for himself in space, in different places then the places where he lives his everyday life, and by loosing the everyday routine. Here, in the opening scene, we can see a man in suit in the desert, apparently lost. It illustrates very well the topic of the man looking for something in his life by travelling from places to places.

Under the Same Moon (2007) 

A MOVIE ABOUT EMIGRATION / IMMIGRATION

UNDER THE SAME MOON (LA MISMA LUNA) tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos and his mother, Rosario. In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario works illegally in the U.S. while her mother cares for Carlitos back in Mexico. Unexpected circumstances drive both Rosario and Carlitos to embark on their own journeys in a desperate attempt to reunite. Along the way, mother and son face challenges and obstacles but never lose hope that they will one day be together again.

This movie is about immigration from Mexico to the USA, which is a very common thing in America. Here, the notion is very well illustrated because the journey from a space (Mexico) to another very different space (the USA) is not just a car travel but a life journey for a little boy from Mexico and the exchanges of cultures in the movie (mexican-american) might be very interesting for the notion we study.

POST 11: MYTHS & HEROES: THE AMERICAN DREAM

 

This is a debate from the Arthur M. Blanck Foundation between a journalist and a guest, i presume. They are talking about the future of the American Dream, and the journalist is wondering wether this ideal is about opportunities, home ownership, economic betterment, education or expecting that the next generation's lives will be better than now. The guest answers by using a notion that the journalist did not mention: jobs. He explains that nowadays, "kids" are better prepared for jobs that aren't available, and who, when they are, don't have health care, retirement benefits or payed vacations. And so he wonders what America might have to do to give all the young generation the jobs they need, because jobs are the cornerstone of this American Dream.

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This video is the trailer of a movie called In America by Jim Sheridan. It tells the story of a family of Irish immigrants who got away from the police in their country and arrived in New York City. It embraces very well the concept of American Dream because they came to America to start from scratch after loosing a child. They meet a black man, their neighbour, who is an artist and a loner and who has AIDS. They also try to have another child but the mother could die and in America, any medical intervention including delivery, is very expensive.

POST 8 BIS: "My" thriller: Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock.

The trailer.

The very famous shower scene, heart of the movie and probably one of the best movie scene ever made in the history of cinema.

Psycho is a movie made by the english Alfred Hitchcock released in 1960, one of the world's best film director. Hitchcock was very known for his very good thrillers and remains today as the father of many film techniques very new for his time and which made his thrillers even more "scary". Psycho is probably the most known of his movies because of the very shocking scenes in it (for the time) and for Anthony Hopkins remarquable performance.

The story is about Marion Crane, a young secretary who works in a bank and is having an affair with a man. She needs money to get away with the man she loves and one day, after work, she steels in the bank she works in a whole lot of money. Pretending to be sick, she goes home early and runs away by car. A policeman arrests her for sleeping in the car and thinking about her weird behaviour, follows her. At night, she arrives in a very strange motel in the middle of nowhere, hidden from everything, where nobody lives except the owner, Norman Bates, and his strange mother. She checks in, and while taking a shower, a very strange silhouet comes in and kills her with a knife. This scene is typical for a thriller: there is a very nerve-racking music, a horrifying scream, blood and it is very slow but also fast at the same time. We don't see the face of the killer wich is even more scary. After that scene, a privet detective and Marion's sister arrive at the motel to look for her. During the whole movie and until the end, we don't know who the killer is even though we guess it a little bit, but the end is so horrible and shocking that it bloodcurls you because you do not except that at all.

POST 8: WITNESS AS A THRILLER

From the blog: http://bethrigby.blogspot.com.es/2011/01/section-one-thriller-genre.html

DEFINITION: These are types of films known to promote intense excitement, suspense, a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, anxiety, and nerve-wracking tension. Thriller and suspense films are virtually synonymous and interchangeable categorizations, with similar characteristics and features.

There are some Thriller sub-genres:

Legal Thriller: eg- A Few Good Men
Disaster Thriller: eg- The Day After Tomorrow 
Psychological Thriller: eg- The Talented Mr. Ripley 
Medical Thriller: eg- The Experiment
Religious Thriller: eg- The Da Vinci Code 
Crime Thriller: eg - Silence of the Lambs

Techno Thriller: eg- The Matrix  

Primary elements of  the Thriller as a genre	Witness as a thriller Illustration in the film
1.Central protagonist   The protagonist faces death, it can be his own or someone else's.	John Book faces his own death when he gets shot in the undergroud parking lot. he also faces the death of his partner, when Carter gets killed. Samuel also faces death when he is in the bathroom and then when he has become an eyewitness.
2.Force/s of antagonism ... must initially be clever and/or stronger than the protagonist.	At first the dirty cops are more powerfull because they are in a higher positions (Schaeffer is John's boss/higher up) and then John is alone and isolated in the Amish community were he is vulnerable.
3.Main storyline For the protagonist it is either a quest or the character who cannot be put down(=defeated)	John's quest consists in finding the killer and uncovering the corruption ring. He also wants to avenge Carter's death.
4.Main plotline The main plotline focuses on a mystery that must be solved.	The mistery John has to solve is obiously the motive behind the murder of the police man.
5.Narrative construction It is dominated by the protagonist's point of view.	The beginning of the film is only concerned with the Amish and their lifestyle. But then when learn about Carter's death through John's point of view, so as we see Rachel and Samuel through his eyes mostly.
6.Action and characters They must be credibly realistic/natural in their representation on screen.	The Amish way of live is very credibly depicted through, for instance, the way they are dress, the barn-raising, the cow-milking, Rachel's sponge bath, or like when Elaine describes John...
7.Major themes ... are the desire for justice and the morality of individuals.	John takes justice in his own hands in order to avenge his murdered colleage. The Amish as a whole embody the highest degree of morality.
8.Small but significant aspect ... is the presence of innocence in what is seen as an essentially corrupt world.	The whole Amish community embodyinnocence because their values are basically pure. On the other hand the corruption inside the police represents the corruption of the modern world.

                                                                                                  

                                                                                                        

                   

POST 7:WITNESS - A DOCUMENTARY ON THE AMISH WAY OF LIFE

Here is a worksheet about the amish way of life and the way it is illustrated in the movie Witness.

POST 6: WITNESS - A Peter Weir movie (1985) - TWO MAIN CHARACTERS

Here is Rachel's portrait in the link below:

Rachel Lapp's Portrait in the movie Witness

POST 4: The Idea of Progress in Witness, a movie released in 1985

This video is the trailer of a movie called Witness, released in 1985.

This movie is a thriller, and it tells the story of an amish family who gets involved in a murder case because a little boy was apparently a witness to this murder. In the trailer we can see the little boy and his mother who are "protected" and followed by a police officer, played by Harrison Ford. Obviously it is a movie with a lot of action, because we see in the trailer scenes were people get shot, or scream, and the family running away with the police officer. Also, I guess it is also a love story because at the end of the trailer, the amish mother and the police officer kiss, and we hear a woman saying that people are "talking about them". I think it is the typical Hollywood action movie with a little love story in it to make even more interesting and not that violent because it still is about a homicide. I also would love to see it because it is kind of an old movie (1985) and old thrillers are the best, I love to watch them with my parents. Also, I love Harrison Ford and I think he would be an excellent police officer in that kind of movie because he is well known for his roles in action movies.