The Gangster film ‘Scarface’ (DePalma) is about the rise and eventual fall of Cuban immigrant, Tony Montana. Throughout the film the viewer witnesses how Tony Montana goes from a criminal in Cuba to a drug overlord in America. The average viewer cannot connect to the arc of Tony Montana. But, the average viewer can connect to what Tony Montana is working for, the American dream. Brain DePalma chooses purposefully to have a hyper-masculine, narcissistic, megalomaniac immigrant as the main character of a story of American dream. In ‘Scarface’, DePalma show the universality of the American dream. By utilizing various filming techniques, DePalma shows how the American dream is available for everyone. DePalma utilizes zooming and film cuts to show how the American dream is for everyone. Scarface, following the traditional film three act narrative structure, ends it second act with Tony Montana immediately after executing his old boss. The camera opens on a close up of Tony Montana. The camera then cuts to a shot of a moving blimp saying, ‘The World is Yours’. Before the blimp’s message can move to an advertisement, the camera then cuts back to Tony Montana, holds for a few seconds, the zooms out to a long shot encompassing the entire house. DePalma purposefully chooses to film this scene this way. Opening on a close up of Tony Montana show the audience that he is the focus of the scene. When the camera cuts to the slogan on the blimp the audience enters the eyes of Tony Montana for cut. They see the slogan the same way Tony Montana sees it. When the camera zooms out and shows the entire house and Tony Montana’s new wife, the audience understands that Tony Montana now has everything he could ever want. By keeping Tony Montana in the center of the frame, the audience can remember Tony Montana from the beginning of the film and see how far he has come. The audience can then see that Tony Montana has achieved the American dream. DePalma utilizes zooming and film cuts to show how the American dream is for everyone. In addition to panning and zooming, DePalma also utilizes long takes to show how the American dream is for everyone. The average shot length, or the average of the length of all the shots in a film, in
In this paper I will argue that in his film, The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola orchestrates the filmic elements (especially: editing and mise-en-scéne) to give the audience an intimate view of the complex world of a Mafia Don: Coppola's techniques sensitively portray the life and transformation of Michael Corleone; he leaves his status as a family outsider to become king of the underworld.
The critically acclaimed film, Goodfellas, is a gangster crime drama that features an incredible amount of talent. Household names such as: Robert De Niro (Jimmy Conway), Joe Pesci (Tommy DeVito), Paul Sorvino (Paul Cicero), and promising stars like Ray Liotta (Henry Hill) and Lorraine Bracco (Karen Hill), attracted numerous Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. That type of cast power, linked with the signature talent of Martin Scorsese as a director, made for cinematic gold. Unquestionably, the actors and actresses did an excellent job augmenting the verisimilitude of this film and compelling audiences to empathize with their characters. But the cinematography in this film plays just as large a role in having audiences feel what the characters are feeling at a specific moment. Through the use of freeze frames, we learn of significant moments that shape Henry into the man that he is. By means of first-person narration we are able to know exactly what is going through a particular character’s mind. Finally, wonderful editing made great use of point of view and multiple jump cuts, which added to the sensation that we are undergoing the same experiences as the characters on screen. I will go into further detail and specify scenes that convey these elements as the essay progresses. Altogether, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas effectively depicts paramount scenes and allows the audience to empathize with the characters by virtue of stylistic editing and cinematography.
The movie Napoleon Dynamite directed by Jared Hess and released June 11, 2004 is a comedy about an awkward teen that has trouble fitting in. Napoleon (Jon Heder) the main character, lives with his grandma until she gets into an accident and his life is immediately made worse when his uncle Rico (Jon Gries) who is stuck in his high school football “superstar” days knocks on their door and is there to keep an eye on Napoleon while his grandma is getting hospitalized. Napoleon has a red afro, wears moon boots, and is constantly practicing his atrocious ninja moves. Napoleon has a best friend in high school names Pedro (Efren Ramirez) who decides to run for class president, and it is up to Napoleon to step out of his comfort zone to help Pedro win, and get his information out around school. Napoleon Dynamite was excellent because it met the criteria of humor, acting, and the profound message.
Scarface is a 1983 movie directed Brian De Palma and written by Oliver Stone. It revolves around the life of a Cuban immigrant struggling to gain status, power and respect in Miami. The movie shows how two Cuban immigrants Tony Montana and Manny Ray rise in the drug cartel of Miami and become one of the most powerful men in the drug business; however at the end of the movie Tony Montana is overwhelmed by greed and power; that is when his major down fall took place; causing a bitter end to Tony Montana (Scarface).
Casablanca, the crowning achievement of director Michael Curtiz, which was released in 1942, is a film that had to work against the pressing concerns associated with World War II to stay relevant in both cinematic and general audiences. The writing, which was done by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch, had to be inspirational yet uncontroversial. With actors like Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund, Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault, and Paul Henreid as the French revolutionary Victor Laszlo, Casablanca has a respectable cast. The movie initially appears to fit the film noir genre because of its smoky backdrops with muted colors,
The Johari Window is explained by a model showing the different ways of communication between yourself and others. The Johari Window goes to explain the different types of views of yourself. What you allow people to see, what you don't know that people see, what you don't let people see, and what you and others don't see. In the movie Gran Torino, the character Walt learns to allow people to see him as his true self, and not just how he allows people to see him. Which is explained using the Johari Window.
The movie is focused around the life of a man by the name of Tony Montana and depicts his rise to power from a political refugee from Cuba to a drug warlord. In the course of the movie, Tony Montana also
Though the initial reviews were mixed, time has proven the film’s popular appeal. More than twenty years after its release, Scarface continues to be a rental favorite, a standard campus feature, and a late-night TV standard. How can the notion of the general welfare be used to justify giving big bucks to the stars making the film: actor Al Pacino, director Brian De Palma, and writer Oliver Stone?
Scarface opens with a prelude as a literary device to give a background on Tony Montana’s deportation from Cuba to the sunny coast of Miami,
For this assignment, I decided to reflect on the film ‘Shottas’. The film begins in the streets of Kingston, Jamaica home of Biggs and Wayne, the two main characters. They lived within a very dangerous and violent town, which drove them into their own violent lifestyle. As young men, how the movie starts off, they rob the local drug dealers of a gun for a premeditated robbery. The money allowed for them to purchase visas to come to Miami, Florida. While in the United States, as adults, the two continue their criminal activities leading them to be deported back to their home in Jamaica. Mad Max and Wayne, who was deported years before Biggs made his return, had already formed a striving extortion business. Wayne made it mandatory for all
To give a background on Tony Montana’s deportation from Cuba to the sunny coast of Miami, Scarface opens with a prelude as a literary device. Hamlet
On November 21, 2007, I was home for break and watched an interesting-historical film titled American Gangster. The film was written by Steven Zaillian and was directed by Ridley Scott. American Gangster was a gangster movie that reflected back on the pass. The performance environment was at my house in the living room on a DVD player. The room was dark, cool, and very comfortable, which made it very relaxing and easier to watch and study the film.
Chinatown is a drama mystery thriller, set in Los Angeles California in the 1930’s focuses on private investigator Jake Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson who was hired by a women posing as Mrs. Evelyn Mulwray the wife of Mr. Hollis Mulwray, Chief Engineer for the Los Angeles Water Department claiming her husband was cheating. As the movie progresses, Gittes takes photos of Mr. Mulwray meeting with a young female which ended up in the newspaper creating a scandal. As a result, the real Ms. Evelyn Mulwray played by Faye Dunaway shows up and finds herself hiring Gittes after her husband ends up dead. Gittes’s investigation leads him to Mr. Noah Cross, played by John Huston, who ends up being Mr. Mulwray’s former partner in controlling the water
“I am not insane. I am angry…I killed because people like me are mistreated every day. I did this to show society ‘push us and we will push back.’” This statement came from someone who reached their limit of being bullied by their peers and could not tolerate the rejection from their significant other. This statement came from someone who decided one morning to conceal a rifle and go on a killing spree: first the mother, next the significant other, the female standing next to their significant other, and then continued to shoot and wound seven other students. This statement came from a 16-year old Mississippi male student, Luke Woodham’s manifesto, accounting for the actions previously stated. The police wrote him
The interplay between time and image arises in the repeated exposure of different freeway aspects. The film primarily depicts the changing of the abandon freeway, emphasizing the process over the product. It deliberately shows the audience the overview of the freeway and the surrounding construction frame by frame. The images are constituted by series of jump cuts of the detail of the freeway, like the iron bar is repeated in three slightly different shots