Film Studies A Level

1)Character traits 2)Personality 3)Social interaction with other characters 4)Protagonist/Antagonist? Scottie: Powerful, respected, brave Stubborn personality: He quit his job of being a lawyer to become a police officer. To seek excitement, and the thrill of danger. Instead of staying as a detective in the police force he quits because he would rather not have anything to do with the police force than do what he doesn't want He is a bachelor: was seen as unusual He wears a corset- emasculates him Unwillingness to confront problems: His Vertigo.  Has a childish element, looking like a brazier as if it were a foreign object He is reluctant to take the job, it is not action based enough Midge: Motherly, sophisticated, bookish (well read, anything can be solved with literature) -Patronising towards Scottie Madelaine Elstev: Arrogant, seductive, aware of her own power. Bleak facial expressions, no extreme feeling portrayed. Gavin Elstev: Manipula...

Woman's eye- famous for being antagonist   (person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something) The notion of looking into someones eyes is a key feature of Hitchcock. - Being watched, eyes lead to  obsession. The dizzying, spinning swirls, captivate the spectator and may give them vertigo, s ets up relevance, creating intrigue, and hooking the spectator from the credits. The music is overly dramatic, repeated note patterns in quick succession to mirror dizziness in the music, and octave leaps grabs the attention of the spectator. Hitchcock used all the elements of cinema to create a visceral reaction from his audience. Point of View shots make the spectator feel like they are witnessing the events through the eyes of the John/Scottie, creating a connection between the character and the audience, can evoke empathy. Traditionally you would start with the establishing shot after the initial shot. Wide an

- Auteur features ➤An  innocent man wrongly accused ➤ A hero burdened with the responsibility to prove his innocence ➤ An emphasis on voyeurism - the characters watching and being watched/spied on. ➤ An ‘ice cool’ blond female who the hero must pursue or tame ➤ Recurrent motifs: Stairs, doorways, falling from high places, ‘the  mcguffin ’, overbearing mothers, the perfect murder, and charming villains.  Hitchcock doesn't put into motion, normal significations of dramatic event to come-the birds -suspense is built over time by the repeated children's singing contrasted with the increase in the number of birds, the juxtaposition made the birds, in contrast seem even more sinister. Hitchcock would build suspense in a unique way, with a slow pace, and take the audience to a great level of agitation and expectation and follow it with shocking events In the evening dinner scene in Mitch's house a relaxed and at ease atmosphere is established, before the birds st...

- In 1893, the inventor Edison, constructed a motion picture studio in his laboratory -By the 1920s, most films came from the US -Today America is the leading country in exportation of film -In the 1920s, Chaplin began making feature length comedies, including The Kid, The Gold Rush -Advent of recorded sound in the 1920s changed motion pictures -First experimented with in 1926, recorded sound was almost universal by 1930 -When sound flourished popular genres were: Gangster films, Musicals and Animations -Colour was used in a minority of films until the 1950s; and became standard by the 60s -Increasing emphasis on importance of the director in the 60s -Scenes used to be longer and films were slow to progress in plot because spectators' tastes were not shifted, and their endurance was not minimised by being used to television shows short snappy scenes and constant cliff hangers. -Jaws marked a turning point in the fortunes of the American film industry-1975/76 -Geor...

Influences: 1920s art-film movement-   Film critics  and  film studies  scholars typically define an art film  as possessing "formal qualities that mark them as different from mainstream Hollywood  films",  which can  include, among other elements, a sense of  social realism , an emphasis on  the authorial expressiveness of the director, and a focus on the thoughts, dreams, or  motivations of characters as opposed to the unfolding of a clear, goal-driven story.  German Expressionist movement: Method of expressing the inner life of characters through  unusual camera angles, moody lighting and exaggerated mise en scene. Soviet Montage cinema:  Soviet montage  theory is an approach to understanding and  creating  cinema  that relies heavily upon editing, hence  Hitchcock's elaborate editing  techniques came from soviet films from the 1920s. The Kuleshov experiment:...

Mise en Scene Colour: - In the scene Madelaine first sees Scottie the walls of the restaurant are red, a symbol of love, a subtle indication of the role of women, being that their role is to be loved and to have a family with (not for political aspiration, contribution to bussiness etc) -In the scene after "Judy Barton's"  date with Scottie, a bright pink wash was over her room with a blue light emanating from the window. This is unnatural and distracting for the spectator, a signature Hitchcock feature -There is blue smoke covering Madelaine as she walks out of the bathroom with new hair - adding dramatic effect Performance: Scottie is forceful with madeleine when he drags her up the tower, representing dominance in the male gender and inferiority in the female gender through Maddelaine's weak struggle - Links to  Vertigo supports the idea of the submissive domestic female through the character of Madelaine Alternation between calling her Madelaine and Judy,...

Mock Questions: a: Compare how far your chosen films reflect the auteur signature features of their filmmakers b: Compare how far your chosen films reflect their different production of contexts I feel confident that I will be able to answer these questions but I really want to practice other possible exam questions