All Good Things Must Come to an End

 

Well, here we are, after 11 weeks in a very enjoyable Film 101 course ! Indeed I have to admit the 5 E.T.’s and 1 big final assignment had proven to be a challenge.  Not so much because of the writing but rather due to we had to think deep and analyze a movie critically before writing. However, the great movies that we watched throughout the course compensated for it! Most of the movies, I may have never seen in my entire lifetime but thanks to this class, I am blessed to have the opportunity to watch the progress of the film industry from the silent era all the way to the present day.  Also, it’s worth mentioning that I have been able to improve my writing skills through this course and gained knowledge on film history, psychology in films and film techniques. With that, I would like to thank you, Mr Rey for giving us such an enjoyable time throughout the entire course and its a pity I had to return in summer to take it because I wish we had Film 101 and other film courses offered sooner in ADP. Keep it up! =)

Final Essay : Distubia (2007) vs Rear Window (1954)

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Voyeurism is the act of observing people’s lives and contrary to popular beliefs, is not always about sexual pleasure (Berardinelli). As much we don’t like admitting it, watching a movie itself makes us a voyeur as we peep into the lives of the characters that are portrayed on the screen without them noticing it! Many movies have been made through these years on the issue of voyeurism but two movies under the suspense thriller genre that have greatly caught my attention are Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock and Disturbia by D.J. Caruso. Many have complained that Disturbia was a rip-off of Rear Window and even a lawsuit was filed against the makers of Disturbia on September 5, 2008 (Wikipedia). Personally to me, despite some similarities, both movies have their individual distinctiveness. Now, I am going to compare and contrast both movies in order to prove my stand that both movies are different.

To start off, let’s compare the hero of both movies. Even though both main actors were confined to their homes, the circumstances that led to their confinement were very different.  In Rear Window, L.B.Jeffries a professional photographer had broken his leg during a dangerous job assignment and hence, he had to rest in his Greenwich apartment. Whereas, in Disturbia, Kale Brecht was put under house arrest for three months as he had punched his Spanish teacher in high school. It is also interesting to note that Jeffries was not as mobile Kale because Kale could move around easily within a 30m radius of his house while Jeffries had a cast on his left leg and could move about only with the help of his wheelchair.

Moving on, we are going to compare both the heroines. In Rear Window, the relationship of Jeffries with Lisa Fremont was already well-established and in fact, they were going through some rough times while in Disturbia, Kale meets Ashley Carlson for the first time when she newly moves into his neighborhood. In both movies, the heroines were subjected to “the male gaze” which according to the feminist theory, women’s prime function in a movie is to provide pleasure for heterosexual man (Buono). This can be seen when the camera gives us the full-body shot of Lisa Fremont’s figure most of the time or even Ashley when she wears a bikini to swim. Due to the Hays code implementation during the time of the Rear Window’s production, excessive skin can’t be shown; hence Lisa often wore clothes that emphasized her cleavage or gowns made out of see-through material which teases the male audience. Meanwhile, in Disturbia, Ashley freely flaunts her lanky figurine for the pleasure of male audiences and whenever Kale uses his binoculars to see her swim, we as the audiences are put into his shoes and when Ashley realizes that Kale is spying on her, we ourselves are found guilty of being a Peeping Tom! This definitely fulfills the criterion of the “male gaze” where the male audience identifies with the protagonist and places himself in the Point of View of the hero (Buono).

Next, in Rear Window, we are straightaway shown the array of interesting neighbors that Jefferies could see from the his apartment’s window which includes an aspiring dancer whom he names Miss Torso, a couple owning a dog, Miss Lonelyhearts who is unlucky with love, the Songwriter, the Newlywed couple and most importantly, Lars Thorwald, the man whom Jefferies suspects that killed his own wife.  On the other hand, in Disturbia, we are brought through a series of flashback that involves fishing, car accident, a fight in school and finally, the courtroom scene that leaves the protagonist in the state of house arrest. Only then, when Kale gets bored of his unproductive daily lifestyle, he starts using his binoculars to spy on his neighbors. To me, the only two memorable people that Kale spies on are Ashley, his love interest and Robert Turner, his neighbor who lives across the street whom he suspects to be a serial killer that targets only red heads.

This is because; only these two characters are the main concern of Disturbia whereas in Rear Window, all the neighbors and even animal have important roles or are rather significant throughout the entire film. To illustrate, the dog that was killed in Rear Window, was proven crucial in proving that Lars was a killer as the dog “knew too much”. The neighbors also provide a theory of the course of Jeffries and his fiancée; Lisa’s relationship (Wikipedia). Take for example, the initially lovey-dovey newlywed couple whom we see spending their time only in bedroom, by the end of the movie whose relationship deteriorates provides us a flashback of Jeffries and Lisa’s past. Next, Lars and his wife whom are always arguing are the direct mirror image of Jeffries and Lisa current relationship status as Jeffries always complains that Lisa is “just too perfect”. Meanwhile, the future could be both Lisa and Jeffries turn out to lead such uneventful lives like the boring couple with the dog or either end up being broken-hearted like Miss Lonelyhearts or even be like Miss Torso whom earlier leads a happy-go-lucky life but eventually finds true love in her soldier boyfriend.

Lastly, let’s compare the mise-en-scene of Disturbia and Rear Window. In Rear Window, since the entire movie was shot in a studio set, Jeffries was seen spending his entire time in his apartment and all he could see was the rear windows of his neighbors’. Whereas, in Disturbia, since the movie was shot in a real suburb area, Kale could be seen moving around in his huge house and we as audience could see him spying on the entire street in his neighborhood, thus giving the movie a wider space to focus on.  As for the costumes, Jeffries is seen wearing pale colored pajamas throughout the entire course of the film meanwhile Kale wears colorful teen clothing.  Too add on, in Disturbia, we see many high-tech gadgets like an “IPod”, “iMac” and “iTunes”, like as if Apple has paid the director to promote its products as opposed to Rear Window where the only gadget that we see is the 35mm Exakta Varex VX camera (Wikipedia).  In addition, the sound in Rear Window was entirely diagetic arising from only the normal life characters all through the film.  On the contrary, in Disturbia, it was mostly non-diagetic and this proven as the movie has a list of soundtracks and background scores.

All in all, it’s well-proven that Disturbia and Rear Window are two rather different films altogether. As a matter of fact, I think it’s offensive to even think that Disturbia as being the same with Rear Window because both Hitchcock and Caruso have brought us into two different worlds that they have envisioned and displayed them beautifully on the silver screen!

References:

1.      Berardinelli, James. Review: Rear Window. 2000. 18 July 2011 <http://www.reelviews.net/movies/r/rear_window.html&gt;.

2.      Buono, Reynold John. Feminist Theory: The Male Gaze. 18 July 2011 <http://adprosebud.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/feminist-theory-  the-male-gaze/>.

3.      Disturbia. 18 July 2011 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disturbia_%28film%29&gt;.

4.      Rear Window. 18 July 2011 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_Window&gt;.

ET 15: SINGING IN THE RAIN: MUSICAL NUMBERS

Singing in The Rain is a musical that has it’s songs well positioned to ensure the smooth flow of the film’s story line. There’s never a point in the movie that we as audiences feel that any song is redundant. The songs were used to show audiences how the two main characters, Don Lockwood and Kathy Selden developed from being two untruthful strangers to a pair of sincere lovers. I am now going to analyze how the musical numbers “Fit as a Fiddle (And Ready for Love)” , “All I Do Is Dream of You”, “You Were Meant For Me” and “Singin’ in the Rain” depict the transformation beautifully before our eyes.

At the start of the film, at the movie premiere of “The Royal Rascal”, when Don was asked about his past by Dora, the event’s host, he told that he had a very “dignified” and “proper” childhood. Alas, at the same he said so, we were brought back to his past by the number “Fit as a Fiddle (And Ready for Love)” and only we the audience know that the truth was far from dignified! The title of the song pretty much says it all as Don and his best friend, Cosmo Brown were shown as young and carefree boys dressed in checkered green suits and performing tap dance in front of a stage audience. The song also indirectly implies that Don is very much single and was on a hunt to find his lady-love. However, despite being booed by the crowd, I could see that they really enjoyed what they were doing as both of them were smiling from ear to ear. The scene then cuts back to the movie premiere and we could see Don smiling too, but his smile now looks very in-genuine and forceful, very much a “plastic smile”. Also, it is important to note that Don wore a white trench coat to the movie premiere and I believe it symbolizes the lies that Don has been hiding from the world in order to put up with the false “mask” of a prim and proper movie star.  Nevertheless, I wouldn’t blame Don for saying those lies because that is what the society and his fans expect from him.

The next song would be “All I Do is Dream of You” and its right after the boy meets girl scene where Kathy lies to Don that she’s on the way to New York to be an actress.  Also she sneers at Don for not talking, not acting and doing lots of dumb show in his films and here too we see clash of egos between the two lead characters.  The next time Don meets Kathy was in the after party of the movie premiere and she was performing to the tunes of “All I Do is Dream of You” in a tiny pink attire as a party performer. Kathy’s expression when she jumps out of that cake smiling like sunshine but then turns mortified when she sees Don was priceless as he now knows the truth! Nonetheless, she continues to dance gracefully and with joy, unleashing the girlishness inside of her and she too like Don is dreaming to find her prince charming!

Moving on, “You Were Meant For Me” is about Don trying to woo Kathy. In this song, both characters shed the image of dishonesty that we have seen in “Fit as a Fiddle” and “All I Do is Dream of You” as they express their true feelings to each other.  Don brings Kathy to an empty studio set in Monumental Studios where he used a sunset background lit with various studio lights  to create a dream-like and romantic set. It is interesting to note that Don dresses in normal casual clothing, creating an impression that Don doesn’t want to appear as a high-class person but rather as any other ordinary human-being in front of Kathy.  In the song,we could see many instances where Don supports Kathy as a way to show his love for her. For example, Kathy pulls away from Don while dancing because she was hesitant about their relationship as Don was a famous Hollywood star whereas she was a struggling small-time actress. However Don approaches her and reassures her that he will never let her go. Also, in the dance sequences, its very apparent that Don was leading the dance as he was teaching Kathy the routines. Never once, he is seen pressurizing Kathy to accept his love when she was reluctant to accept his embraces. It can be interpreted that Don was willing to wait for Kathy’s love for as long as it takes! Finally, Kathy accepts Don’s embrace, thus agreeing to be his girlfriend and this is the turning point of their relationship in the film.

“Singin’ in the Rain” is the final song that I am going to analyze. Right before the song starts, Don kisses Kathy for the first time in the film and he says to Kathy “from where I stand, the sun is shining all over the place” despite the fact it was raining heavily! This shows that Don loves Kathy with all his heart and whenever he’s with her, all he could feel is warmth and happiness.  When Kathy goes inside the house, he starts dancing on the streets and his dance steps becomes gradually clownish as the song progresses. He splashes and jumps around in water puddles like a little kid and this is a total contrast from an uptight Don that we have seen before. Also, it can be said, that Don doesn’t care about what the world thinks about him and Kathy anymore as he’s tired of putting a false front in front the world and wants to be truthful. This can be seen as Don wasn’t wearing the trench coat that we have seen at the start of the film which represented dishonesty. The rainwater in this musical number can be seen as “purifying” and the rebirth of an honest and free Don.

All in all, all the songs in Singing in the Rain has served its purpose well and its all thanks to the well-planned insertion of the songs throughout the entire course of the film. Undeniably, this the movie deserve its reputation as the greatest musical ever made in all times!