The Maltese Falcon

After World War II, the French started watching a particular type of American crime thriller film. These crime genre films were normally detective and investigation films which very different from the films in 1940s. Hence along with other characteristics, instead of saying film noir is a genre, in fact, it was a movement emerged from 1941-1958. Film noir basically presented as all people are bad, non of the human beings is pure good which attracted filmmakers to reveal this reality world and made into movies (Hayward, 2013). One of the great film noirs, The Maltese Falcon directed by John Huston would be discussed while looking into its characteristics found in a film noir. 

During the war, men joined the army, whereas women were moved into the workforce to maintain and increase the economy of the nation. During this period, women who used to be taking care of household started to meet people and expand their horizons. They started making money, getting wiser, and economically independent. However, when men came back from war, women were already trained. Men became paranoia, suspicious, and questioned themselves on masculine and national identity. Therefore, film noir narrations expressed the sexual independence of women which threatened masculinity yet femme fatale were generally being punished in the films such as: she is killed, becomes insanity or forced to marry and leave the city. The narrative diegesis of film noir was typically a criminality world which fulls of paranoia, lies, and malicious where no one should be trusted and telling lies has been accepted as a human nature. A film noir was commonly central of greed, lust, intention, and afraid of paranoia. The lighting used was chiaroscuro which is high contrast and low key lighting, dark visual and played with lots of distorted lines and shadows to enhance a sense of suspicious. For instance, a huge shadow of the character is projected on a surface behind the character to represent the evil side of him and the lower angle shots to create distorted and evil look of him.

Next, the setting in film noir is generally city-bound, crowded place, suffocating space, and especially rain-washed street which is to present a sense of some criminals have happened. All of these reminiscent of German Expressionism. Besides, the main character or the protagonist in film noirs is normally known as anti-hero, who is tough, flawed, and not being a gentleman. He is not a completely typical hero which can be seen in other films, we are still following his story throughout a film noir though. Blurred moral is one of the characteristics of film noir, it gives meaning of, it is not about doing it right, but it is about my intention to whether do it right. Next, it usually features a narration in the film which something have had already happened. Character's names are purposely picked to resemble his/her characteristics too (Hayward, 2013).

Detective Sam Spade and his partner, Miles Archer, approached by a beautiful but secretive woman, Miss Wonderly who claims to be looking for her missing sister, who is believed with a man named, Floyd Thursby. Both Spade and Archer accept the assignment, Archer agrees to follow Miss Wonderly that night and get her sister back. However, Archer is murdered followed by Thursby. Spade is worried that police will think he kills Archer as he is having an affair with Archer's wife. He realizes that he is entangled in a dangerous situation of crime. Soon, he discovers Miss Wonderly is telling lies and her real name is Brigid O'Shaughnessy. 

In The Maltese Falcon film noir, we can see the principle of contrastive lighting which is chiaroscuro with high contrast and low key lighting is applied in this typical monochrome film to bring a sense of pessimism and suspicion. Beisdes, this film noir plays with lines as well which can be seen on the setting in Miss O'Shaughnessy's apartment such as the windows, curtains, walls, frame, lamps, furniture, etc. Other than that, the shadows and low angle shots of Sam Spade are to enhance his characteristics in the film noir to create a sense of distorted and evil side of him. Sam Spade is the anti-hero in this film, he is neither a pure good nor pure bad character, he is wise, tough, good looking, love money and ets hooked on the femme fatale in the film.

Additionally, Miss Wonderly, Miss LeBlanc, and Miss O'Shaughnessy who are definitely the same person represent the femme fatale in The Maltese Falcon. She tells lies, hides secrets by lying, and most important is to pretend to be an innocent act to achieve her goals and intentions. This is somehow shown in the scene which Miss O'Shaughnessy calls to Spade's office, she gives her location and screams over the phone to signal that she is in trouble. When Spade reaches the location she has provided, she leans against the wall, pretends to be weak and frustrated who needs Spade to hold her to the apartment. At the end, Miss O'Shaughnessy attempts to throw herself at Spade again, hoping he will protect her as she believes Spade loves her, in fact, although Spade can't deny his love for her, nonetheless, Spade insists to turn her to police as he distrusts her murderous and lying nature. The lines shadows of the elevator gates projected on Miss O'Shaughnessy's face who is standing behind it, represents her will be soon set behind the bars.

Time passes, film noir has developed and evolved, it has slowly changed into a genre lately as known as Neo Noir. Some other genres films started absorbing film noir characteristics into their films too, for instance, the cowboy in Western genre films has been portrayed as an anti-hero, he doesn't care for the people and somehow he is being stereotype as well. Due to the technology advancement, since 70's, filmmakers have started making film noirs in a different way, eg: China Town which was shot in colors; Blade Runner in the 80's is a science-fiction film noir; In the 90's the significant film noir, Bound, was although shot in colors, however, the visuals of the film including the costumes and setting are purposely set mono-chromatically. On the other hand, what filmmakers used to do with femme fatale such as the consequences she has to pay for it through death or submission, they don't do it that way anymore. Conversely, femme fatale has started being praised in films of being a 'femme fatale' upon her attitudes and she has empowered by her sexuality. 

In The Mood For Love

World War I had a huge influence on French film industry where many film studios were forced to halt and even American films were slowly replacing the French's. However, the young generation of French directors claimed that a film should be an art which is purely itself. They started experimenting with cinema in the ways that posed an alternative to the dominant Hollywood formal principles. They experimented with cinema to show a sense of art of emotion which dominated intimate psychological narrative. Hence, through Wong Kar Wai's film - In The Mood For Love will be discussed with the application of French Impressionism on it.

An Impressionist film's narration shows an interest in psychological depth to reveal a character's consciousness in the film. The interest in psychological depth shows inner action as well other than external physical behavior. Impressionist films commonly play with memories or flashback to manipulate plot time and subjectivity and sometimes show a character's dream, fantasies, and mental states. In order to reveal a character's thoughts and feelings, the Impressionists films usually uses irises, masks and superimposition. Cinematography and editing play important roles in Impressionists films too to show a character's perceptual experience and their optical impressions yet to enhance the narrative treatment of psychological states. Thus, point-of-view shot is generally used, therefore, frame mobility has developed to move as a representation of the character's eyes which cameras are strapped on cars, carousels and locomotives; distorted shots, filtered shots, or vertiginous camera movements are show a drunk or dizzy character in Impressionists films as well. Next, the pace of an experience of how a character feels can be shown through rhythmic editing, for instance, the rhythm increase when the character in involved in a scene of violence or emotional turmoil. Some Impressionists films like to enhance the rhythm through a dance. Therefore, the comparison of cinema to music are useful in accelerating the rhythmic editing.

Two married neighbors, Mr. Chow who is a journalist, and Mrs. Chan who is a secretary, both have rented and moved into a very crowded apartment on the same day. Their friendship has slowly developed and both realize their respective spouses are having an affair with each other. Both of them imagine how their spouses first hooked up and help Mrs. Chan to rehearsal interrogation. They started falling in love with each other, however, they are both bound by the moral stand.

This film explores the psychological cause to review what the character is thinking. For instance, when Mrs. Chan is buying noodle at the stall, without a word is spoken, the dialogues is replaced by her body language and her eyes expressions which reveal her inner loneliness consciousness. With the camera movement in between the crowded stall and the people, the shots seem to be peeping of her daily life, where she is trying to avoid others which makes her even stands out lonely in the street. Other than that, Mr. Chow inner thoughts are shown when he is alone in the office. He lights up a cigarette, with expressionless face, seemingly working hard on his job, however, the cloudy smoke above his head indirectly expresses his inner thoughts which are not clear and his mind is clouded like the smoke.

Besides, this film manipulates plot time where Mrs. Chan is watching the neighbors playing mahjong, the scene is shown in slow motion editing to express a sense of time is passing slowly as Mrs. Chan is not enjoying and having a good time at that moment. Next, the music used in the film are mostly similar to match the visual rhythm. It is to show both protagonists are having a constantly repeating life. They are found usually eating alone, walking alone, and the shots at the narrow hallways and staircases have emotionally enhanced the unspoken desire of both Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan.

Lastly, the ancient place in Angkor Wat is shown magnificently after Mr. Chow has whispered into a stone hollow and filled with mud. It is seemingly showing there are lots of unheard secrets, regrets, and feelings are told here.

This film is somehow shown beautifully throughout the whole film. The atmosphere during the 60's in Hong Kong, the stunning shots and scenes are like paintings which capture the most ordinary moment of life of anyone else, however revealing the hidden beauty and unheard feelings of one.

Dark City

German expressionism is applied to the art movement including painting, literature, theater, architecture and cinema which emerged in Germany during the early twentieth century (Hayward, 2013. p.190). German expressionists conveyed their inner feelings and ideas through the expressionism. United States films were started influenced by German filmmakers in the style of dark, moody and horror genre film when German filmmakers emigrated to Hollywood due to the fascist Nazi government were in power (Morris, 2015). The influence can be seen through the narrative, mise-en-scene, settings and scenes in films. The film 'Dark City' is one of the films which in the relation of German Expressionism.

The art movement and form of modernism German expressionists being criticized as mentality of madness, death and fatality, some others say German expressionism films attempt to escape from real life economic crisis (Hayward, 2013. p.190). However, Hayward believes that the expressionists applied expressionism on cinema by analogy often dealt with certain themes and stories such as revolt, self-analysis, madness, insanity, and primitive sexual savagery. The genre was mainly to establish a narrative that was anti-realism which rejects reality modes as it was believed these topics were influenced by the experiences of World War I (Sloat, n.d.). German expressionists normally utilized with oblique and distorted architecture structure, the use of chiaroscuro which is heavy contrast of light and dark lighting to create shadows and silhouettes, yet application of strange asymmetrical shots are important feature of expressionism films (Hayward, 2012. p. 190.)

The film follows John Murdoch who awakened naked in a bathtub and could not remember anything. Soon, he receives a mysterious caller from Dr. Schreber and finds himself suspected of murder. Murdoch attempts to recall his memories while escaping from the police and a group of 'Stranger' who has similar ability as Murdoch himself which is tuning power. He then discovers the truth of the world which is taken over by the 'Stranger' to study human's mentality and there is no day time yet no single way out from the city. With the help of Dr. Schreber, Murdoch defeats the 'Stranger' and creates day time for the world with his ability.

The main elements in German expressionism, madness, which can be found in Dark City especially on the characters of a group of 'Strangers'. Their eager and obsession in becoming like a human. For instance, Mr Hand as one of the 'Strangers' would take risk at imprinting human's mindset shows how obsess he is to become a human. Additionally, John Murdoch struggles in unable to recall anything and even what is his name. Besides, the inspector Walenski becomes insane after revealing the truth of the world and ends up committing suicide.

Primitive sexual savagery element is found in the film on the group of 'Strangers' . The way of their characteristics show they enjoy and find pleasure in killing especially the little child would carve circular lines with knife on the half naked prostitutes' dead bodies. They also sliced off the chief police throat violently when he brings them to Murdoch's cell but Murdoch has already escaped.

Revolt is shown by Murdoch who doesn't remember killing anybody, he revolts against the police as well as the 'Strangers'. He doesn't stop revealing the truth behind the unreality world after he realizes there is no day time and people unable to remember and tell the way to Shell Beach. Dr. Schreber is somehow revolting against the 'Strangers' too as how he helps Murdoch by imprinting in Murdoch with all his childhood memories to defeat the 'Strangers'.

When John Murdoch awakens naked and could not recall memories, he searches for his self identity through the identity card in his wallet, he visits to Uncle Karl trying to recall his childhood memory resemble to the self-analysis which is one of the elements of German expressionism film.

The Gothic architecture structure can be observed through the building in the film. The distorted settings as the buildings and interiors will twist, stretch, expand, reshape during the tuning by the 'Strangers'. Besides, the slanted door and narrow corridor to Shell Beach resemble the unrealistic thematic. Moreover, the rigid movements of 'Strangers'  with long black coat and dark appearance clearly differ themselves from normal human beings.

The film plays with heavy shadows and huge contrast of dark and light which is the chiaroscuro lighting element. The whole film before Murdoch reforms the brightness, the entire city takes place at night time with low-key lighting to evoke the insecurity mood. At the beginning when Murdoch sleeps in the bathtub, the bathroom is totally in a darkness except a bulb swings from one end to another to slowly show the entire environment. When ‘Strangers' come to police station to arrest Murdoch, their shadows appear on the wall to tell audiences the appearance of them.

Dark City is an essential film represents the German expressionism film. The elements of revolt, self-analysis, madness, primitive sexual savagery, chiaroscuro lighting, the mise-en-scene are significantly shown.

The Big Durian Documentary

During the few days of Hari Raya holidays, I watch this documentary agin. Well, before watching this documentary, I never knew there was such a big and serious case happened in Malaysia in 80's. But, I remember my papa did mention to me before about few of Malaysia Sultan killed somebody but the cases were like a needle sinks into the deep deep sea. Nobody knows who did that, nobody knows how the cases ended up. Well, some people say that were just rumors.

This is quite similar to the documentary show which Prebet Adam ran amok with a gun in the Chow Kit area in KL on October 1987. An uncle who is I believe is just an actor, he mentioned in the documentary said that the rumor about the incident was a Sultan of Johor killed Prebet Adam's brother which caused him to run amok, but some said it was absolutely not true. Nevertheless, I can feel the nightmare they had were true and real. Because most of them had gone through the 513 incident in 1969. It was just around 20 years later when Prebet Adam ran amok with gun in KL. Although the all the cast interviewed in the documentary show were actors and actresses, I think they were just expressing the people's thought through their mouth. Throughout the show we can see that it was a big case where many people were scared and even some of them refused to recall and talk about the incident happened.

When this incident happened, there were so many rumors being spread around that brought everyone into a mess situation. Some people said it might be a second 513, many people would get into danger because of racial riots. In the show, some of them recalled during the time, they started to store some food at home to prevent something would happen. Nobody was dare enough to go on the street, with the audio editing, the silent on the empty street really scared me out. I can feel their fear even I wasn't there during the time. Probably 513 incident really brought them a lifetime nightmare which no one else wish to happen again. The lost of food, houses, and family...

Overall, the most impressive in the documentary was the audio editing. I was impressed with how only music instrument could lead audience emotion up and down, especially when the Indian lady was telling the situation on the street the next day after Prebet Adam ran amok in Chow Kit area. As well as with black and white scene (if not mistaken) and the audio, I could really feel the silent on the street and it killed me a little while.

Despite nobody knows what really happened with Prebet Adam to run amok with a gun, but as Malaysian, until today many of us really fear about any racial issue which will cause a serious fight and lead to a flood filled with blood. I am grateful Malaysia and Malaysians are doing well since I was born, I wish it can stay as what it is now, to lead ourselves to a better Malaysia in the future.

Paranorman

According to Susan Hayward, postmodernism it could be defined as a set of critical to question the modernism such as human progress, reason, and science (Hayward, S., 2013. p.284). It questions across arts, architecture, language, political issue, film cinema, literature and so on. Hence, it is said that to deliver the attitude of skepticism about modernist belief towards science, gender, and high art over popular culture. Other than that, she also states that postmodernism is the reflective of mentality. Thus, it is believed by many theorist that postmodernism is the symbol of the death of ideology where the false conscious would be destroyed. Additionally, postmodernism aims to refuse the difference between high and low art forms as both are valuable. Therefore, postmodernism theorists are encouraged to blend and combine different elements and styles and create them into a new outcome. “Postmodern style is often characterized by eclecticism, digression, collage, pastiche, irony, the return of ornament and historical reference, and the appropriation of popular media". (Waugh; 1992. P. 43) Postmodernism can be divided into mainstream mode as pastiche which is presented through imitation of past art work, while oppositional mode is when former art work presented ironically as parody. Both of this modes rely on 4 different and overlapping concepts which are simulation that combines parody and pastiche, prefabrication, bricolage which means genre bending, and lastly is intertextuality meaning how art makes reference to another art work. Thence, I would like to discuss how is the animated film Paranorman related to postmodernism. 

Simulation in postmodernism combines both parody and pastiche. Parody is an art that pays tribute to other art work by mocking the original art work. For example, filmmaker will insert a certain scenes in his film that taken from the other original film as when audiences watch it, they will laugh because what they have watched before in the original film are their expectations. However, when the filmmaker makes fun of the certain particular scenes, it subverts their expectation. On the other hand, pastiche is to pay tribute by honorary. it is probably because the original film is so perfect that other filmmakers will pastiche a particular scene into his own film too. Besides, postmodernism rejects the idea of comparison between the high art and the popular culture. Postmodernists suggest that both of these should be appreciated as an art form without comparing and differentiating which is better than another. "Construction of cultural identities is an active process of Bricolage, of tinkering with debris." (Bateman, A., Bennett, P., 2013. p.81). Prefabrication in a film is to insert particular fabricated scenes or sound from past art work which carry certain meaning. Bricolage refers to genre bending and hybrid genre which have brought to mixing genre in today's films. Thus, many authors agree with that it is getting harder to investigate any genre films today in a single way (Boardwell, D., Thompson, K., 2010. p. 328). For instance, this film we watched in the class combines horror, comedy, action and melodrama. Last but not least, the intertextuality describes that films are related and they act as intertextual references to one another.

Paranorman is a stop-motion animated which combines of horror, comedy, action and melodrama genre film produced in 2012 which is written and co-directed by Chris Butler. The story follows the little boy who named as Norman who is portrayed as a character that could constantly see and communicate with various ghosts that wondering around his town but most of everyone doesn't believe in him and he is even emotionally isolated from his family and friends except his best friend, Neil Downe. Nonetheless, with this born supernatural gift, he is the only one in the town who can save everyone's life from the centuries-old curse cursed by a witch. 

Paranorman is definitely a horror animated movie with unnatural sub-genre as it consists ghosts and zombies. The very first hint and signal being mentioned in the film to support that it is a horror genre movie is when Norman requests to his dad to turn up the heating as his grandmother tells him that she is feeling cold in the living room, however, his family refuses to believe him yet trying to convince Norman that his grandmother is dead. Additionally, Norman greets every ghost while on his way to the school when other people see him in the way of talking to himself. 

It is also an action film when the part of chasing between zombies and the characters who are trying to escape from the witch grave. Besides, at the beginning of the film, when Norman is watching a zombie movie on TV, it shows when the lady is nearly attacked by the zombie, a melodramatic music background can be heard to evoke the emotions of how scary the zombie is. 

Furthermore, I have spotted one scene when Norman's best friend, Neil invites him to play hockey, Neil who is standing outside the window wearing the signature hockey mask that is similar to Jason Voorhees's who stared in the horror film Friday the 13th with and hence I believe the director is paying tribute to that film and it is being parodied.