I really loved Us and I’m a big fan of Jordan Peele’s. I loved his comedy show and I was excited to see him start directing horror films which I also am a big fan of. I think Peele’s use of the horror genre to make a social commentary is genius so my post today will focus on this commentary. Us has plenty of themes alluding to the American Dream that isn’t attainable by everyone, as well as themes that discuss the oppression and abandonment of largely marginalized people. But as I feel this will have been talked about in other posts, I thought we can look more into the themes centralized around the materialistic behaviours of America.

There are plenty of instances in the film where we see the materialistic greed of characters become evident. Gabe spends the whole movie admiring the expensive things the Tyler family have. Gabe himself is well off, having a boat which is a symbol of luxury and expendable income, but this boat isn’t enough for him. He is constantly needing to attain more to be happy. Even after the Tyler’s are slaughtered he would rather stay in their house as they have all the “food, water, and back-up generators” they need to protect themselves. This coincides with capitalist ideas that money can essentially solve all your problems. Looking back at the invasion scene, Gabe offers these materialistic things (ie: money, the boat) in order to save him and his family when in reality, those materialistic things are what’s killing. Though scissors are the weapon of choice for the Tethered, they rarely are used to kill. Instead, they use symbols of the American middle to upper class. The first death we see when Gabe kills Abraham with the Boat, the epitome of luxury. Then we see Zora kill the Tyler twins with a golf club, Gabe kills tethered Josh with the flare from the expensive boat, and Jason kills tethered Kitty with an expensive mounted geode. This continues when Zora kills Umbrae with the really nice care. This essentially makes the point that their stuff isn’t doing good in the world and is instead a weapon of control. Even the Tyler Family’s tethered were unable to resist the temptation of capitalism as they are seen putting on the expensive robe and trying on make-up. Peele wants to make the point that this materialistic way of living that has made itself embedded in the ‘American Life’ is slowly killing us. Our desire for more stuff is destructive not just to ourselves, but those around us and the American culture as a whole.

Despite the movie change after I had already watched In The Mood for Love, I thoroughly enjoyed Scorsese’s Shutter Island. It was a rollercoaster of a film that kept me on my toes and left me with many questions. Though I may be kind of biased because of my love for Leonardo DiCaprio’s acting, I think this film has probably turned out to be the most thoroughly entertaining one on the syllabus (and there are alot of good ones!)

Like Inglorious Basterds, the history of World War II plays an integral part of the story. Teddie, our main character, was a soldier in the war and is now a U.S. Marshal investigating the escape of a prisoner from the mental facility on Shutter Island. His trauma from the war resurfaces throughout the film, contributing to intense hallucinations and warped details when we see snippets of his past. An instance of this is when Teddy takes the aspirin after he returns from the storm and starts having hallucinations about the missing prisoner (who we later learns represents his wife) and her three children she murdered (that turned out to be his as well). We know that the kids were drowned but in this hallucination we see them and their mother covered in blood. Here we see an important detail of his past unconsciously altered possibly by the violence he witnessed during his time at the liberation of Dachau. During this same scene, Teddy is transported back to those dark times and is tormented by a girl (who we learn is his daughter) pleading for his help. These instances pray upon his mistakes and helplessness in the past; he liberated Dachau but was too late to save everyone and is constantly reminded by the recurring image of a mountain of bodies and he failed to get his wife the help she needed when she was showing signs of manic depression. A mass amount of guilt from the war and his family alter the hallucinations we see. His history in the war contributes to his instability and hurts his credibility in the film as we pick up these inconsistencies.

The synopsis for Cache had me very interested upon first glance. However the film had me confused most of the time. However after reflection, I realized this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The creative direction of Haneke purposefully makes us put our sleuth cap on and investigate the details of the life of Georges and his hidden past.

Caché tells the story of talk show host Georges whose family is being harassed with surveillance of his home and dark pictures that serve as clues as to what happened in Georges past. The movie uses the 1960 Paris setting in order to apply themes from Georges’ life to that of a larger society. The story isn’t told chronologically, we get many seemingly random flashbacks that lead us towards the truth of his past and how it interacts with France’s past. Like Georges, France has a sort of amnesiac attitude towards a particular massacre that killed many algerians in the 1960’s. However, Georges sin is depriving the Algerian boy his mother adopted after the massacre of a good education by spreading false rumors about him.

Haneke uses these two histories to comment on how France hasn’t taken responsibility nor acknowledged the 200 people who brutally lost their lives. Haneke sends a clear message this way: The only way to truly move on and be free from your mistakes and transgressions is to face them head on and accept them as a part of yourself. Georges spends the entire movie trying to run away from his past transgressions and he only suffers further because of it.

Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is one of my favorite movies and I enjoyed the opportunity to watch it again. However watching it with my scholarly eyes proved a bit difficult. It’s hard to pull apart and analyze something you enjoy so much, but that doesn’t mean I won’t attempt to!

Though not apparent to me the first time around, Inglorious Basterds is a meta film that goes beyond commentary on the violence of World War II to comment on film and entertainment. Similar to our last film, Caché, Tarantino utilizes the social and political climate of a point in history (in this case, World War II) in order to convey a message about how we perceive violence in entertainment. Though ironic that this message comes from a very violent film, the setting grounds the film in an era when the people of the world were becoming desensitized to the horrendous acts of war. In the film, the meta aspects focus on a new feature film directed by Hitler’s right hand that is set for a very important premiere that will be attended by many of the top people in Hitler’s cabinet. This event is being used as an opportunity to take out the high ranking officials with explosives and by burning down the theatre. As people gather to watch a film focused around the accomplishments of a war hero, they meet a terrible fate.

A very key character in this commentary is the war hero who starred in this film about his own accomplishments. At the premiere, though he is supposed to be happy and celebrating his feat, he shows a clear discomfort with having to relive his battles in the movie . While the camera glances around the room at all the happy faces of the patrons enjoying the movie, it begs to question how could people in a time of war enjoy watching such violence as a form of entertainment? It brings to light the darker side of humanity and what constitutes proper entertainment.

In Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee has a lot to say about how we go about revolutionizing society in this day in age. He boils this down to two methodologies: One of peace and one of violence; and he uses a distinct vision throughout the film in order to present his views on this topic that is relevant even three decades later.

Upon viewing the movie, it wasn’t apparent to me what side of the debate Spike Lee was on. The content of the film leaves his answer rather ambiguous, but further analysis of the unique auteur style presented in the film gives us further insight on to his political stance on the subject. The movie is highly stylized with unusual angles and lighting both new and unique to the American New Wave. An example of such is a shot-reverse-shot of a conversation between Radio Raheem and Buggin Out that starts off normal but during the last shot of Raheem, he is seen walking off making the conversation seem incomplete. I’d never seen this in a movie before and it almost felt kinda rude in a sense, but this is just one example of the weird edits made in the film.

What I will mainly be focusing on is the implications of the cinematography and editing applied in the climax scenes of the movie. The tension that was building up during the entire movie soon reaches a breaking point when Radio Raheem and Sal get into a heated argument over the music playing and the lack of black figures in the wall of fame. Though very subtle, throughout the back and forth of the conversation, the camera increasingly becomes tilted as the tension rises. This tilt is a very minor form of distortion, painting the scene as something that results when one is ‘in the wrong mindset’. I don’t believe the scene would have stood out otherwise, and Lee’s message would have remained more ambiguous.

The film’s message is tied together nicely with Mr. Senor Love Daddy’s word of the day: Chill. There is a right way to demand our voices be heard and it is not with violence. Spike Lee wants our young revolutionaries to fight with peace and love to mold society into a place they can thrive in.

I had seen Rear Window by Hitchcock before and it was just as interesting watching it the second time as it was the first time. The perfect blend of suspense and romance, the film truly grips you to the end. Through the use of Mise-en-scene and sound, Hitchcock is able to kidnap the audience and throw them into the world Jeff Jefferies an so create more intense feelings of suspense.

Some of the first examples of this are through the use of music. When we are watching Mr.Thorwald on the first night, we start off the scene with some diegetic piano music that then completely cuts off once Mr. and Mrs. Thorwald enters the scene. This grabs the audience’s attention and then brings them even more on edge with an ominous emergency siren in the background that then slowly fades out. After that, the entire scene is silent until we see Mr. Thorwald leaves with what is presumably his wife’s body. Another example of the uses of sound as a tool for tension is with the lack of nondiegetic sounds. Intense scenes are often shot in silence with the notes of a calming piano from one of the neighbors. The music doesn’t match the scenes but they give the sense that the world is alive and moving rather than using non diegetic and making the world seem as if it is on pause while the scene commences. It immerses us in a very convincing way with this technique.

Another element of tension through Mise-en-scene  is the framing of shots. Many of the suspenseful scenes occur through the frame of a window, limiting ours and Jefferies’ view. Most of the important details of the movie occur behind a wall, obscuring our view and making us less and less aware of what is going on and gives us a sense of anxiety which we share with the other characters. 

Overall, these elements are weaved together to put us in a concrete world where we are next to Jefferies’ and trying to solve the mystery alongside him rather than watching him solve them.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.