Another year at the Oscars has come and past and now we are forced to watched the next months go buy as poorly produced comedies and flashy yet poorly scripted action films are set to be released. These films preluding to the summer blockbusters that we have all come to enjoy, all since the release of Jaws (1975). After two the two hour awards show and the dust cleared, The Kings Speech stuttered its way to the top.
Having seen the majority of the films nominated in every category, I was not surprised to see it win. However, I found my heart being with another film nominated, Black Swan.
After I watched Black Swan for the film time I had a feeling of balance. Unlike my viewing of Kings Speech where I was pleased with the ending, I did not feel the full effect of its conclusion in the same sense that I was impacted by the progression of Black Swan. Black Swan was possibly the first film since my first viewing of my favorite film, The Sixth Sense (1999), where I felt like things were complete the proper with the mood of the film. Yes, both films reveal a death, but the impact of the deaths were not as important as what had preceded them and what they represented to the film.
NOTE: I am only talking about the best picture category for three reasons. 1) I felt that the nominations for acting were correct. 2) My knowledge upon the documentaries and shorts are limited. 3) I have already voiced my concerns with the artistic nominations which did not feature, in my opinion, the best artistic film of the year, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
With Black Swan, the final act of the dance was the for the White Swan to fall off the cliff, killing herself. The act of viewing actions as unjust being the moral of the story, the movie itself drags beyond the binary of good vs bad and into an unforeseen balance of the two. Good is bad within the end of Black Swan. The whole comparison with the rough world of Ballet along with the complex psychological mind of Nina makes for an interesting depiction of purity suffering in an impure world. The concept of death is the result of Nina's own insistence on being surrounded by bad influence, which in the film is shown to be Mila Kunis' character, Lily. Her character is presented only for the purpose of challenging Nina to, and I say this with the full understanding of Portman's former acting jobs, go to the dark side. Nina's insistence on staying pure however is place in jeopardy by the reoccuring nightmares and the constant reminder of her mental health. The binary oppositions within the film are so forged together that the viewer is forced to understand how each action affects the balance of the binaries. Nina herself is a binary between sane and insane. Her mother and Lily represent the binary of young vs. old (With Nina being the middle ground). White Swan vs Black Swan is the same as good vs bad or pure vs sin. Etc. These binaries force the viewer to notice details which suggest a reliable conclusion that will merge these opositions. With Nina's death, she is the young dying old, the good dying like the bad, the insane dying like the sane. She becomes the balance point between the world in which the film represents.
Now I'd like to reiterate that I did enjoy Kings Speech and understand why the film won. I am simply stating the case for why I believe Black Swan was the best film nominated. I have stated before that Black Swan was not my favorite film of the year, which was actually Scott Pilgrim. Black Swan for my simply represented the moral concepts that art cinema wishes for cinema to question within its works.
Congratulation to all winners at the Academy Awards (minus the awards to Alice in Wonderland)
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Why The Social Network is seen as being great.
The Social Network recieved critical acclaim on its release into the public sphere in October 2010. Many people have related its topic as the main reason for its success. Others have placed it on the acting, or the directing. I am going to break down the four significant points as to why people have found The Social Network to be, what some critics have called, "The first great film of the 21st century"
1) The Topic: Facebook
2) Acting (Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake)
3) The Direction (David Fincher)
4) Narrative structure
Facebook
The topic of facebook is one that would appeal to all 500 million users of the website. Its general attraction shows a "historical" time-line of the creation and problems which Facebook has, in the literal sense, faced. Now the question still remains, what is so unique about facebook. The film offers its believe as why facebook is important, with the script stating that its would be popular because of the information you could find on other people. Now in our present day we have a different form of facebook. We use it for games, posting interesting information from other sites along with keeping connected with friends. This is an addiction. As stated in the film, and what I find is brilliant about the film and its social commentary on our modern society, we are addicted to the social connection we can have with new technology. Many of our generation don't need to leave their houses to speak with friends, to find out information and to live our social lives. Facebook offers everything our generation could want. The film presents the creation of "the Facebook" as simply being the greedy creation of the perfect social world. But why? why does the film need to present the history of facebook? I think that its signifcants comes less from its social impact then its need to emphasis the social constraints that its creator is on. In the film, Zuckerberg is shown to be a nerdy and almost friendless guy. His popularity only grew when he created his own social status and social reality. Now whether these events are historically true, the film presents facebook as the creation of a monster, the monster of Zuckerberg. The last comment I want to make about facebook is that social standards are clearly important. The films use of social rankings is seen throughout the film. The low social status of Zuckerberg is that he is unpopular and unknown to the school, while the high social status of the Winklevoss twins (played in the movie by the same guy) is that they are part of an exclusive club, they are athletic and attractive as for those reasons popular. Facebook then changes the roles, it become exclusive and therefore Zuckerberg becomes popular as the creator and president of this exclusive club, much like, as the film says, a finals club(a motif that is held within the film to symbolize the exclusive nature that Harvard has blocked Zuckerberg from joining).
Acting
There are two great acting performances in the movie. The film comes from Jesse Eisenberg for his role as Mark Zuckerberg. The character itself doesn't differ in attitude from Eisenbergs other characters in Zombieland (2009), Adventureland (2009) or The Squid and the Whale (2005). What is different is his approach and portrayal within the film. The film approaches him more as a genius rather than an outsider. He is first seen having a girlfriend and both participating and caring about his social life. When they break up, he looks to destroy her social life the one way he is accustom to, blogging. The film approaches the situation in the economical sense rather than the typical relationship sense. His use of the blog is not seen as odd because the film is about social innovation. Eisenberg himself acts very calm in person while his voice-over, the internal thoughts he is having while writing the blog, are highly angery and emotional. His lack of facial expression does exactly what the films ideology wants, to show the way emotions have been transfered digitally. Eisenberg plays its brilliantly in his performance because he doesn't visually show any emotion, like we see in his foil, Eduardo. His lack of emotions demonstrates that emotions are primitive and technology is the current. Another example comes from the scene where he first meets Sean Parker. Sean is another character fueled by passion and emotion. His emotions trigger what is the only genuine smile by Eisenberg in the film. This smile, even so simple, represents the respect the film shows for technology and its use in society. If there was to be one simple explanation of how effective Eisenberg's acting was, its to say that he perfected the non-emotional character that Michael Cera had become famous for. His acting of non emotions is almost as good as acting with raw emotions except his demeanor is more common in current society.
Now the second great acting performance comes from Andrew Garfield. He, as I stated above, it the foil to Eisenberg. His character is very emotionally motivated. He represents the border between geek and popularity. His character is successful in what he does and is recognized for it. Garfield acts with raw emotion. He plays a calm character who can be easily triggered into a pure state of emotions. The boardroom scene where they bring up the chicken causes him to become very flustered and emotional as the story embarrasses him greatly. His emotions are played out to the fullest because he plays the emotional role of two characters, himself and Zuckerberg.
Justin Timberlake deserves a bit of recognition for his role. I don't feel he was overly significant to the films performance, but his character is played as the antagonist of the film. That might be a stretch, because the two lawsuits would state Eduardo and the Winklevass's as being the antagonists, except that Timberlake's Parker comes first. His character instantly creates a problem with Eduardo. This sparks a rift in the original formation of facebook, which is why I consider Parker as the antagonist of the film. His actions for the rest of the film are along that same track. He gets Eduardo out of the company then gets busted for cocaine possession. He puts the company in jeopardy which endangers Zuckerberg. The Acting itself wasn't great, but it did portray a stereotyped Parker that had been historically known in the US at the time.
3) David Fincher
Fincher has always been well versed in film style and structure. His previous films like Se7en (1995), Panic Room (2002), Fight Club (1999), and Zodiac (2007) are visually appealing and established with continuity editing. They appear to be flawless and quick paced, either condensing or jumping over story time with ease.
What I attribute to Fincher as a director in this film stems from his ability to create a mise-en-scene that entraps his main character. The first two rooms you see in the film are the bar and Mark's dorm. In the bar, Mark is uncomfortable and unable to blend with the social situation happening with Erika and happening in the background. The foreground has become a prison for Mark as he talks with Erika. She attacks him for being childish and only carrying about himself. He becomes trapped between the camera, the background and Erika, unable to dig his way out of his own bubble that the three things create around him. Eventually his only choice is to run out of the bubble and back home. Fincher placed the cameras in a typical shot-reverse shot format to capture the conversation the two are having. What becomes significant is that the background over powers the foreground. Mark and Erika are framed centre in the image, but not in a close-up which you would usually see in a shot reverse shot, but rather a medium close-up, allowing for the background to frame the characters. This locks them into their conversation and excludes them from the rest of the bar.
Marks dorm is also significant in entraping Mark. His room is highly crowded, usually containing at least two people if not more. The only time you see only Mark in his dorm is when he returns home from the bar. he quickly attempts to esc
ape from his life by blogging, showing that he prefers the virtual world over the real one. He was first joined then by Billy, then eventually he is joined by his roommates, Dustin and Chris, then later by Eduardo. His dorm room becomes the new social world. Mark still focuses on the computer while the other three socialize. Mark becomes trapped once again, this time in his own room. He isolates himself with the computer, and escapes into a world more suited for him. Fincher's use of the window was brilliant. He used it to show the world outside the room, the world that Mark didn't care for, but the one he was going t affect. The shots of him on the computer come from the window side and distance us from the door. He is locked into the seat for the rest of the scene, trapped between the camera which blocks the window and the door which is no longer there to his escape.
The same effect with the window is scene in the courtroom where Mark ignores the lawyer to look out the window. This time we see the window and Mark from the other side of the table, but with the same effect. Mark is trapped between the window and the outer world. He cannot leave the room because the doors are on the other side of the lawyers.
4) Narrative Structure.
there is a very delicate narrative structure created within the script. The Story time begins and ends in with the plot time of the film. We are introduced to the characters in the first part of the story and end with the characters in the last part of the story. What is so sigificant is that these two times are interlinked with flashbacks. While this is not uncommon, it is done in a unique way because the flashbacks are cut between two different sets of actions which are happening in two present accounts, two different law offices. What we see from the story is told in flashbacks from different accounts to show different sides of the story. First, we have Erika's side, which tells of what happened at the bar. Second, we have Mark's blog, where the lawyers get information about facesmash.com. Then we have Eduardo, who tells of the progress of facebook's creation. We have the Winklevass' who tell of ConnectU, and how they watched facebook grow. Then we have testimony from emails between Mark the the twins. What's so signficant about these testimonies is that everything recorded about Mark doesn't come from Mark. We are never given an opportunity to hear anything from Mark except for the administration meeting where he was put on academy probation. What makes this so interesting, like in Citizen Kane (1941), we hear of their past only with bias. We do get to hear from Mark in the present because he is still alive, but his record of what happened in creating facebook is never accounted for.
Conclusion
The Social Network has seemingly taken its place as one of the great films of the 21st century. Its creation highlights the first great invention of the 21st century. The film itself is good. I would rank it a 4 out of 5, but its historical significance is still happening. Facebook is not pasted its greatest days, there may still be more to come. The film only covers the creation of facebook and states its effects on the social world. While this was the point of the film, it still appeared like any other film. There is so many different reasons the like this film, but is it really because of facebook? To me its just another film which uses techniques of creation which have already been done. Not that it wasn't done good, but its only held in such critical acclaim because of its subject.
1) The Topic: Facebook
2) Acting (Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake)
3) The Direction (David Fincher)
4) Narrative structure
The topic of facebook is one that would appeal to all 500 million users of the website. Its general attraction shows a "historical" time-line of the creation and problems which Facebook has, in the literal sense, faced. Now the question still remains, what is so unique about facebook. The film offers its believe as why facebook is important, with the script stating that its would be popular because of the information you could find on other people. Now in our present day we have a different form of facebook. We use it for games, posting interesting information from other sites along with keeping connected with friends. This is an addiction. As stated in the film, and what I find is brilliant about the film and its social commentary on our modern society, we are addicted to the social connection we can have with new technology. Many of our generation don't need to leave their houses to speak with friends, to find out information and to live our social lives. Facebook offers everything our generation could want. The film presents the creation of "the Facebook" as simply being the greedy creation of the perfect social world. But why? why does the film need to present the history of facebook? I think that its signifcants comes less from its social impact then its need to emphasis the social constraints that its creator is on. In the film, Zuckerberg is shown to be a nerdy and almost friendless guy. His popularity only grew when he created his own social status and social reality. Now whether these events are historically true, the film presents facebook as the creation of a monster, the monster of Zuckerberg. The last comment I want to make about facebook is that social standards are clearly important. The films use of social rankings is seen throughout the film. The low social status of Zuckerberg is that he is unpopular and unknown to the school, while the high social status of the Winklevoss twins (played in the movie by the same guy) is that they are part of an exclusive club, they are athletic and attractive as for those reasons popular. Facebook then changes the roles, it become exclusive and therefore Zuckerberg becomes popular as the creator and president of this exclusive club, much like, as the film says, a finals club(a motif that is held within the film to symbolize the exclusive nature that Harvard has blocked Zuckerberg from joining).
Acting
There are two great acting performances in the movie. The film comes from Jesse Eisenberg for his role as Mark Zuckerberg. The character itself doesn't differ in attitude from Eisenbergs other characters in Zombieland (2009), Adventureland (2009) or The Squid and the Whale (2005). What is different is his approach and portrayal within the film. The film approaches him more as a genius rather than an outsider. He is first seen having a girlfriend and both participating and caring about his social life. When they break up, he looks to destroy her social life the one way he is accustom to, blogging. The film approaches the situation in the economical sense rather than the typical relationship sense. His use of the blog is not seen as odd because the film is about social innovation. Eisenberg himself acts very calm in person while his voice-over, the internal thoughts he is having while writing the blog, are highly angery and emotional. His lack of facial expression does exactly what the films ideology wants, to show the way emotions have been transfered digitally. Eisenberg plays its brilliantly in his performance because he doesn't visually show any emotion, like we see in his foil, Eduardo. His lack of emotions demonstrates that emotions are primitive and technology is the current. Another example comes from the scene where he first meets Sean Parker. Sean is another character fueled by passion and emotion. His emotions trigger what is the only genuine smile by Eisenberg in the film. This smile, even so simple, represents the respect the film shows for technology and its use in society. If there was to be one simple explanation of how effective Eisenberg's acting was, its to say that he perfected the non-emotional character that Michael Cera had become famous for. His acting of non emotions is almost as good as acting with raw emotions except his demeanor is more common in current society.
Now the second great acting performance comes from Andrew Garfield. He, as I stated above, it the foil to Eisenberg. His character is very emotionally motivated. He represents the border between geek and popularity. His character is successful in what he does and is recognized for it. Garfield acts with raw emotion. He plays a calm character who can be easily triggered into a pure state of emotions. The boardroom scene where they bring up the chicken causes him to become very flustered and emotional as the story embarrasses him greatly. His emotions are played out to the fullest because he plays the emotional role of two characters, himself and Zuckerberg.
Justin Timberlake deserves a bit of recognition for his role. I don't feel he was overly significant to the films performance, but his character is played as the antagonist of the film. That might be a stretch, because the two lawsuits would state Eduardo and the Winklevass's as being the antagonists, except that Timberlake's Parker comes first. His character instantly creates a problem with Eduardo. This sparks a rift in the original formation of facebook, which is why I consider Parker as the antagonist of the film. His actions for the rest of the film are along that same track. He gets Eduardo out of the company then gets busted for cocaine possession. He puts the company in jeopardy which endangers Zuckerberg. The Acting itself wasn't great, but it did portray a stereotyped Parker that had been historically known in the US at the time.
3) David Fincher
Fincher has always been well versed in film style and structure. His previous films like Se7en (1995), Panic Room (2002), Fight Club (1999), and Zodiac (2007) are visually appealing and established with continuity editing. They appear to be flawless and quick paced, either condensing or jumping over story time with ease.
What I attribute to Fincher as a director in this film stems from his ability to create a mise-en-scene that entraps his main character. The first two rooms you see in the film are the bar and Mark's dorm. In the bar, Mark is uncomfortable and unable to blend with the social situation happening with Erika and happening in the background. The foreground has become a prison for Mark as he talks with Erika. She attacks him for being childish and only carrying about himself. He becomes trapped between the camera, the background and Erika, unable to dig his way out of his own bubble that the three things create around him. Eventually his only choice is to run out of the bubble and back home. Fincher placed the cameras in a typical shot-reverse shot format to capture the conversation the two are having. What becomes significant is that the background over powers the foreground. Mark and Erika are framed centre in the image, but not in a close-up which you would usually see in a shot reverse shot, but rather a medium close-up, allowing for the background to frame the characters. This locks them into their conversation and excludes them from the rest of the bar.
Marks dorm is also significant in entraping Mark. His room is highly crowded, usually containing at least two people if not more. The only time you see only Mark in his dorm is when he returns home from the bar. he quickly attempts to esc
ape from his life by blogging, showing that he prefers the virtual world over the real one. He was first joined then by Billy, then eventually he is joined by his roommates, Dustin and Chris, then later by Eduardo. His dorm room becomes the new social world. Mark still focuses on the computer while the other three socialize. Mark becomes trapped once again, this time in his own room. He isolates himself with the computer, and escapes into a world more suited for him. Fincher's use of the window was brilliant. He used it to show the world outside the room, the world that Mark didn't care for, but the one he was going t affect. The shots of him on the computer come from the window side and distance us from the door. He is locked into the seat for the rest of the scene, trapped between the camera which blocks the window and the door which is no longer there to his escape.
The same effect with the window is scene in the courtroom where Mark ignores the lawyer to look out the window. This time we see the window and Mark from the other side of the table, but with the same effect. Mark is trapped between the window and the outer world. He cannot leave the room because the doors are on the other side of the lawyers.
4) Narrative Structure.
there is a very delicate narrative structure created within the script. The Story time begins and ends in with the plot time of the film. We are introduced to the characters in the first part of the story and end with the characters in the last part of the story. What is so sigificant is that these two times are interlinked with flashbacks. While this is not uncommon, it is done in a unique way because the flashbacks are cut between two different sets of actions which are happening in two present accounts, two different law offices. What we see from the story is told in flashbacks from different accounts to show different sides of the story. First, we have Erika's side, which tells of what happened at the bar. Second, we have Mark's blog, where the lawyers get information about facesmash.com. Then we have Eduardo, who tells of the progress of facebook's creation. We have the Winklevass' who tell of ConnectU, and how they watched facebook grow. Then we have testimony from emails between Mark the the twins. What's so signficant about these testimonies is that everything recorded about Mark doesn't come from Mark. We are never given an opportunity to hear anything from Mark except for the administration meeting where he was put on academy probation. What makes this so interesting, like in Citizen Kane (1941), we hear of their past only with bias. We do get to hear from Mark in the present because he is still alive, but his record of what happened in creating facebook is never accounted for.
Conclusion
The Social Network has seemingly taken its place as one of the great films of the 21st century. Its creation highlights the first great invention of the 21st century. The film itself is good. I would rank it a 4 out of 5, but its historical significance is still happening. Facebook is not pasted its greatest days, there may still be more to come. The film only covers the creation of facebook and states its effects on the social world. While this was the point of the film, it still appeared like any other film. There is so many different reasons the like this film, but is it really because of facebook? To me its just another film which uses techniques of creation which have already been done. Not that it wasn't done good, but its only held in such critical acclaim because of its subject.
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