Atom Egoyan's Adoration

Recently in my Canadian cinema class while we were studying auteurs in Canadian cinema we watched Atom Egoyan's Adoration (2008). I found myself in love while watching this film because of its use of plot and story time along with its connection to one of my favorite films, The Sixth Sense (1999).

First I want to define what I mean by plot and story time. They are two different things in regards to film. The story is the entire narrative of the film, including events which are depicted and events which are inferred by the viewer. The plot is what happens during the present time that the film occurs in. The difference is that story covers everything within the film, both presumed and inferred, while the plot only covers what is visually presented within the film.


Now many of Atom Egoyan's films manipulate story and plot time. In Adoration, the films is cut between four different events. The first is the protagonist, Simon, presenting his story to the class. The second is the fiction world which Simon is narrating, his mother at an airport. The third is the discussion of the story over the internet, this group of people have been lead to believe that the story is real. The fourth is the life of Simon's Uncle Tom who takes care of him. The fifth follows Simon's teacher, Sabine, who promotes Simon to write the story. The film cuts between the different situations attempting to explain why Simon wrote his story and its effects on society. In the film, Simon writes a story for his French class about how his father was the man who tried to bomb a plane with his pregnant mother on board because she was pregnant with him. The entire process of the intercutting builds up into the truth of the lie and the reason behind the story. I enjoyed this mainly because the film explicitly explains the viewer that the story is fake. The time of the film is highly loose and as we see him first presenting the story, then talking about it with with friends, the the growth of the story into the effect of the event he based the story on. Egoyan brilliantly built the film so that we were always reminded of the beginning of the story.


I say this film reminds me of Sixth Sense because of how ambiguous the beginning and the ending of the films are. In the beginning of Adoration, we see a woman on a boardwalk over the water playing a violin with a small child watching out. We then cut to airport security finding explosives in a womans purse who had no idea that it was there. I compare this to the Sixth Sense in that the opening becomes overlooked through the rest of the film until the end. In the sixth sense, we see Bruce Willis' character in his home, with another man breaking in holding a gun. We later cut away to the present time of the film. We get so taken away by the story that we ignore the first information we are given. I will not explain the endings in fear of spoiling the films to other, but both revert back to explaining its significance in regards to other information. 


Atom Egoyan's film have always been ambiguous and structured in a specific style that manipulates the narrative for specific reasons. A good example of this can be seen in Calendar (1993) and Chloe (2009). With Calendar, Egoyan creates a rhythm which jumps between three events in the story. The first is a voice on an answering machine, the second is a trip to Armenia he takes with his wife for work, and the third is a reoccuring date in which the male, played by Atom Egoyan, is having the same dinner with different women. The structure builds into this final explanation of how the events are circular in time but  co-dependent in the way they present facts about the events of the film we infer. With Chloe, the events themselves are lies. The information that Chloe, played by Amanda Seyfried gives is false but always inferred as being the truth. The fantasy of seduction becomes the driving force in the film while the meaning of the stories becomes less about the husband she is describing, played by Liam Neeson, and more about the effect the information has on the wife, played by Julianne Moore. The narrative then presents Chloe as this seductress who controls the family she has essentially asked to break up. What becomes significant however about Chloe is that her stories, the fantasies of sex, provoke the viewer to ignore the obvious bluff and indulge themselves in the story like the wife does. 


Adoration, with its significant use of the lie, directs the viewer past the lie rather then entrap them in it. The viewer is made aware constantly through the film that the kids story is a lie. The important thing about this understanding is that the viewer is being asked to examine the effects of the story. The four different events which are intertwined become view points for the different effects of the story. Viewing the effects of the story while understanding its fake gives the three main characters a higher position within the film because they can debate its importance. Whether there is one outside the film itself is also debatable, but less important because the film ends with the destruction of the original lie. When the child burns his grandfathers things its because his grandfather was the first person to lie to him. The film is still ambiguous because we as viewers can never definitively know what happened to his parents, but we take account of the multiple stories and understand that the truth we really want will never be available. 


I highly recommend the viewing of Adoration for anyone who is interested. This film is listed as number 8 on my top 10 films list.

Justified: The unnoticed show which has taken my heart

I watch a great deal of television. My free time usually is split between social life and TV/movies. Weekly, I follow nine shows, one of which premiered last year called Justified.

Justified first caught my attention via a friend who was watching the pilot the day after its first airing on the FX network. I watched the show and was instantly overtaken by its use of urban vs rural and good vs bad binaries, along with its use of violence and sex. I originally only sat down to watch the show because of Timothy Olyphant, who is fantastic in Deadwood and (*SPOILER ALERT*) one of the two killers in Scream 2.[Scream  series being one of the reasons I wanted to study film].

Since my first taste of Justified, I have been an avid viewer. However, currently in its second season the show seems to go unnoticed. I have thus so decided to take some time and highlight why people should watch Justified.

Starring Timothy Olyphant, Justified is about a U.S Marshall named Raylan Givens, who shoots a man while working in Miami and is thus transferred to working as a Marshall in his hometown that he hates. The story from thus point on focus on his past life and how it affects his present. Being a U.S Marshall, Raylan often clashes with his family and former friends, most of which are either married to criminals or are criminals.

As I have stated, the first thing that caught my attention to the show was the use of binary oppositions. The first one being the urban vs rural worlds. In the beginning, which starts in Miami, Raylan is the representation of the rural, his cowboy hat sticking out while he wears a suit. When Raylan is transferred. He becomes the urban man stuck in the rural world he once escaped. Whats so powerful about the show is that Raylan was raised to be a criminal, but his never wavering view of the law becomes something rare in crime shows these days, which often show cops who act on both sides of the law. The opposition of law is created later on in the series by the father son relationship. Raylan's father, war veteran and long time criminal, is essentially Raylan's foil. Raylan's father, Arlo. Through Arlo we see the reasoning for Raylan's actions. He doesn't want to become his father. The relationships position of good vs bad is unique for the show because unlike other shows where the law is forthright and justice is served, Justified shows these criminals more typically being killed by Raylan instead of facing the law. The accountable title of the show referring directly to that idea because all of the murders are justified as they were all (but not proven) guilty.

The show itself is appealing for so many different reasons. My focus upon the binaries comes from my first impression of the show back from last year and not my impression of the show in its current form. That does not necessarily mean I do not enjoy the second season the same as the first, its that my opinion of the show has yet to change.

I highly recommend this show because it offers something to everyone. While I would not recommend the show to someone who is highly right-wing, as the show blatantly attacks middle american culture, but it can be appreciated from many different levels.

Take time to view the pilot of the show and possibly follow the show I do. It has taken my heart over the past year and is the only thing I look forward to on Wednesdays.

Justified airs Wednesdays at 10pm est on FX Network.

The Academy Awards: Redux

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)

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.

Film Noir: How it affected late 20th century and the 21st century Part 1

I was working on a presentation on film Noir for my Film History class when I began to notice characteristics of Film Noir in more recent (recent meaning last 20 years) films. now these connections haven't gone unnoticed. Films like Fight Club (1999) and Hard Eight (1996) have been noted for their dark undertones that hadn't been seen since the 1960's with the popularity of Noir. My connections however extend past the films that connect just through style and visuals, but more along the bases of narrative structure.

First I think its important to highlight what film noir is for those reading that have minimal understanding of how film noir is understood. Film noir is marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, menace, and cynical characters. Usually we break down Film Noir into three seperate categories; Thematic concerns, narrative concerns, and style.

1) Thematic concerns: Dark moods which reflect the moral structure of the world.

2) Narrative concerns: Plot and story reflection of on the moral climate of society. Can depend on past events told through flashbacks, which gives noir a feel of sensibility.
3) Style: Visually seems dark and fanatical. use of lighting. etc.

I feel that while watching some recent films that the narrative concerns have returned back to the film noir understanding. Now the same historical setting are mirrored during our time. The 1930's which predate noir created instability. We are currently in recession around the world and now our return to finacial stability has been put into question. With the war in the 1940's, people began to feel negatively upon the country. The attack on Pearl Harbor is mirrored with the events of 9/11. The attacks spark an involvement from Hollywood to show positive, almost propaganda like films. World Trade Center would be the best example of this. The view on the current war in the middle east is different from WWII because people in the past believed there was good cause to fighitng against the axis. Now with the middle-east, many people believe that the involvement of both the US and Canada is not necessary. This is significant in my opinion because both events are happening at the same time so the darker undertones are becoming prominent when these events overlap.

Noir: The Departed Part 1 of 2

Of recent films, one I believe take is highly noir like is The Departed (2006) . I don't think of this is noir just because of the crime aspect or its links to mobster films. Narratively, the film outputs two moral arguments in two seperate, but both negative fashion. Through the double plot that follows both Sullivan, the mole in the Police department, and Costigan, the mole in the crime family, we see a moral fluctuation that is seemingly in attempted to be balanced. The characterization of the film is significant to viewing this film as being somewhat noir.

Sullivan was raised under the wing of crime boss Costello, and his work in the police department to some extend make up for his connections to Costello. The ending of their father-son relationship comes to an end when the son kills the father. It is there when Sullivan accepts his moral responsibility, which is that to free yourself of guilt you need to free yourself from the source of guild, Costello. This concept of the father-son relationship was prominent in Film Noir, as many children grew up with strained relationships or opinions of their fathers. Sullivan didn't have a father, therefore he was vulnerable to the security which Costello offered.

Costigan is the reverse of Sullivan. He is a good man asked to do bad things. His wish to be a state police officer is blocked by his past and his families ties to crime. This makes him a perfect took for the police to use in situating him as an informant. He is not reluctant to be placed in such a role, and is almost conned like into the position. None the less, Costigan does it because of the moral good it does. He feels, at least in my opinion, that his service will be an insult to a family that he hates. The noble act comes from his father, who did the same thing to his family, refusing to skin to crime and lives his life doing manual labour to raise his son. I wouldn't consider this part of the father-son relationship because his father does not appear in the film. However this does still have an enormous effect on Costigan. If there is a father son relationship it is Costigan and Queenan. Queenan is the one who offers Costigan a chance, he shelters him and makes sure that he keep his moral integrity. His noir quality are based on his background. He grew up between the north and south of Boston, his violent upbringing separates his views on life between bad and good. Queenan acts as a merger of those two sides, the crime and the high life.

Now financially, both characters are both jobless at the start of the film. This is very similar to other Noir's like Sunset BLVD (1950), where the protagonist start off unemployed but takes a job that is not morally right. Both Costigan and Sullivan must do the same thing at different points in their life. Their ties to crime become a motif for their weak ability to care for themselves. Sullivan more than Costigan because he was a child, but Cositgan still because he needs to be a state police officer, therefore he must take the worst job they have.

 In Part 2, I will talk about Madolyn's similarities with the Femme fatale and the style similarities within the visuals of The Departed

The Academy Awards: Why certain films get chosen over others.

This morning the Academy award nominations were released. As usual, Hollywood films were nominated less on the actual outcome of the film but rather on the names behind those pictures. Names like Fincher, Boyle, Coen, Nolan, etc all received vast nominations for their films that year. My interest in these awards come less from the frequent amounts of popular names that are listed but rather the smaller names and the ones that were neglected.

The Golden Globe gives many viewers the idea of who is going to be nominated for the Oscars. And that is true, the same films nominated by the Globes for best picture drama were all included in the ten Best picture nominations for the Oscars. In contrast, only one from the best comedy film side chosen to be included in the ten, that being The Kids are All Right (2010). The other four films seem to be filling the void created by the fact that with the rule change for best picture after the 81st academy awards.

The Academy chose to change the rule because of the number of films that people believed had a chance during 2008. For more information on films released in 2008, check out Film in 2008: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_in_film

Now I love the academy awards. They tend to recognize popular films while at the same time noticing smaller films that would usually go unnoticed. My only complaint on the other hand is that this year the academy has chosen to notice more spectacle based money making films over films which have created a cult following. What I am directly referring to is Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, which was snubbed in my opinion by popular award shows.

Scott Pilgrim has everything. It takes from the aspect of video games and music and adds to the concept of love and hate. It builds off the simple idea of love and makes it a literal battle for the heart of one. It is similar to Inception and Black Swan in that it is a fanatical world that represents a psychological main character. Scott Pilgrim is effected in two ways in different levels. He is first effected by the emotion trauma of his previous breakup. Second, the effect of video games that represents his connection with reality.

Its visual style to me was sure to receive a nomination for Visual Effects or Film Editing, possibly Art direction. Instead, films like Alice in Wonderland and the new Harry Potter got nominations. I believe Scott Pilgrim to be better because it is not fully overpowered by its effects and editing. Most of Scott Pilgrims effects were done for the sake of battle scenes that don't overtake the pure emotions of the situations. My disgust with the two nominations is that its all been done and recognized before. Wonderland was filmed 90% with GreenScreen, mostly from digitalization. In case for their nomination is because of the magnitude of animation done. My retort however would be that quantity is not as important as quality. Scott Pilgrim has a much cleaner and more effective set of effects. Another argument could be that because Wonderland is 90% animated, it should not be included as being "visual effects" because case in point, its all an illusion so it is therefore not an effect, but a constant. For Harry Potter the animation is the same with each film.

Film Editing is an absolute for Scott Pilgrim. The academy tends to side with the continuity editing that was favored in the Traditional Hollywood Narrative from 1915-1960. Films like The Social Network follow along with these rules without holding any significant form upon its own which make it unique. I'm not insulting The Social Network, I throughly enjoyed the film, but its editing style is not as good as Pilgrim. In Scott Pilgrim, editing is rapid in succession. It uses time and space to create an opposing recognition of the mental state of the protagonist, Scott. His mind becomes clustered and therefore the film is presented in the way his mind is remembering and recognizing situations. The scene where he is dreaming of Ramona is met with him playing a song with the band, when he is asked something he jumps back into that reality only to be met in a different place, walking along a Toronto street complaining about a party they are going to attend. I feel that Edgar Wright did a masterful job in creating a scene that by using the dialog was able condense time and space so that events would conenside with the process of Scott's mind. That particular scene reminded me of the lightning mix used in Citizen Kane to show the passage of time, where music and voice over is used to connect events in time, going from Kane's childhood to him as a young adult. This is only one scene in Scott Pilgrim that offers interesting and well thought out editing.

Now not all the nominations upset me. I was very happy to hear the nominations for The Kids are All Right. I felt that the film might of been ignored because it was a summer release. I still wish that Lisa Cholodenko had recieved a directing nomination because she formed together a great film. She in my mind should replace the Coen brother on the list. I feel the Coen brothers offer very little when it comes to actual skill. My distain for them started when I first watched No Country for Old Men, which I consider to be a bad film because its events are loosely held together and in some ways almost untracable through the plot. I understood the plot, which was based off the book of the same name, but felt the film was a weak attempt at recreating it.

I do comment the academy for their array of new directors nominated, which includes Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell and Tom Hooper. I feel that Edgar Wright deserves a bit of recognition for his work. He has a consistent vision for his films that he delivers. His other films like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz offer the same editing style and rapid pace that is appreciated in the indie film scene and should be more recognized by the Academy.

I really wish that Scott Pilgrim had been more recognized because of its artistic style and great direction, but the fact is that it wasn't included. This could do in some parts to the mixed reviews it received in the US and the poor ticket sales at the box office. However the case, I hope that I made a strong argument as to why Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World deserves to be recognizes as one of the best films of 2010.

The Cinema: Film vs. Animation

This discussion was sparked upon a facebook status update I made criticizing the fact that 6 of the top 10 money making movies in North America were either fully or partly animated. My outrage was met with an argument sparked by my friends brother Coltin who argued that because animated films are more family friendly and even enjoyable for parents, its no surprised they make more money. He cited Pixar and Studio Ghibli films as examples of good animation that sparks great interest in viewers.

My argument with this was that film form had been abandoned for the practice of computer creation of film. I did not object to this practice, but challenged it as being defined as a film, and instead called it a movie. I did this because the traditional cinema was based on the celluloid film used to record film for the most part up until the invention of video, which in turn has been replaced by digital recording. The problem with animation is that it uses neither film or video, but digital creations of worlds that are clearly not real.

In my film theory class, we discussed the first film theorist, Hugo Munsterberg. Munsterberg believed that cinema was the "art of the mind." His believe was that film was more of a psychological art that depended on its preception in the mind. To Munsterberg, film needed to be realistic and challenge the perception of reality in the human mind. By this understanding of film, Munsterberg would denounce animation as being the creation of a clearly false world that offers little to the imagination. I agree with Munsterberg in some ways because I accept cinema as the art of the mind, hence why I think animation doesn't belong in the same category as traditional cinema.

However, I do feel animation is significant to visual entertainment because it uses the narrative style that film adapted from theatre and literature. As Coltin wrote on my facebook wall "A story conveyed with moving pictures is still a story conveyed with moving pictures." My only problem with this statement is the idea of moving pictures. His reference to animation as "moving pictures" is generally wrong. Yes, animation is moving, but it is not always created in picture form first. In some cases it is, like the productions of Studio Ghibli which he used as part of his argument. The issue however involves my problem with American animation, which is mostly generated by computers. Some may argue that because animation is always made frame by frame, but I would reject this because cinema isn't created frame by frame. It requires mise-en-scene and the construction a filmic reality.

With mise-en-scene in mind, Coltin's brother, Adam, argued that animation is free from the constraints of traditional film. I can agree to this simply because creating something from nothing is easier then something from whatever you have at your disposal. The great thing about animation is that you have endless possibilities with what you can create.

Adam continued by arguing about the narrative construction on animations and their power to create emotional responses. He specifically used Up (2009) as an example. Now just for arguments sake, emotions are the most important thing in how Hugo Munsterberg believes cinema should be mentally. However, the construction of narrative does not define animation. Narrative is used in everything that conveys a story. The effect that Up has on human emotions is similar to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), which preceded it by 28 years. Narrative is not restricted to film, therefore Adam's argument is moot.

I went on to argue the difference in film and animation by making note of how the two were made. Film, as in movies made in the real world, is a 3d universe and presented in 2d. Animation on the other hand is created 2d and shown primarily in the 2d universe. Therefore, animation does not represent the 3d universe that humans occupy. Animation can stylistically create the real world, but it is not the real world. Some will argue that 3d films are unique and indifferent to this concept, but 3d films like Avatar (2009) use technology to trick the mind. Now this technology is not necessarily a negative towards technology, bit is still only a 2d image which capitalizes on deception.

Adam went on to question films position as being meant for documenting or storytelling. He asked " isn't the idea of film and fiction based on deception? If that is true then is not animation a purer form of that?" I answer this by saying absolutely not. The first use of film both in America and France was for documenting purposes. The Edison Company in New Jersey filmed simple things in life, like a couple kissing, and a man flexing. In France, the Lumiere brother created films called "actualities" which simply shot life as it happened. Their first uses for film were to document life. Since, as Munsterberg states, film is the art of the mind, we as viewers are fully aware we are watching animation and not reaity.

Now, narrative stories did eventually become the norm for American cinema. With the work of directors like D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin, cinema became something of a spectacle. Animations is obviously part of this spectacle, but it is in a different category then regular fiction films.

In conclusion I would just like to say that I do not hate animation films because of my place in this argument. I enjoy animation films, Toy Story (1996) being one of my favorite films. I simply believe that animation films and films shot in real life are different, and their appreciation is neglected for a less traditional and as some would call a "more" entertaining film.