Casablanca

Mise en Scene
Camerawork
Editing
Sound
Lighting

The Mise en scene in Casablanca wasn't very formalist it is different from that which you see nowadays but it was normal at the time that it came out in 1942. The set is quite unformalist it is a traditional 1940's club, and a glamorous street setting. The clothing and props that they use were correct mise en scene at the time but it is now considered quite a cheesy look but that is because of the fame of casablanca. Humphrey Bogart is a famous actor before casablanca he had success with The Maltese Falcon. And after Casablanca with The African Queen. Ingrid Bergman had success after Casablanca with Hitchcock films like Spellbound and Notorious. Other actors in Casablanca were Peter Lorre, Paul Heinreid, Claude Reins and Sidney Greenstreet.

The camerawork was very close in the moments between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman to show their love. For the other scenes the Camerawork was very simple as if it was from other peoples point of view in the club.

The editing uses a style called continuity editing which is editing that tries to smooth over the transitions between shot and make it look invisible.

The sound is very instrumental they play songs like "as time goes by" and the french national anthem. Although at some moments they play old fashioned romantic songs for the scenes with Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.

Classical Hollywood Film

The "Golden age of cinema" lasted from the end of the silent era in the 1920's to the 1950's. This age has brought great directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra and Orson Welles, and has brought great actors like James Stewart, Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Judy Garland.

Some Great FIlms from the Golden age are:
It's a Wonderful life
Rear Window
King Kong
Citizen Kane
North by North West
Strangers on a Train
Mr Smith goes to Washington
Casablanca
Some Like it Hot
The Birds

My favourite films from these are Its a Wonderful Life, Rear Window and KIng Kong.

Classical Hollywood cinema can be described as formalist due to the melodramatic acting and the carefully considered shots. Which are both features of formalist film. For example in Rear Window when James Stewart is falling out the window the shot makes it look high up.

German Expressionism

German Expressionism was a style of film the developed out of berlin in the 1920's and is considered the inspiration for many classic formalist films. Such as Tim Burton films like Sleepy Hollow, Batman returns, Nightmare before christmas, Sweeney Todd and others like Sin City and The Crow.

German expressionism's features are exaggerated shadows which make it seem scarier and more formalist. All the buildings are in strange shapes for example Gotham City in Tim Burton's Batman and the rooftops of the cabinet of Dr Caligari. German Expressionism is also very sinister.

The camera angles that are used show people very big and grand from a worms eye point of view. Almost all the camera angles are very considered each camera angle has a point. This means that It is very purposeful, but it can be quite hard to follow.

Run Lola Run evaluation

I thought Run Lola Run was a very formalist film and a very clever film aswell. The form was quite realist except for small parts for example a cartoon shown at the beginning and a scene where the two main characters are talking and the editor has tinted the scene red. Except for this the form of the film is very formalist.

The story however is a difference between formalist and realist. The story of a man about to rob a shop before his mobster boss shows up and his girlfriend has to save him is relatively straightforward realist. But the story is then repeated twice more to show what could have happened and this is very formalist. But what do you classify as the story.

In retrospect the film is not as formalist as I had thought the only thing that is formalist is part of the story and a very small part of the form. It is a good film though.

Our film

We were told to make a formalist film in class based on the title the moving man. I decided to be an editor and so me and two other editors contributed to creating a formalist title sequence whilst the others were filming lighting and acting to get the content. We made a very creepy title sequence of some text moving across the screen and so to make it formalist we reversed it so it played backwards which was very formalist.

When the content was produced we found there wasn't much for us to do with it because there was no sound or relative story which we found hard but we made it into a collection of formalist clips done to portray the characters life. A lot of these clips were reversed as well to create a formalist atmosphere plus in between shots we had some text with the characters speeches, this was only portrayed through text not through sound and in my opinion was very formalist having a silent film aspect in our age of technology.

I think our editing was very good we managed to portray a formalist mood whilst leaving the sound editors enough space to create a story out of our clips. In my last post i said that a film can't have a formalist story and form. We tried this with this film and my point has been proved, our film made no sense it all, it was a bit of a joke seeing our accomplishments making the film but in all seriousness it did not work. An example of a film with a formalist story and realist form is minority report and signs, an example of a film with formalist form and realist story is sin city. An example of a film with formalist form and story is Brazil which many people found a great film but for me was unbearable because it was too much.