Rachel Hinckley

Minutes

10 min. - Setting up projector

10 min. - Watching Diva and paying special attention to the music and the camera angles.

15 min. - Discussing Diva and what can be done with camera angles and music. We talked about diegetic and non-diegetic music. Diegetic means “on the screen” and more litteraly means “in the world of the story.” The music in Diva seems at first non-diegetic but we find out that it is diegetic when the young boy turns it off. The woman opera singer is very obvious diegetic music. The director may have been proving that he could use music in a film better than Hollywood could. We also talked about how the director uses camera angles to establish relationships. Several examples that were pointed out were when you can see the singer in the men’s sunglasses, the series of shots that alternate between the young boy, the opera singer, and the men with sunglasses, and the use of close-ups to create cinematic space. The movie, Diva, is the French attempt to meet Hollywood head on by playing with intrigue, suspense, irony and stereotypes.

15 min. - Discussed the papers we read for homework. My group chose paper #2 as the “A” paper because it had good grammar and technical aspects. It was also a very easy and fun read. We did, however find a few problems with the paper. These included a lack-luster thesis, not enough examples, and not enough analysis. We chose paper #4 as the “C” paper because it started off well and had good points,, but could have been put together better. We chose paper #3 as the “D” paper because it was confusing used the wrong tense, did not have enough comparison of the movies, and did not have good use of language. Our group chose paper #1 as the “D-“ paper because it was only a summary of the two movies. There was no expression or analysis and, furthermore, the grammar was very bad.

20 min. - Discussed the papers as a class. The professor discussed what he likes to see in a paper and what he does not like to see in a paper.  While it is clear that papers take a position, we should avoid staing unsubstantiated or irrelevant opinion.  That is, avoid referring to the film as “the worst I have ever seen” or making comments such as “Americans love violence and that is wht Hollywood movies are violent.”

10 min. - Watched a scene from “La Femme Nikita”

10 min. - Watched a similar scene from “Point of No Return”

20 min. - Discussed the films, “La Femme Nikita” and “Point of No Return”. We noticed several differences between the two films. As the title may suggest “La Femme Nikita” is a story about a woman as opposed to “Point of No Return” which is an action film.  In the scene in question in “La Femme Nikita,” Nikita runs into a void and she is framed by the camera as if she is trapped. In the scene from “Point of No Return” Maggie runs toward the audience and seems to have plenty of room and plenty of options to escape from various situations.

10 min. - Watched a scene “La Strada” that showed a woman leaving her husband and walking to a city, where she merges into a religious procession.  The reason for the clip was to emphasize both the neo-realism and auteurist aspects of Fellini’s film.