Donnie Darko (2001)

I'm only partly though but I already really like this movie. They talk alot about The Destructors by Graham Greene. I read that short story in AP Lit this year when we started discussing deconstructionism. It was the first thing we did in the class. They also allude to Back To The Future with Donnie's comment about the Delorean.

It is a perfect resemblence to life as a teenager. Donnie is pessemistic and unhappy and doesn't want to be alone.

"let me just lay out what i believe is happening here, Donnie's aggressive behavior, his increased detachment from reality, seem to stem from his inability to cope with the forces in the world he percieves to be threatening."

"intruments of fear = alchohol, drugs, and pre marrital sex"

fear+love=life?

cellar door

"If the sky were to open up there would be no law, there would be no rule, there would only be you and your memories."

It's just another movie I can add to my list that seem to have deeply impacted me but I don't know how.

Movies I saw today

Frankenstein (1931)

Here i am about to post my notes and observations on the 1931 version of Boris Karloff's Frankenstein. We read the book in AP Lit and in order to earn extra credit, i am going to do what i do best and watch/analyze a movie!

Intro: "word of warning"

frankenstein = "man of science, sought to create without reckoning upon god"

2 great mysteries of creation: life and death

shows the style of film making in the period because the man who is doing the introducing isn't breaking the fourth wall and looking straight at the camera, he is looking over the camera. in teh 21st century he would look straight at the camera.

colin clive is frankenstein

opens to a funeral. camera pans around to all the people in mourning

man buries casket

two men unbury casket

"he's just resting, waiting for a new life to come."

of the two men, one is the inventor, one a hunchbacked henchman of the inventor

hunchback named fritz

Goldstadt medical college

criminals brain: "scarcity of convolusions on the frontal lobe"

henchman drops normal brain so he takes the criminals brain instead

"at night the winds howl in the mountains, there is noone here, prying eyes cant pere into my secrets. " -letter to elizabeth from henry

victor's last name Morris?!

victor is not elizabeth's love, henry is! henry frankenstein

henry is the inventor

"on the day elizabeth met the inventor he told her he did experiments"

so they didnt grow up together in this one

elizabeth demands to come with victor

henry frankenstein changed by result of his work

ambition to create life

only interested in human life: "first to destroy it then to create it"

uses electricity to bring monster to life

"this storm will be magnificent. all the electrical secrets of heaven"

"brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body i made with my own hands" - henry frankenstein

both henry frankenstein and victor love elizabeth

ultraviolet ray isnt highest color in the spectrum

"the great ray" will bring light into the world

the family has virtually no part in the movie except for Herr Baron the father.

the father believes its "another woman" that keeps Henry Frankenstein from marrying Elizabeth

"you have created a monster and it will destroy you"

monster put in complete darkness, "wait until [henry frankenstein] puts him out into the light"

monster is big and bulky, square head with bolts in neck. eyes slightly rolled back into head

H. Frank. is not afraid of the monster. he commands it to do a simple demand and it does it, just like a dog.

monster raises up his arms as if to catch the light when he is first exposed to it.

fritz brings around a torch with fire and the monster reacts scared of the fire

fritz whips monster

"come away fritz, leave it alone. leave it alone." - H.F.

fritz terrorizes the monster some more with a torch of fire

doctor and HF give the monster a tranquilizer

monster and HF scuffle

baron frankenstein

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Notes 12/12/09

Martin Sheen
Marlon Brando
slow side pans
"this is my friend the end my friend."
helicopter - fan reference
saigon
voice over narrative
"i hardly said a word to my wife until she asked for a divorce"
fire/napalm imagery
a mission - willard wants a mission
"i was going to the worst place in the world and i didnt even know it yet"
following a river that snaked through the wilderness like a circut that plugged straight into kurtz
walter E. kurtz
"i watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. thats my dream, thats my nightmare."
"we must kill them we must incinerate them"
in the background is a ceramic elephant when willard is given the job to find kurtz
"out there with these natives... theres a conflict with the human heart... and sometimes theres a dark side"
"terminate the colonel" " terminate with extreme prejudice"
"you understand captain that this mission doesnt exist not it will ever exist"
willard very conscience about killing but feels uncomfortable about killing "an american and an officer."
crew:
- "rock n rollers with one foot in their graves"
- chief phillips
- lance johnson - surfer
- snake tattoo on chef

camera crew there " dont look at the camera, just keep going." - shows the media's affect on the war
captain kilgore throws playing cards on vietnamese cadavers
kilgore talks about surfing with lance all non chalance while warfare goes on in the background
air lifts cow into the helicopter - same cow as the one sacrificed later?
"the more they tried to make it just like home the more they missed it."
robert duvall - lt. colonel bill kilgore
6 ft peak for surfing - "pretty hairy" "charlie don't surf"
flight of the valkaries - helicopters approach
vaugner
nazi's liked vaugner
"scares the hell out of the ___, my boys love it" - kilgore
men sit on helmets in the helicopter " not to get their balls blown off"
surfboards attached to the helicopter where the missles should be
kilgore wears a yellow ascot
woman carries grenade to a helicopter that carries wounded to safety - helicopter blows up
helicopter has two crossed swordsemblem and says "creature from above" or something like that
"surf or fight"
"if i say its safe to surf this beach its safe to search this beach"
"do you smell that? do you smell that? nothing else in the world smells like that... smells like.... victory" "some day this war's gonna end"
"i began to wonder what they really had against kurtz." more then just insanity and murder
chef wants to get some mangoes- specializes in sauces
chef and sheen find a tiger
crew gets hysterical about the tiger, confusing it with charlie
sheen is always dripping with sweat
"could have gone for general but went for himself instead"
kurtz only 39
operation archangel, no clearence
"bullshit in vietnam piled up so fast, you needed wings to stay above it"
Hau Phat
sheen freaks out on a supply man
playboy bunnies dance to susie q
dance with guns
all americans get to watch while vietnamese watch through a chain link fence - caged
"He had only 2 ways home: death or victory" - talking about charlie
circus imagery
complete demoralization of women.
one boat has nude playboy poster on side of the boat
takes place in 1968
kurtz orders assassination of 3 men and one woman
VC scared of kurtz
kurtz has son and wife
trash and napalm along coast of river
dead men in trees
routine check of local boat
local boat protects little puppy
end of act 1

charlie: "cut em in half and give them bandaid"
"you're in the asshole of the world captain"
eerie carnival music and lots of strings of white lights
lance carries puppy in jacket - wears camo makeup
hendrix esque guitar riffs play in background
no commanding officer
"like this bridge, we build it every night so charlie can plow it right back up again"
"never coming back"
^captain richard colby works with kurtz
crew talks about disneyland, purple haze, etc.
under gun it says canned heat
boat under attack
clean is hit, dog goes missing
clean's mom's tape play ironically as clean dies.
travel through mist and fog
its almost as if kurtz leaves a trail of death in his wake
"a spear" man in charge of crew that takes sheen to kurtz is killed
he tries to kill/suffocate sheen
sheen kills him back first
lance gives the captain of crew a proper water burial, sheen tells crew the reason why they are taking him to find kurtz
"part of me was afraid of what i would find and what i would do when i got there"
"desire to confront him" (kurtz)
sheen puts all of kurtz's files into the river
bass line heart beat
met in river by locals painted in white
all silence except for bassline heartbeat
man covered in cameras - american civilian, american journalist
all natives are colonel kurtz's "children"
"mans enlarged mind"
"do you know that if is the middle word in life?"
finds colby
keats severs heads
keats "forgets himself with his people"
"pagan idolitry" says chef about kurtz
"it smelled like slow death in there. malaria, nightmares. this is the end of the river all right"
kurtz asks sheen how far he is from the river - ohio river
kurtz washes blad head with water -cover of the dvd
kurtz's bald head glistens with water just like sheen sweats
(method unsound - goes totally insane)
^what the army says about kurtz
"not assassin, not soldier, but errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect the bill" kurtz says to willard
more purple haze
"weak, clear in his mind.... soul is mad" photo journalist says of kurtz
"he dies when it dies, it dies when he dies" photojournalist of kurtz
chef might have bird or penguin tattoo
after 8 hours chef calls in on radio
"all mighty, all might"
kurtz approaches willard w/ lance esque camo makeup. says nothing but hands him chefs head - severed
kurtz keeps willard in captivity - weakens him
lots of 3/4 silloetes profiles lightening
"we are the hollow men..." monologue
kurtz reads from book
"this is the way the fucking world ends" said by photojournalist
"i'd never seen a man so broken up" willard of kurtz
you have no right to judge me kill me - kurtz
"What horror, horror horror has a face (of the fates), and you must make a friend of horror, horror and moral terror, are your friends, if they are not then they are enemies to be feared, they are truly enemies"

pile of little arms of inoculated polio children
kurtz cried "like some grandmother"
"like i was shot by a diamond, shot by a diamond bullet right through my forehead"

not monsters-but men

"you have to have men who are moral and at the same time have the ability to kill with primotial instincts
judgement defeats
kill claf ceremonially
"even the jungle wanted him dead, thats who he really took his orders from anyway"

no writing fuck on the airplane its obscene
kill calf kill kurtz
hack away
"The horror the horror"
native girl witnesses willard killing kurtz
kneals down in mourning in the doorway
"drop the bomb, exterminate them all" written in manuscript
natives bow to willard - he replaces brando as god
starts to rain as lance and willard leave
quote t.s. elliott

The Pillowman (a play by Martin McDonagh)

9/29/09

Playwriting

McBurney 1º

The Pillowman

Martin McDonagh

 

 

The Pillowman is not a story for the weak hearted or minded. It is also a story unmistakably written by the great Irish playwright, Martin McDonagh. He doesn’t shirk away from violence or uncomfortable relationships, pain, or death. The Pillowman is no exception.

McDonagh starts The Pillowman with three men in an interrogation room. One man sits at the table while the other two ask him questions. The man at the desk is Katurian Katurian, a writer. The two other men are Ariel and Tupolski. They question Katurian about his stories. Katurian has written many stories; only one that has been published. The beginning of the play is very confusing. All the reader knows is that the writer is being questioned for a crime he doesn’t seem to know about. Katurian is very innocent. He answers the officers as politely and completely as possible. Ariel and Tupolski reply to Katurian’s words with harsh cut voices. They seem convinced that Katurian is guilty of the unsaid crime. Katurian thinks he’s in trouble because of making political statements in his works. Finally the plot thickens when the officers tell Katurian they have his brother looked up in the next room over. He begs the men to not harm his brother Michal; he’s a little slow. Ariel, the more malicious of the two goes next door and screams start to filter through to Katurian and Tupolski. Tupolski shuffles through Katurian’s stories and asks him about a few. The Little Apple Men is a tale about a girl with an abusive father who carves little apple men and gives them to her father. She tells him not to eat them. The father does and dies because apple men have a razor blade buried securely into their cores. Another story, The Tale of the Town on the River, is about a rider who finds a young boy on the side of the road and chops off his toes. Town on the River is supposed to be a prelude to the well-known story of the Pied Piper. Each of Katurian’s tales a more gruesome then the next. Tupolski also shows him an article in the local newspaper about a missing girl and asks him if he knows anything about it. Ariel walks back into the room and both man force Katurian down the hall to his brother’s room after they beat him up a bit.

Katurian is flung at into the room and lands at his unharmed brother’s feet. The two are reacquainted and Katurian inquires to Michal what went on when Ariel came to see him. Michal tells Katurian that Ariel commanded him to say he had murdered the missing children and if he did he wouldn’t get hurt. Katurian curses Michal for not denying the crimes.

The scene changes and Katurian breaks the fourth wall. He tells the audience his only autobiographical story, The Writer and the Writer’s Brother. Two loving parents who give him love and support raise Katurian. They urge him to be as artistic as possible. He decides to pursue writing. When he turns seven he starts to hear screaming from the locked room next door. When young Katurian inquires to his parents about the noise they tell him it’s his active imagination. As the screams continue, Katurian’s stories get darker and better. Seven years later a note comes out from the locked room. It says that Katurian’s brother (the one he didn’t know he had) was being tortured in that room every night for seven years. It was all a sick artistic experiment conducted by Michal and Katurian’s parents. Katurian forces open the door to find his supposed dead brother holding a story written better then anything Katurian could have written. He burns the manuscript. While the present day Katurian tells this story to Michal in the holding cell he tells Michal the tortured brother was the true writer. Katurian smothered both his parents with a pillow after he found Michal half dead in the room.

Katurian tells Michal three more stories, the one of The Little Jesus, The Little Green Pig and The Pillowman. Michal then tells Katurian he really did kill the kids. He used Katurian’s story lines as instructions in how to mutilate each child. Michal told him that the latest missing girl was deaf and was killed the same way as Jesus just like in Katurian’s The Little Jesus. Michal falls asleep in Katurian’s arms. Katurian takes a nearby pillow and smothers Michal.

Ariel and Tupolski bring Katurian out of Michal’s room and back into the first interrogation room. Katurian confesses to all three of Michal’s crimes and the murder of Michal and his parents. Tupolski is surprised by the sudden change in Katurian. They start to explain the steps to killing a murderer. They review the way Katurian “killed” the three kids. The reader finds out that Ariel had an abusive father. Since the little deaf girl’s body wasn’t found yet, Katurian explained, “where he buried her” and the officers have people go find the little girl. It turns out Michal lied to Katurian. He told him that he had acted out The Little Jesus story when in reality he had acted out The Little Green Pig story. The girl came to the interrogation room unharmed, covered in green paint, with two piglets under each arm. Tupolski realizes Katurian lied about murdering the children but still has to kill Katurian because he murdered his family. All Katurian wants is for Tupolski to count to ten in between putting the death hood on Katurian and shooting Katurian, and he wants the officers to preserve his stories by putting them in the case file. Tupolski shoots Katurian after seven seconds but Ariel convinces him to save the stories.

Martin McDonagh was born in Camberwell, London, England on March 26^th 1970. When Martin was 16 his parents left England for Ireland; leaving Martin and his brother. He started collecting unemployment benefits at age sixteen.  In 1996 McDonagh wrote The Beauty Queen of Leenane. He finished the trilogy a year later. The Leenane trilogy also includes The Skull of Connemara (1997), and The Lonesome West (1997). Both Beauty Queen and Connemara were nominated for a Tony Award in the category of Best Play. His second trilogy was made up of The Cripple of Inishmaan (1997), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001), and The Banshee of Inisheer. The Banshee was not satisfactory for McDonagh so he never had it published. In 2003 The Pillowman was premiered. It was his first non-Irish play. He’s also written two radio-plays. Lately McDonagh has pursued a career in film writing.  He wrote the screenplay for Six Shooter (2006) and In Bruges (2008). McDonagh plans to premiere his newest play, A Behanding in Spokane, in 2009.

McDonagh was nominated for a Tony Award in the category of Best play for

The Beauty Queen of Leenane in 1998, The Lonesome West in 1999, The Lieutenant of Inishmore in 2006, and The Pillowman in 2005. In Bruges was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, a British Independent Film Award for Best Screenplay in 2008, an Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild Award for Best Film Script in 2009 and a BAFTA in Best Original Screenplay in 2009. The Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards called McDonagh Most Promising Playwright for The Beauty Queen in 1996. The Pillowman won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2004.

    My favorite scene in the play is when McDonagh has Katurian tell The Story of the Writer and the Writer’s Brother. Not only does it show McDonagh’s talent for storytelling but also it had clear and concise directions for the actors and directors on how he wanted the scene portrayed. Not unlike the interrogation room and Michal’s holding room, The Story of the Writer and the Writer’s Brother has two rooms right next to each other. While the present day Katurian stands forward and narrates, a young Katurian acts out the scene. I believe it’s a great portrayal of McDonagh’s talent as a playwright.

 

Quotes from Broadway Review:

“One electric shock of a moment in the first act jolts comfort-food-fed Broadway audiences the way the shower scene in ‘Psycho’ must have slapped moviegoers four decades ago.”

“What ‘The Pillowman’ is about, above all, is storytelling and the thrilling narrative potential of theater itself. Let's make one thing clear: Mr. McDonagh is not preaching the power of stories to redeem or cleanse or to find a core of solid truth hidden among life's illusions.”

“The relationship between narrator and listener has its sadomasochistic aspects. And on one level "The Pillowman" recalls what the French director Henri-Georges Clouzot said about his 1955 cinematic chiller, “Diabolique”: “I sought only to amuse myself and the little child who sleeps in all our hearts - the child who hides her head under the bedcovers and begs, ‘Daddy, Daddy, frighten me.’ “

“To pursue these lines of thought is to fall into the very traps Mr. McDonagh has set to mock such analysis. Asked by Tupolski to explain symbols and subtext in one of his stories, Katurian answers, "It's a puzzle without a solution." Which is pretty much Mr. McDonagh's credo. But, oh, how he enjoys his puzzles.”

 

Movies this week: 11/1/09

Casablanca (1941)

3.24.09

History Through Film

Mr. Glasier

Casablanca

              “Probably on more lists of the greatest films of all time than any other single title, including Citizen Kane’, because of its wider appeal; while Citizen Kane is ‘greater’, Casablanca is more loved.” - Roger Ebert

Casablanca is the world’s most popular romantic movie about World War II. It has an award winning cast including Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Like most movies made in the 1940’s it has a theme relating to the war. In fact, Casablanca was one of the first movies to deal with war. The story is a bout a couple that runs into each other in Casablanca, Morocco. Ilsa, Bergman’s character, escapes to Casablanca with her husband, Victor Lazlo. Lazlo is wanted by the Germans because of his role in the resistance. At a Rick’s American Café Ilsa finds Sam, an old friend of hers from Paris. She asks to hear “As time goes by,” the theme of the award winning soundtrack.

        “You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss,

A sigh is just a sigh. 
The fundamental things apply 


As time goes by. And when two lovers woo

They still say, "I love you." 
On that you can rely 


No matter what the future brings, as time goes by.

Moonlight and love songs, never out of date.

Hearts full of passion 
jealousy and hate, Woman needs man 


And man must have his mate 
That no one can deny.”

The song is the story of Ilsa and her lover, Rick. They love each other but ironically, “no matter what the future brings” doesn’t work for the couple because World War II enters France. They are forced to split paths. America is using the movie to show how willing the people are, that they loose love in order to escape war. From seeing this, the viewer sympathizes with the couple. It makes them gain a grudge against war just like the Americans stayed out of the war until they couldn’t any longer.

            Rick’s Café is the most Comforting place among the more native locations in Casablanca. Rick’s is a venue with drinking, dancing, and gambling, yet another place where people can escape the terrors of war. Rick is caught in between his love for Ilsa and his duty to his country. Just like before, Rick, the American, has to choose to get involved in war for the first time. His competitor, Lazlo, is a hard person to dislike. Rick is aware that he is a good man so he doesn’t want to take Ilsa away from him. Lazlo always wears white clothing, signifying his angelic nature.

            Unlike Lazlo, Major Strasser, the German leader, always wears black. His gruff manor is unlikable. In one scene the Germans are playing the German national anthem and then the French start singing their national anthem over the Germans. It shows the popularity of the French (as American allies) in Casablanca. Captain Renault: “Carl, see that Major Strasser gets a good table, one close to the ladies. “ Carl: “I have already given him the best, knowing he is German and would take it anyway.” This quote shows how the filmmakers were unafraid to make a statement about Germans stealing what is best. This also might be related to the Germans only taking the highest level of human, the Aryan race.

            All in all, Casablanca is a pro-American, propaganda, film. In the last scene the cinematographer artfully shows the visual of Rick talking to Ilsa and telling her what’s best for them. He then becomes a patriot as he lets his “most prized possession” leave with Lazlo. Because Louis doesn’t turn in Rick for shooting the German leader, it signifies the good relationship between France and America. Casablanca uses its romantic finesse and shadowy lighting to smoothly suggest America is the “good guy”. They hope for the movie to make the viewers nationalist in order to help the war effort.