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