Author: Zonghao-M-Wang

The Truman Show is rich in camera language and profound in its philosophy. It is a film with flexible lens language. The film has done a very good job in the topic selection, narrative technique and the choice of actors. At the same time, it also makes use of small means such as plot contrast and music foil to make the film seem absurd and funny, which adds a lot to the film. 

Director Peter Weir purposely creates an atmosphere of mystery, and at first things go wrong in The Truman Show. Truman finds clues step by step and gives hints, which attracts the audience to keep curious and adventurous with him. With the solution of the riddle solved, the audience escapes from the false world together with Truman, who discovers the truth, and regains freedom. 

In addition, director Peter Weir uses dramatic narrative mode to make the film develop step by step. From the beginning, Truman wants to go to Fiji most, to his fear of the sea after the death of his “father”, to his discovery of the truth, flashbacks and other techniques to make the plot clear and smooth, and to reach the climax step by step: The sharp conflict between Truman and the “world”, the tense avoidance of thousands of cameras, overcome the fear of the sea, overcome the man-made wind and waves, finally towards freedom and truth. “A masterfully executed cautionary tale” (Michael R from the Rotten Potatoes.) The style of the movie is so unique that it really touches the audiences’ heart.

There are a variety of shots in the film. There are one after another shots in front and back of the film shot from above, even though the center of the shot has always been Truman, the leading role. Different shooting angles correspond to the plot, which enriches the connotation. Such as Truman open his secret box shot taken from behind, filming Truman’s back and his hand movements, items, and the audience can more deeply feel the space is narrow, the environment of darkness, to understand the Truman show was found from the camera, don’t want to things, because can’t see the door of the expression, also can feel a kind of mystery, When Truman was spotted piecing together the face of his first love Sylvia, it touched viewers’ hearts. Another example is that every time Truman talks with his friend Marlon，it is always at dusk or at night, and the middle scene in the back of the scene is more lonely with the background of the surrounding darkness. Truman expresses his confusion, but Marlon is guided by the director Christof on how to dispel Truman’s concerns. Therefore, in such a quiet atmosphere, it seems that they have a heart to heart. In fact, Truman was the only one who felt the irony of being confused and helpless.

There are several scenes in which TV director Christof  touches Truman’s face on the screen. Finally, when Truman is about to leave, his retention of Truman can also show that he loves Truman. He claims to be “the person who knows Truman the best in the world”, and what the director represents is the role of parents. Even though he never appeared in front of him, he created this world for Truman without his consent, and all the perfect things he thought he gave came at the cost of Truman’s freedom. Even the parents who give life should understand that everyone is independent and has the right to choose their own life and pursue the life they really want. Love is not the reason for binding, let alone selfish love. He is a True man who lives for himself. “The answers provided by the movie show that The Truman Show is a radical critique of commonly held assumptions about God.” ( Robert S. Gall journal) 

I have never thought about the influence of a script on a play. In many cases, I pay more attention to the director’s shooting techniques and the actors’ interpretation. But this film is an exception, I can feel the powerful thought of a screenwriter, his exploration of humanity and life. While everyone was praising Truman, who starred Jim Carrey, for his admirable performance, in my mind, the structure of the script is significantly outstanding.

Seaheaven Island is absurd, but all of the logic of The Truman Show is real. This film highlights the core of “the pursuit of truth and freedom requires great faith and courage”. To some extent, its core is similar to the core of Shawshank Redemption for the pursuit of hope and freedom. Different from the latter, The Truman Show has a novel theme and fantastic story, but it can highlight the core in this unrestrained narrative, which makes it a good work.

“The Truman Show is a “science fiction” in the most artsy way, bland and full of twists and turns, meaningful but not boring at all, and so bizarre an imagination that it often feels unreal. But the Truman Show, with its superb actors, complete timeline, powerful detail and near-perfect logic, tells us to be ourselves and not to be chained.

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If the Truman show is measured in terms of literary genre, then I think it belongs to the absurd novel. The essence of the Absurd novel is that it constructs the absurd social order, and the core that the author wants to highlight is what still maintains the normal social logic at this time. The Truman world doesn’t exist in real life yet (and it may someday, thanks to technology), but the life in and out of the “paradise” depicted in the film is downright realistic. Truman’s desire for the outside world, his friends’ deception for profit, the director’s desire for control, and the voyeuristic desire of the people outside the “paradise” all make The Truman Show seem so real.

The main plot of the film is clearly Truman himself. His father’s resurrection and being kidnapped make Truman begin to doubt the reality of the world he lives in. The attitude of his family and friends makes Truman begin to doubt whether the people around him are also actors. Later, various travel plans are obstructed and his life is manipulated, which makes Truman finally decide to leave Paradise Island and pursue the real world. In addition to Truman, several supporting performances are the icing on the cake. Malone’s good guidance, from the actor’s role of incompetent friend to Truman disappeared in the scene of the general control of the role switch; Christopher’s mastery of everything, from Truman’s birth to his final admonitions about his imminent departure from Peach Land, makes sense in this absurd atmosphere.

Truman each role in everyday life and missing or anxious or frustrated when the image contrast is very interesting, from the fact revealed they don not Truman’s friend, Truman himself everyday sweet and kind and worthless in their eyes, and he disappeared will make these supporting relentlessly lambasting him as a bastard.

The film has done a very good job in the topic selection, narrative technique and the choice of actors. At the same time, it also makes use of small means such as plot contrast and music foil to make the film seem absurd and funny, which adds a lot to the film.

Nowadays,the TV screen is full of reality shows, but I feel deeply helpless and sad. Because we suddenly realized that in fact, each of us is Truman, or even less than Truman. We spend our whole life wandering in a “set” world, but unable to get out of our “Truman’s world”. Perhaps Jim Carrey felt the same deep sense of powerlessness in The Truman Show, when, shortly after the film’s release, he fell into a severe depression. Can you imagine that? He used the world’s most funny performance, amused hundreds of millions of audience, but his heart, is dark and painful.

Jim Carrey and the film achieved each other, although it did not win the Oscar awards, but judging from the people’s comments, this is a great film, can make the audience resonate and reflect. Time will tell, as The Truman Show is still a super classic and worth watching multiple times.

By Exploring the surface part of the movie, how much did it cost to finish this movie. How was the selling. By researching critics and comments in order to get a general idea about the movie. The movie received really really good audience and ratings. IMDB rating of 8.3 tells that it is, actually a good movie. Beyond that, got a 100% on the Rotten Tomatoes. Those are definitely positive ratings toward the movie. I think that way too. The movie is exciting not only because the competition between those two legendaries, but off court as well.

Then we explore more about the movie by selecting specific elements or characteristics of the movie. For instance, the red color in Ford v Ferrari performs in many functions. Also look deeper into the criticisms into the movie in order to have a more solid understanding.

The critics all have one thing in common, They are all admiring the portrayal of the two legendary drivers in this movie and presenting the audience with two flesh-and-blood characters.

Starting to look into the style of the movie and the genre of it, what particular elements have made this movie unique and make the movie stands out. Ford v Ferrari is special is because it is a commercial biopic movie. Since this is a racing biographical film that takes into account both commercial and plot, the film naturally put a lot of effort into the script. The first is the biography of the award season.

Analyzing the movie by particular scenes and different segmentations. The different scenes compose to a sequence. All these sequences compose to a great commercial biopic racing movie which is the Ford v Ferrari. The film is more traditional, it is a commercial biopic, it expresses as much as it can to the audience what it wants to see, because the film exists to let the audience understand what happened between Ford and Ferrari in 1960. The result was clear, with Ford working day and night, regardless of the cost, to beat Ferrari. There were conflicts, doubts and disappointments between the roles, but in the end it all seemed less important when Ford finished on the podium.

The star performance element in that movie is given by Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio. Two huge stars from Hollywood and show outstanding performances in this movie. Bale as Ken Miles and DiCaprio as Shelby, as two most important roles in that movie, leading characters as well.

Editing refers literally to how shots are put together to make up a film. Traditionally a film is made up of sequences. In this film, the difficulty of editing is how to show the tension during the competition and make the audience feel excited. When not playing, use smooth transitions to introduce the audience to the information they need to know.

the Twentieth Century Fox did not make tons of profit on this movie, though it’s excellently in my view. The budget of the movie was $97600000, it’s a ton of money to put on a movie, although, the domestic sale of the movie is about $99304000, and $86847000 internationally. The totally releases worldwide was about $186000000. In conclusion, the film itself was generally good, but not as good on its business perspective. The 20th Century Fox did not get a good sale on this big project.

The movie is biopic, but the theme was racing and business competition between two legendary automakers. Though it tries to stay as close as how the reality was at that time. The 20th Century Fox did a good job by making it less boring but more commercial and fun instead.

The film begins to move in two directions. First up are the official introduction of the two main characters, Matt Damon’s legendary former motorcyclist turned carmaker Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale’s character driver Ken Myers. Shelby is responsible for building cars on behalf of Ford and liaising with headquarters. Miles was responsible for testing the car and participating in various races. Moreover, the editing of this film is also very wonderful, with all kinds of smooth transitions, without making the audience feel unnatural. That’s the advantage of Continuity Editing, clear narrative, making the movie a better story teller. In this film, the difficulty of editing is how to show the tension during the competition and make the audience feel excited. When not playing, use smooth transitions to introduce the audience to the information they need to know.

The movie is in a pattern that it has tons of outstanding transitioning skills when editing the movie. For instance, a lot of car elements were introduced into the scenes when they are almost finished. Two times that the movie uses Ken’s child’s toy cars to end the scenes and go on to the next shots. It helps the movie to stick to its theme when it’s not even talking about racing but introducing movie characters.

At last year’s Oscars, “Ford v Ferrari” won two awards for best film editing and best sound editing for its breathless graphics. With its excellent audio-visual effects, the film has captivated audiences and critics around the world since its debut at the beginning of awards season. The Hollywood Reporter called it “a racing saga with strong dramatic and historical roots.” Challenging the new racing and biographical genre, the film minimizes CG effects and uses a lot of live action to restore the most intense and exciting racing scenes. In the movie, the cars roar past, and the audience can feel the vibration of the car, the friction of the tires and the roar of the engine. The sense is so real because the group insists not to use special sound effect to “make the sound” but to record it. It makes the whole movie more credible.

So for the Pan’s Labyrinth, which is a horror movie, but there are not too many usual horror movie editing signs, I am talking about those jump scare shots. There are more about how the movie shapes its environment, as those dark, scary，gloomy scenarios. The most “jump scare” scene in that movie I’ve seen is when the monster without eyes suddenly gets up and chase after Ophelia. Pan’s Labyrinth is a very good example of cross cut editing because it introduces the story line of the civil war. A lot articles have mentioned about Pan’s Labyrinth two storylines because it’s uniqueness. Also, The masterful place of this film is that it does not have too many scary scenes, but by setting up the atmosphere, the audience can be filled with fear of the unknown world in the movie.

Pan’s Labyrinth uses cut on action in many parts of its film. The camera easily transitions through the simplest of edits, for example the scene where Ophelia goes to sit on the bed beside her mother. The shot starts with Ophelia walking towards the bed and ends with her sit at the edge. Next the edit cuts to show her feet coming up and putting a blanket on herself and her mother. This easy transition made it a more effortless to zoom in and bring the viewer in on the intimate conversation that would soon take place.  

Cinematic sound is one of the fundamental elements of the film medium. It changes the film from a purely visual medium to a combination of audio-visual media, and makes the relative spatio-temporal structure expressed by visual factors in silent films in the past turn into a relative spatio-temporal structure expressed by visual and auditory factors. The sound in Pan’s Labyrinth, the most outstanding sound is the background music.  For horror movies, quiet time is like walking in an abyss, and the quieter it is, the more it can arouse people’s fear of the unknown. Music, on the other hand, can somehow reveal what’s going on. Obviously there is no music that can give the audience a sense of mystery and fear.

These are all good examples of a good mise-en-scene like props, costumes and all other elements that relates to the movie.The most seen element in the Ford Vs Ferrari off course is the race cars and all kinds of machine elements that related to the race car field. The Le Mans race setting were smoothly introduced to the audience too. By introducing a significant amount of racing element to the audience, it helps the people who watches the movie have a more solid understanding of what was going on with the movie. By watching the movie for many times, it’s clear that the movie is trying to link everything with their theme, the race. Since it’s very historical, all its locations, props, costumes were realistic as much as possible. For a biopic based film like this, it’s very normal and necessary for the movie to respect history. The movie should do its best to present what exactly happened before at that particular time. The viewers are satisfied of its retro model cars used in the movie. It’s exactly like the cars back in that Le Mans race.

The book suggests performances through the concept of gesturality. 「Traditions of performance, then, have national as well as individual resonances and need to be borne in mind when analysing a star’s performative style.」 (Cinema Studies, Hayward 183). Since this movie is commercial but also a biopic movie. Its performance is realistic because it’s required to fit into the actual situation, the reality. The facial expression and voice stands out more in this movie. These are two good tools to show the passion of the film and make the movie more expressive. The star performance element in that movie is given by Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio. Two huge stars from Hollywood and show outstanding performances in this movie. Bale as Ken Miles and DiCaprio as Shelby, as two most important roles in that movie, leading characters as well. Especially the scene that Ken’s championship been stolen by another racer, that kind of disappointed and helpless expression is performed by two people very vivid.

Dialogues are typical in the movie, because these biopic kind movies need tons of background info to tell the audience what was exactly going on at that time. So the best method is to use dialogues, let the audience gather information from the communications between characters. And the movie is bright itself, it does not need all those colors for heightening the atmosphere of the movie. what’s unusual is that It’s easy to see that the narrative rhythm and technique are in place, and a lot of hooks are used to keep the audience, but Miles’ actions are basically forced, while Shelby is always on the initiative. Fortunately, Bell’s acting makes the character alive and makes up for the lack of being the puppet of the plot. About the camera angles. In the race when shooting the race cars, it’s narrower and keep two cars to fit the whole screen. When shooting Shelby, the camera is wider, to make a compare with him and the audience in the movie. This cinematography fits the movie since the whole movie is basically telling a story.

Directors often experience, capture and design the keynote of films based on their own life experience, artistic sense, and social speculation and insight, according to the performance content, film themes and selected styles provided by literary scripts. Each creative department decides its own creative tone based on the keynote of the whole film determined by the director, such as the keynote of performance, modeling, photography, color and so on. In the end, the keynote of the film is expressed in the medium of abundant scene modeling elements and sound modeling elements, which is manifested in the main style characteristics and artistic characteristics of the film. All these elements are meant to help the movie to get better and make audiences adore it.

      In the Pan’s Labyrinth, a lot of dark matters emerge, for instance the creatures that we don’t see in our lives which we call monsters, the herb that can cure anything, the elf that guides Ophelia. But one the other storyline, the soldiers fighting each other, its color is brighter than the trials given by Pan to Ophelia. And the costumes and the film props are normal, people wear soldier costumes and take pistols just like in real life. This movie is a horror movie, so the horror scenes, the frightening creatures, the setting beyond the imagination is the typical of this movie. Doug Jones has played villains and monsters in many movies.

      The book suggests performances through the concept of gesturality. “Traditions of performance, then, have national as well as individual resonances and need to be borne in mind when analysing a star’s performative style.”(Cinema Studies, Hayward 183). The Pan’ Labyrinth performance is exaggerated because the movie has to display the cruelty of the civil war and the danger of Ophelia’s adventures. Which stands out is the performance of the Pan, the mystery god from the underworld. The expression and movement of Pan is so real to the audience because it is not special effect but real man in a real suit. One specific detail is that when Ophelia broke the rule and chose not to give out her brother’s blood. Pan seemed disappointed but relieved. The star performance given by Doug Jones really put it together, he displayed a gentle monster. He is a outstanding monster player. He is also the player of the water monster in Guillermo’s another movie The Shape Of Water. A real master of action acting since monsters usually don’t have dialogues.

      Pan’s Labyrinth is a horror movie. It’s typical for horror movies to set dark depressing environment. Going back to the two sets of storylines, the scenes in this film are very dark indeed, not just the normal civil war storyline or the fantastic adventure storyline. The director used dark scenes to heighten the depressing atmosphere of the whole film. It’s like a harbinger of the movie’s sad ending. I think what’s unusual about this movie is that there are no reversals, and usually movies have all kinds of reversals, like sadness to joy or vice versa. The film doesn’t give the audience that element, and the dark scenes are used all the way to the end, as if Ophelia’s fate is doomed and will not change. Cinematography of this movie sets the tone of the movie. For instance in the Pan’s Labyrinth, the dark scenes has already told the audience that this movie will be a tragic.

The sequences of this film is very intriguing, hinting at the cruelty of the civil war and the terror of dictatorship all the time. I have watched this film for three times with a heavy heart, and every time I will sigh. Clearly, the film’s main theme is “a cruel tale of cold reality interlaced with a beautiful little girl’s fantasy.” There is no underground kingdom, no afterlife, no hope of a better life. Ophelia was robbed of her precious life by the horror of the heart and the cruelty of reality.

The tree is dying from a very cunning Angle, one left and one right, like two forces to pull it apart, the left wing coalition and the right fascist regime will break the withered old tree, a symbol of the tear of national ideology and the decline of national strength. Like the battle between the guerrillas and Vidal, the civil war has devastated the country, which is no longer as vibrant as a normal tree, but as dead as a lightning bolt that has split it in two.

Another standout sequence in the film is the magic grass that Phan gave Ophelia, La Mandragora. It does not need Ophelia to pay a huge sacrifice, only need a little ox and a few drops of blood, can help Carmen to breed a new life. He is not aggressive, and in such a depressing film, there is a moment of relief, but only for a few minutes. What happens next is even more brutal. No one is on Ophelia’s side, no one believes him, the herbs are thrown into the furnace, and the mother dies in childbirth. Her father thought nothing of her life and only cared about the boy he was going to have.

This is not so much a dark fairy tale，but as a reflection on the national conditions of Spain at that time. While it’s letting people hit to abandon innocence, it tells people to grow up as well.

Since this is a racing biopic that combines business with plot, a lot of effort was naturally put into the script. First, an introduction to the awards season. “Ford vs. Ferrari” is based on the true story of the legendary rivalry between two of the world’s most beloved car brands, Ford and Ferrari. Most notable rivalries in history have stemmed from the struggle for power or the preservation of damaged faces. The rivalry between Ford and Ferrari is one of them. This makes the film very unique. These two legendary companies, instead of competing in the most direct way, did not compete purely commercially, but focused on racing cars. This makes the theme of the story very novel and compelling. Of course, compared to other movies, the racing theme is probably too ordinary, like the Fast and the Furious was also a movie about racing, but this documentary is unique.
The climax of the film was, of course, the car race. Every car and every team is built with money. As for racing, I think most people like me love cars and enjoy the effect of the car element on their brains. But in fact, that’s not the true understanding of racing. I’m just a layman. Racing requires not only the physics of the engineer, but also the technical understanding of the driver. Under the high-speed control of such equipment, a careless accident is unpredictable, which not only tests the driver’s psychological quality, but also the ultimate test of the driver’s physical quality, which is very difficult for a layman like me, it is very difficult to estimate. So when I watch the car racing part of the movie, my attention has to switch back and forth between the tachometer and the psychology of the character, and when the movie takes the audience into the process of the movie, the movie is successful. The scene of the game gave me a very special feeling of the combination of static and static. Some things don’t change in a high-speed car, sometimes the lights, sometimes the car shell, sometimes the rain. All in all, this experience is very special for me.
The film is more traditional, it’s a commercial biopic, and it’s as much about what it wants to see as it can, because the film exists to help the audience understand what happened between Ford and Ferrari in 1960. The result was clear: Ford worked around the clock to beat Ferrari at all costs. There are conflicts, doubts and disappointments between the characters, but in the end, when Ford takes the podium, it doesn’t seem to matter that much. Because the film is an ordinary biopic, he doesn’t have too many critical elements. Perhaps the most important thing he wanted to say was don’t annoy your competitors. In fact, Ferrari has already made two formidable rivals, Lamborghini and Ford. At the same time, biographical subjects delve deeply into the personalities of their characters and have lofty ambitions. The trailer opens with a belligerent greeting from Shelby and Myers. One second fist fights, and the next two are lying on the grass drinking Coke and cheering. This leads the audience curious which is a good technique.