Film Texts

1. The Seventh Seal- Ingmar Bergman

The first clip, from 'The Seventh Seal', showed a knight faced with death, though he manages to avoid his fate by challenging death to a game of chess. The first line of the film (read by a narrator) is a reference from the bible: 'And when the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour... And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.' (Revelation 8:1 and 8:6). This passage is about the apocalypse. Shortly after this is read, death appears before the knight. Death is depicted in an interesting way in the film. The actor themself does not look particularly frightening and does not wear a mask or anything similar to cover his face. A human figure, death is dressed in a black cloak, giving you the impression that he (or it) is something like a shadow, rather than the horrific figure you might imagine. The lack of music in this portion of the clip (and sound altogether besides the dialogue) adds to the sinister mood. Another technique in the film is the use of black and white, which I think may have been used to create contrast. For example, the idea is good and evil in relation to the colours of the chess pieces (death uses black while the knight uses white). The idea of man cheating death is hardly a new one- is has been a commonly used idea in popular culture probably for centuries, and neither is the idea of death playing chess, but the clip is still an interesting one.



2. All or Nothing- Mike Leigh

This clip (towards the end of the movie 'All or Nothing') involved a couple coming to terms with the unhappiness of their relationship, enabling them to then have some form of reconciliation. Phil and Penny's son has just had a heart attack and after an angry and frustrated outburst from Penny, Phil opens up to his wife about how he doesn't think she loves him anymore. It's a rather confronting scene- lots of dialogue, close-ups and tears. Even before they started talking, the scene was bleak and sad, with a rather grainy, drained of colour look and dull lighting- showing that there is a lack of joy in their household. Phil, who has very poor self esteem and could very easily have depression is shot mostly from a side view, hunched over himself. This gives the impression that he is hiding, protecting himself and that he's insecure, unable to look at Penny until he confronts her with his thoughts. He describes himself as 'an old tree that ain't got no water'. Penny reacts badly to his accusations and I can't decide whether she reacted the way she did because she really does still love him or if what he was saying was true and was forcing her to confront her own feelings. I think for now I'll believe she still does love him, just not what he had become.


3. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg- Jacques Demy

'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg' is about a young man and woman who are in,love, but then the man has to go to war (on National service) for two years. In contrast to the previous two clips, the colours and lighting in this clip were very bright and cheerful, despite the fact that the man was leaving (they were more reflective of the love story as a whole rather than what was happening at that specific time). Despite not being a fan of musicals, the film still looked to be quite interesting, as the whole movie is sung. Because of this, the film seems to be even more dramatic than your average love story. Also, the language suited the sad scenes well as the use of French (as opposed to English which can could very crude in distressing situations) suited the genre well. At then end of the clip, the woman became smaller and smaller as the train drew further and further away from the station, signifying how lonely and sad she was feeling.


4. Don't look Now- Nicholas Roeg

I thought that this clip, the opening of 'Don't look Now', (directed by Nicholas Roeg) was quite well done. Editing was very important for this clip, with the camera jumping forwards and backwards between the characters. Parallels were drawn between what the children (a boy and a girl) are doing outside and what their parents are doing inside, ending with the tragic death of the daughter, having drowned in a large pond. Some examples of this technique include the father throwing the cigarettes and the girl throwing the ball, the girl and the mother both touching their face, and the glass being knocked over and the ball falling in the pond, resulting in the spreading of the red section of the photograph and the death of the girl. Though this scene was rather confusing at first, it proved to be rather effective. The colour red also plays a big role in the film, mainly due to the fact that that is the colour coat that the girl is wearing at the time of her death (her name also happens to be Scarlett). Something else I noticed when watching this clip was a rather creepy sound effect. I know that is used at least once more towards the end of the film, but it likely also plays multiple times throughout. It's a hard effect to describe, but it just gives you that feeling that something bad is going to happen.


5. Walkabout- Nicholas Roeg

The last clip from the film 'Walkabout' showed Adelaide in the early 70's. The majority of the clip showed the children of a small family and their father. The city is shown to be very busy and modern, and was shown in contrast to the barren landscape of central Australia. Many interesting shots are used in the depiction of the city. The director included many shots partly obstructed by buildings, and others showed things such as the sky reflected from the windows of buildings, and the sunlight struggling get beyond the ugly man-made city. Overall, it is shown as bleak and rather unhappy, dominated by man. There are also many shots only showing people from the waist down and others in uniform, suggesting that there is no sense of individuality in the city.
I got the impression that the father in this clip was depressed. He seemed unhappy with the man-made world, which may have been why he took his children into the outback in the first place, although there is no real explanation as to why he did this, or why he then shot at them, destroy his car and then killed himself. Regardless of whether or not he was depressed, he obviously wasn't in his right mind.
The clip clearly showed modern Australia conflicting with Aboriginal Australia, in both the use of the scenes of the city and the outback, and in the use of aboriginal music during the city scene.