This film does a very good job of showing exactly what is necessary to tell the story. The important details are explicitly shown with visual techniques, resorting to action rather than dialogue, but the few pieces of dialogue help to reinforce the message of the film. The most telling line of dialogue in the entire film is “The dog must learn.” Although the white man does not provide any other context, he makes it clear through his actions that the dog must learn the rules of the film’s society: that blacks are inferior to whites.
This film is also able to accomplish a lot with just the shots themselves. There are many wide shots early in the film showing black workers on the plantation. By making the workers small in these shots, it helps to reinforce the idea that these are workers are inferior by making them appear small. When the film shows more personal or emotional moments, that is when it decides to use close ups and medium shots. By making these choices it allows the viewer to understand the characters better by witnessing their actions and reactions. This film was mostly shot using a steady cam with the exception of the final scene. The use of the shaky camera adds to the urgency of the scene, the white man is having a heart attack and the black man must save him. Since this is the only scene in the film shot this way, the contrast really helps to enhance the tension in this scene.
There is really only one transition in the film. After the white man kicks the dog, there is a cut to black. This cut represents a visual way of indicating the scene has concluded. Not only does it end the scene, but it also acts as a way to illustrate the passage of time, the film resumes in a scene mirroring the opening scene. The film doesn’t tell the viewer that time has passed, rather it shows the viewer time has passed, because a different flag is raised. Not only does this indicate that time has passed, it also indicates that the society of the film has changed.
B. Creating a World: Inhabitants, Landscapes & Interiors, Atmosphere – For Part B, you will watch Inja by Steve Pasvolsky and compare it to another film screened in class. We began this assignment in the first class, and you may continue to add to it to complete the assignment. Take notes on the movies to prepare your answers to the following questions. For each movie answer the following questions:
- How are the characters introduced? Through the course of the movie, how do
their actions define who they are? - How is the setting portrayed? What is the sense of space in the movie—what
do you see or not see in the world that these characters inhabit? - What types of shots do you see in the film? How do the filmmakers use
photography to set a tone and style? - What is the pace and style of the editing? Describe two cuts in the movie:
between what shots do they occur and at what points in the story? In what ways
do any edits add meaning to the shots or help the flow of scenes? - What visual and sonic elements create a strong impact? What are your
reactions to the short movie? Consider both your thoughts and emotions.
Inja
- The characters in Inja are all introduced through action. The opening scene shows workers on the farm, the black child is introduced with him playing with the dog, while the white man is introduced sitting on the porch drinking a cup of presumably coffee. Even through their first visible actions, we can immediately see the difference in power between races, the blacks are all working, while the whites are doing passive actions.
In Inception, the characters are introduced in different ways. The main character, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is introduced in the middle of a conversation. He is speaking about how ideas are similar to parasites and are highly contagious. In so doing, Cobb is revealing the plot of the movie, he and a group of others must plant an idea in the mind of another person. From the rest of the conversation it can be deduced that in this world there is technology that allows one to interact with dreams and that people can extract information from others in this state. Cobb can be characterized by the contents of this speech. He boasts that he is one of the most skilled extractors, those that steal information in dreams, and another thing that can be deduced from that is his sharp mind. Another important character that is introduced is Mal. In the opening scene Mal is characterized by her interactions with Cobb, but there’s a lot that can be inferred from this, mainly that she and Cobb had a family together and that she is gone. Whether she is dead or missing is unclear. Another interesting detail about Mal is that she is introduced after the dream-scape begins to decay, something that comes up again later if my memory serves correctly.
2. The setting in Inja exists to fit the themes of the film. Because the film deals so heavily with race, having a setting with a complicated racial history means that the story is more compelling. Since most of the movie takes place on the white man’s plantation, there isn’t a lot of room to show other interactions between whites and blacks but because this is a short film there isn’t a whole lot of room to show scenes that reinforce the setting rather than plot.
The setting of the opening shot for Inception is very unique. In a very fancy dining room the characters are having a fancy meal and Cobb starts off by talking about ideas and dreams. As the conversation progresses he drops more and more hints that they are currently in a dream. So this setting is not important to the rest of the film but it is also a characterization of the dreamer. This is further reinforced by other shots showing another, different setting representing the real world.
3. A lot of the shots in this film are dependent on their contents. Many of the shots involving emotion are close ups or extreme close ups. These are shots like the black child’s face as the dog is beaten in front of him, the dog emerging from the sack after being beaten, the white woman’s smiling face as she watches her husband leave, an older version of the black child as he laughs. The dog emerging from the sack could be considered involving emotion, as this is meant to evoke an emotional response from the viewer rather than the characters.
The way Inception sets the mood and tone is mostly through shots and color. Modern thriller films have a specific look to them, and Inception is no exception. There is a lot of yellow light and men in suits which creates a moody atmosphere. The shots in the opening sequence are mostly close, medium, and over the shoulder shots. The over the shoulder shots help to enforce the conversation scene while the rest of the dialogue consists of medium shots. This hints at the idea that the themes of this film won’t be action, but rather ideas.
4. Two very important cuts are both cuts to black. The first cut to black shows black workers in a field and the black child playing with a dog before cutting to black where the title is shown. After the title is shown there is a cut to a close up of the black child’s hands raising a flag. This is a personal introduction to the main character. While he was shown in the previous shot, this close up shot signifies that he is important, by linking the two shots by this character. The second cut to black is directly after the dog has been beaten. We see a close up of the black child’s face before a cut to black. The next scene mirrors the other cut from black by showing the same character doing the same action. In this scene a different flag is shown, signifying the setting is the same but some amount of time has passed.
There are two very important back to back cuts in the opening scene of Inception, both involving Cobb’s watch. As the setting of Cobb’s dinner begins to shake, there is a lead in shot of Cobb looking at his watch before a cut to an extreme close up of the watch face. It is immediately apparent that something is unusual because the seconds had of Cobb’s watch is moving rather slowly. After a couple of ticks, the hand begins to accelerate. This then cuts to a different location of a crowded street where there is an explosion. After a close up of a sleeping Cobb, there is another cut to the extreme close up of Cobb’s watch, only this time the seconds hand slows down rather than speeding up. There is then a shot of a car on this crowded street exploding that transitions into slow motion, before resuming with Cobb in the dream world. From these cuts it can be concluded that time moves slower in the dream world than it does in the real world, a detail that becomes important later on in the film.
5. The strongest impacting scene is the dog being beaten. The combination of subject matter and method of filming and audio create a compelling illusion of the dog actually being beaten. Because the subject of this scene is so complicated, it allows for a bit of leeway in filming and acting. My main reaction to this film was relief. This film did a very good job of showing the differences in social standings between the two main characters in the film, and as a result their was a baseline tension throughout the film, and the end was a welcome relief of that tension. I think the film is somewhat successful in conveying the message. Showing animal abuse is obviously a challenging thing to watch so I think the message can be somewhat overlooked as we focus on the dog.
I think a strong visual detail in the opening scene of Inception is the lighting. The shot that takes place
in the dream world has dim, warm lighting that creates an atmosphere of mystery that draws the viewer in. Cobb initially seems to be talking nonsense, but over time reveals a bit more about the current circumstances.
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