Twin Peaks

One recurring theme in the creations of David Lynch is women on the verge of a breakdown. These are usually not weak women, more commonly they are strong and independent characters who have gone through huge ordeals.
Twin Peaks has several of these women, from Laura Palmer, the odd Nadine Hurley and the first character we see in the show, Josie Packard. There is another recurring motif that works hand in hand with these despairing women and that is graceful and often portrait like scenes of their characters. Here I will look at two scenes from the show featuring Josie Packard (Joan Chen) and Nadine Hurley (Wendy Robbie) and I will look at how these “photogrammes demonstrate that still images also contain several layers of meaning. Apart from their informational and symbolic meaning, photogrammes have a ‘third meaning’ or an ‘obtuse meaning’ that arises almost accidentally”. (Steven Jacobs, The History and Aesthetics of the Classical Film Stil. History of Photography, Volume 34, issue 4, 2010, page 374).

Still shot 1: Josie Packard (Joan Chen)

Being the first shot of a character in Twin Peaks this is now an iconic shot from the series. When we first see this shot we know nothing of the character as the only scenes we have seen before this are of a pond, a forest and a mansion-cabin and some of the 70’s looking interior of her room. Mainly we have just seen a lot of wood. One thing to notice is that this episode was aired in 1991, and back then there were not a lot of people of color starring in prime time television in the US, especially not Asian-American women. This immediately makes Josie exotic when she is put into this old fashioned house seemingly in the middle of a forest. One would probably imagine a person like Pete Martell who is the next person introduced to be living here. Pete Martell is the stereotypical old good guy who fish. Had the first shot been of Pete people probably wouldn’t care too much as this is “his” habitat; Josie however is from the viewer and society’s standpoint out of her habitat. I believe this is the still’s third “almost accidental” meaning. Although in this instance and most things Lynch does I have some issue with thinking anything is accidental.
The symbolic meaning in this shot can be that in Twin Peaks, both the series and the town in the series, is not what you would expect.
Joan Chen is a great actress when it comes to facial expression, which really is shown in these slow-motion scenes with no lines. Her eyes tell us more than a thousand words. One can see the sadness, but it is not a desperate sadness, it is the look of someone who doesn’t, or at least pretends, not to care. Of course as the audience doesn’t really know Josie yet, and won’t until the second season, this look and still won’t really make too much of an impression until re-watching it.

Still Shot 2: Nadine Hurley (Wendy Robbie)

Nadine is one incredibly complex and interesting character that is often overlooked. The reason for this is that Nadine is on the surface only a part of secondary plots about love triangles, silent drape runners and memory loss feat superhuman strength. (Keyword, on the surface)
This still is from the first season finale. Nadine is here dressed up in big pink silk dress while sitting on the floor with a couple of letters, a glass of water and a plate full of pills. Nadine is a desperate character and the opposite of Josie when it comes to expressing herself. Nadine often tells the other characters what is bothering her, and her main concern is that her husband, whom she knows inside loves someone else, is going to leave her. This scene is shot in a similar way as the first scene with Josie, the camera slowly pans around her. If one has seen the scene then this still gives us almost as much as the scene does. We know she is broken and ready to commit suicide, but there is something twistedly beautiful about the still too.
Nadine has never looked this beautiful in the series, and she has never seen this content. She has had moments of joy, but they have seemed forced and crazed. This almost feels like the first time we see the real Nadine, as she breathes out and prepares to take her own life.
The scene tells a story about desperation and sadness, but the still gives us something beautiful as it encapsulates the one moment in a series where you see a relaxed serene Nadine.
References:
Steven Jacobs, The History and Aesthetics of the Classical Film Stil. History of Photography, Volume 34, issue 4, 2010
Twin Peaks, David Lynch and Mark Frost, Republic Pictures, 1991

Narrative and Fan-Pandering: Glee

Television narrative – Show, don’t tell!

Glee became an instant hit when it came out in 2009. It was a show about high-school outcasts, both students and teachers, and their journey to find themselves through music and each other.

One of the reasons Glee became such an instant hit was its oddball, yet identifiable, characters. From overachiever Rachel Berry (Lea Michele), over-the-top villain Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch), the optimistic Will Schuster (Matthew Morrison), his unhappy and slightly crazy wife Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig), and Will’s “work wife”  OCD-Emma (Jayma Mays).

Glee’s pilot episode does a remarkable well job when it comes to its narrative; mainly it shows us who these characters are through their actions. What really is remarkable is especially how many of these characters they are able to give depth in the 45 minute episode.

The main focus on the first episode is first and foremost Spanish teacher and Will Schuster who has newly taken over the Glee-club.

He is introduced driving into the school in a more or less broken car and he meets a bunch of football players, including Puck and Finn (Cory Monteith), surrounding fashionista Kurt (Chris Colfer) close to a dumpster. His first line is “making some new friends Kurt?” in a joyful manner. Here we quickly get a glimpse into who Will is, first of all, he obviously has money issues and more importantly he is quite naïve, as the football players obviously had more sinister intentions than talking to Kurt; more s specifically they were about to throw him into the dumpster.

The next scene revolves around Will’s relationship with the other teachers in the teachers-lounge. By the way Emma talks to Will we see that she has a crush on him. Will again, is seen as naïve as he doesn’t seem to notice this at all.

As he decides to take over the Glee-club he talks with the schools principle Mr. Figgins. Will is told that for him to take over the Glee-club has to make it profitable for him, which ends up in Will doing attention for free and taking on an extra janitor job. This shows us that Will is very passionate about the Glee-club. There is no need for the character to say “I love show-choir, it has always been an important factor in my life”, it is told to the audience through action.

When we are introduced to Terri we are shown a new side of Will, carelessness, or at least a little bit of neglect. His wife Terri is one of the shows main villains, she constantly lies, is partially crazy, rude and quite lazy. Here reaction to Will having to work extra time to keep the Glee-club alive is one of my favorite lines of the episode:

“But Will, I’m on my feet four hours a day, three days a week here, and then I have to go home and cook dinner for myself!” -Terri 

Terri is one of the most conflicting characters in Glee, and she is mainly hated by the audience for her fake-pregnancy storyline and her crazy schemes to keep Will from Emma. However, when you think about it, all she is trying to do it keep her husband, a husband who actually starts spending less and less time with her, and instead want to hang out with a bunch of teenagers. Yes, she might be crazy, but Will is not exactly the best husband either.

After this we are shown an even darker side to Will. After failing to make more students join the glee-club he plants marijuana in Finn’s locker to force him into joining the glee-club instead of reporting it. This is a great character contrast to his previous faults, as we are now shown that his passion might not just be a good thing.

When Terri reveals she is “pregnant”, Will has to make a decision, stay in glee-club and follow his passion or become a banker and make money for his growing family. Although he initially leaves the club he comes back after being convinced by Emma that being a sad unhappy father would be worse than having some money-issues.

This episode is an excellent example of showing the audience who Will is and he is given problems he has to solve and decisions he mas to make. I should also mention that the episode also focuses a great deal on the storylines of Rachel and Finn, although they while also giving us a great insight into the personalities of Emma, Sue and Terri.

This episode is a stark contrast to the shows newest episode, the finale of season 4, All Or Nothing, and not in a good way.

Once again Will has an important story line in the episode. In the end of the episode he and Emma get married surrounded by the glee-club in the choir-room.

What makes this episode so different than the pilot is it remarkable lack of showing us any character action or development, we are outright told everything. There is one scene is particular which stands out when it comes to this, Will and Sue are trying to get one of the glee-club members, Brittany, to perform at a competition, instead the conversation turns into Brittany telling us what Will and Sue have been doing lately.

“Tonight’s guests are two sworn enemies who became friends, then became enemies again, then became friends again, then enemies, and then everybody stopped caring” – Brittany

This line not only tells us instead of showing it also reveals one of Glee’s biggest mistakes in the later seasons and that is pandering and referring to the audience. Will and Sue’s bickering has been a big plotline throughout the seasons and there is no need in telling us about it, we know. Also when you so blatantly refer to what the audience is thinking it pulls you out of the feel of the show. It makes it hard to get connected to characters who more or less tell you “hi I am a character in a tv-show”.

There are many, many, issues with Glee’s later seasons, but the audience pandering is probably what has caused the show to be in the state it is in now.

Just to give you an example, in season 2 of the show a love-interest for Kurt was introduced, Blaine, who quickly became a fan-favorite with of his positive attitude and happy-go-lucky singing. The producers/writer/network, whoever is in charge of this, noticed that Blaine was popular character, so they gave him more screentime. What they didn’t think about however is that the most vocal audience of a TV-show doesn’t always represent the majority of those watching it. Most people watch a TV-show when it airs and then usually don’t go online and write “I LOVE ****”.

This is the main area glee messed up, they started listening and doing what one small, very vocal, part of the audience wanted. They didn’t just do this with this specific character, but I won’t go into all of them. After this the average viewers for episodes dropped drastically and the show is on an all time-low.

Next season starts this autumn, and one more season is planned after it. It will be interesting to see if the writers have realised that the audience actually want to be shown what is happening, not told. Even if they do go back to how the show used to be.

References:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1327801/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Jackie Brown and Editing

Editing is one of the most important and most discussed of the cinematic techniques of today’s cinema. Easily said editing is the coordination of one shot with the next (Bordwell and Thompson, page 223). The cutting and pasting of shots is something that is usually done after the film in its whole has been filmed. All films rely on editing, so when analysing a film it is something one should always pay attention to. Most films use editing as a tool to tell the narrative in a smooth and continual way (Bordwell and Thompson, page 226).

One of my favourite introductory scenes to a movie is Jackie Brown (1997) by Quentin Tarantino. The first scene revolves around Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) on her way from one destination on an airport to another. The scene also includes the perfect song choice ‘Across The 110th Street’ by Bobby Womack. The scene in its entirety is around 4 minutes. 9 shots in 4 minutes are actually quite few, so all of these shots are relatively lengthy. One can compare it to the second scene in the film (which I won’t go into length about) which has at least 60 shots, and most of them only lasting a couple of seconds. The point of this first scene is to introduce Jackie Brown as a strong and independent character, this scene also has several interesting mise en-scene elements, some I will inherently touch upon, but it will not be my focus in this critical diary.

Shot 1: Fade in. No objects in the shot, only a blue background. Jackie Brown glides in from the right side of the frame. You see her from the side. She stays on the right side of the frame, but is still the focus of the medium shot since she is the only person or object in the frame. The angle of the shot is eye level. This is a long shot lasting almost two minutes.

Shot 2: Abrupt change. You only see a blue screen with the shapes of objects on it. Only lasts couple of seconds.

Shot 3: Extreme close up of an arm scanning a woman. Clearly not Jackie as the clothing is different.  This shot only lasts for a couple of seconds.

Shot 4: Jackie once again enters from the right side of the frame. There are other characters and objects in the shot, but Jackie is clearly the focus as the camera follows Jackie from she enters the room until she leaves it, ending the shot.

Shot 5: Jackie is now walking through a crowded area. She is filmed from the side. She is the center of the shot being filmed from a low angle camera giving her a sense of authority. This is further emphasized by her strong posture and straight forward walking in the shot. While the other characters are blurry shot, stops and moves away from others or walks slowly Jackie keeps a steady and straight forward pace not letting anything in the shot stop her.

Shot 6: Jackie still walking. She is now filmed from the front. The camera angle is still low key. You can now see her entire face for the first time seeing a strong woman in her middle years with an almost unnoticeable smile on her strict face.  During this shot the song says “You gotta be strong if you wanna survive”; since these shots are here to almost manipulate us into thinking that Jackie is a strong character the choice of song and lyric becomes clear. Jackie will survive because she is strong.

Shot 7: The next shot is once again from the side. This is the first close-up of Jackie. Eye-level shot.

Shot 8: Low-angle shot. Once again enters from the right, but moves to the center of the shot. She ends her steady pace and begins to speed up. The camera follows her out of the scene.

Shot 9: One last time she enters from the right, now running. Middle of the frame. While she runs you can see she runs side by side with an airplane outside. The shot is from the side, is eye-level and is a medium-shot only showing her from the waist up. She almost runs out of the frame. The camera moves on to filming her from the back. You see her smile to another stewardess as she walks behind the counter as the new stewardess. The camera now for the first time focuses on another camera as Jackie Brown leaves the frame. Giving us a close-up and eye-level shot of the stewardess. This only lasts for a couple of seconds before Jackie enters in the same close-up and eye-level shot as the other stewardess, but she leaves the shot. This is the first time Jackie stands on the left side of the frame as she welcomes the passengers aboard the flight. Fade out.

References:

Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino, A Band Apart, Miramax Studios, 1997. (Edited by Sally Menke)

Bordwell, D & Thompson, K 2010, Film art: an introduction, Mc-Graw Hill, New York,

http://www.cod.edu/people/faculty/pruter/film/15points.htm, The Fifteen Points of Mise-en-scene, viewed 14.4.13

Stefan Sharff, The Element of Cinema: Toward a theory of cinesthetic impact. New York: Colombia University, pres 1982 5-19

The bland and brilliant characters of Dexter

Dexter and Debra… and the rest

There are certain TV-shows you get so attached to and which are so easy to watch they almost turn into that great friend you can just hang out with and not worry about the awkward silence. Dexter is one of those shows for me.

However, no matter how good friends Dexter and I have become throughout the years I have not become blind to its many flaws. The biggest flaw for me is the main characters, with the exception of Dexter and Debra.

In season 8 we have the homicide team which consists of Masuka (C. S Lee), the nasty and “funny” lab technician, homicide lieutenant Angel Batista (David Zayas), detective Joey Quinn (Desmond Harrington) and deputy chief Matthews. These characters have been on the show now for more or less 8 seasons and still I couldn’t really find a word to describe any of them except Masuka. I might say that Batista is nice, but sometimes aggressive, but wait that fits with Quinn too. I guess I can say that Quinn has had a lot of girlfriends, but that is not really a character trait. And Matthews (Geoff Pierson)? Well now that, spoiler, Maria Laguerta (Lauren Vélez) is no longer on the show I guess he has taken over the role as head bitch over at homicide. But wait, apparently he has been on the show since season 1! I honestly can’t remember anything about him except for some conversations with Laguerta and Debra. I honestly find it quite surprising that a show can have a cast for 8 seasons and develop them so poorly, or in this case, not develop them at all.

The main cast is rounded up by new main character Jaime Batista (Aimee Garcia), sister of Angel and Dexter’s nanny. So far we know that she is usually happy,  likes kids and people and looks good naked. Seriously how many scenes has she just had in bed half-naked? I imagine the actress is thinking something along the lines of this when receiving a new script “please let me have a scene where I am not naked, and possibly even talk about something else than Dexter’s kid”.  She will probably end up being kidnapped by some kind of sociopath and either be saved by Dexter or die in Quinn’s hands.

Albeit these characters are poorly written, they are not horrible. The actors are good and they supplement Dexter (Michael C Hall) and Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) well. Which I guess might be what the writers are trying to do. And if you have seen Dexter, you know that the titular character and his sister are characters that have evolved drastically throughout the series. From self-proclaimed psychopath to loving brother and father, and Debra has evolved from happy-go-lucky detective to a determined lieutenant.

Another interesting aspect about the characters in Dexter is that although most of the main cast are lacking in development and decent screen time there are terrific “one season” characters. These characters are often the main antagonist in their respective season and are given plenty of both screen time and development. Season 8 introduced the extremely intriguing character Evelyn Vogel (Charlotte Rampling). She acts as a mixture between mother, psychiatrist and friendemy for Dexter and Debra. Although Vogel now, midway through the season, works well as an ally and friend of Dex and Deb it will be interesting to see if the show will pull a twist and reveal her as the season’s main antagonist. Only time will tell.

Mad Wo-Men

Mad Men is set in the 1960’s and mainly revolves around Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the Creative Director of the fictional marketing company named “Sterling and Cooper”

One of the most interesting aspects of Mad Men’s pilot is Don Draper’s excessive need to shoot down women who show any sort of masculine traits. During the course of one day he does this with his new secretary Peggy, a medical researcher, and his new client, Rachel Menken. All of these are working women who cross the classical boundaries of the passive woman.

What is Screen Criticism ?

«Everybody has two jobs, his own and being a film critic» – François Truffaut.

Most people watch TV-shows and movies on a daily basis, which means it’s a common topic for everyone to discuss. We discuss our favourite shows, or preferred actors, characters and possibly even directors and writers. There are few other art-forms that have influenced our daily life this much, so it is only natural that most people have opinions on what they ingest through their viewing experience. The question is however; is this screen criticism?