Movie Critique 1 - Good Will Hunting
For my cinema critique, I chose the “how do you like dem apples?” scene from Good Will Hunting. Good Will Hunting is a movie that I have always loved. It is an intelligently written movie and combines comedy with drama and some very serious topics. The acting is amazing, starring Matt Damon and Robin Williams, two of my favorite actors. The scene that I am going to describe, which I call the “how do you like dem apples?” scene, comes right after an intense, dialogue heavy, satisfying sequence. This scene is the payoff for the sequence of events before it.
It starts with two women walking into a bar. Their waists are cut off by the bar itself, so you can only see half of their bodies. The bar is busy, as it would be normally. There are lots of people, neon signs everywhere, lots of background noise, and it is very colorful and lighthearted so that you get the sense that the characters are in a safe place. The two girls pass by Will and a friend, and one of the girls continues, the other, named Skylar, stays to talk to Will. Will’s friend also leaves. This all happens in a matter of seconds.
Now we have our classic boy and girl scene. Will and Skylar exchange some dialogue. The camera focuses on Skylar, even when Will is talking, only briefly focusing on Will. At this point, the camera is set so that you can see the characters from the torso up. The dialogue here is smartly written, rapid, and it’s between two very smart people. The writer did a good job of making the dialogue not sound nerdy, even though the two characters in the scene are very intelligent people. Skylar leaves, and even though there is a lot happening in the background and a lot of props, it is filmed in a way that is not distracting to the audience.
The scene moves out to the street, with Will and a bunch of his friends walking somewhere, probably home. The camera is set so that we can see about three stories of the buildings on either side of the street, with Will and his group at the center of the scene. When the scene switches to being outside, light acoustic guitar music starts. The background is fairly quiet. There are a few people here and there, but nothing to distract us from the group. Will approaches the bar again from the outside, looking inside through the glass. The camera zooms in on the glass, to fit both Will’s and the bully’s head in the frame. You can see the glow from many neon signs lighting the scene. From the other side of the glass, he confronts the bully from earlier, asking: “Do you like apples?” At this point, the camera is still outside, but moves to inside from the bully’s perspective when he replies “Yeah.” Then the camera stays inside when Will replies: “How do you like dem apples?” The camera stays inside to capture the bully’s reaction when Will says the line that makes this scene so great. Will then walks away with his friends. The scene is filmed the same way as the street scene from before, where you can see three stories of building and the camera is positioned so that you can see three quarters of their bodies. I like this scene because it is well filmed, well written, and is a great payoff for the sequence before it.
Documentary Review: The Mask You Live In
The documentary I watched for my review was called The Mask You Live In. It had a run time of one hour, thirty five minutes, and was directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The documentary was about the idea of perceived masculinity, and how it is harmful to our society. The Netflix description reads: “This documentary on the American ‘boy crisis’ explains how to raise a healthier generation of men and features interviews with experts and academics.” The documentary starts out strong by discussing the phrase “be a man,” and how it is harmful to our society and the development of young boys. Briefly, the documentary focuses on the tendency of men to use violence and force to solve problems, learned through various forms of media, which is damaging to themselves and others. The documentary talks about body image for a while as well. The documentary discusses the idea of gender, and that perceived hyper masculinity or femininity reflects cultural tension and fear about gender being a construct. In fact, our society teaches men to reject femininity, and that is what creates the sexist culture we live in today. There is a stigma that the smarter you are as a person, the weaker you are, conjuring up images of a stereotypical “nerd.” The documentary then switches directions, moving away from stereotypes of men and issues regarding the male image and focusing on the root off the problem: parents. A big portion of the documentary is about how parents, especially males, let their children develop. The documentary focuses briefly on an unnamed Hispanic family, and how a lack of a father changed the dynamic of the family and changed the boy in a negative way. The last big portion of the documentary was devoted to the school system, and how it is at fault. Problems that reflect in our society start in Pre-K, where hierarchies among children are formed and the idea forms that masculinity is taught through domination. The last section of the documentary, which deals with the dangerous effects of enforcing the idea of masculinity, mentions archetypes of males: the jock, the thug, the thug, the risk taker, all stereotypes that young, impressionable children might aspire to be someday. The documentary covered all aspects of what contributes to the perceived idea of “being a man”: the stereotypes (and the dangers of them), the upbringing, the parents, and our society.
I loved this documentary. This is a topic that had always fascinated me, and I was glad to finally have some perspective and clarification of the whole issue. Since the first frame, which was a dark screen with a George Orwell quote: “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it,” the documentary captured my attention. It was organized in a way that makes sense. It started with gender stereotypes, led to gender issues in our society today and the idea of perceived gender, to body image, to parenting, to a child's upbringing and how it affects the rest of their life and the lives around them, to the school system, to archetypes, and back to stereotypes and their harmful effects on society. This seems like a lot, but everything blended together. Some could argue that this is a negative for the documentary, but I liked how the sections are hard to discern from one another. The documentary brought up some very interesting topics. Boys are taught from a young age not to show emotion, that emotion is weak, and that leads to emotional issues later in life. Proving yourself, as men are taught to do by those around them and the media, can lead to pain, dissatisfaction, and insecurity. When body image was discussed, they talked about how the “ideal” male body is something that is ingrained into young boy’s minds. This leads to insecurity and social issues as well. I liked the section on parenting as well. The biggest mistake a parent can make is not allowing their son to show weakness, according to the documentary. In fact, the documentary stresses multiple times how important upbringing is, and how physical abuse, drug abuse, and prison time by parents affect children later in life, and how it contributes to the stigma of men in our culture.There were lots of news clips, mostly used to accentuate points made by interviewees or used as B-roll. All of the news segments were credible and relating to the story; there was nothing that seemed to be thrown in there for no reason. They interviewed people of all ages, races, and ethnicities, but there was focus on people in their twenties or thirties. Many credible sources were also used as interviews, including Dr. Michael Hemmel, a sociologist, Dr. Madelein Levine, a psychologist, and Dr. Elise Eliot, a neuroscientist. There were roughly twenty credible sources like those in the documentary. A special focus was on underprivileged people as well. There was really good B-roll. It ranged from children playing on a playground to clips from famous movies, from Diary of A Wimpy Kid to Wolf of Wall Street to Gladiator. When parents were interviewed, the B-roll was of them playing with their children. There was really good lighting and contrast in the frames as well. The rule of thirds was always followed during an interview. I also liked all of the statistics they included. Most statistics were included in the section that discussed the school system and the brief crime section. I liked the music as well. There was acoustic guitar in some places, and rap music in the other. While I am not a fan of rap music, I thought it was played at appropriate times, such as when the documentary focused on high school. Occasionally, the documentary would do montages, like short clips of children walking to school while music played. I liked and disliked this. It offered a break from the amount of information being dispensed, but it also detracted from the documentary. The middle section of the documentary lacked direction, especially when the documentary focused on the school system. Somehow a connection was then made to video games and how violent video games affect children negatively while contributing to the perceived male persona. I understand where they’re coming from, but it was poorly executed. My favorite part of the documentary was when they interviewed a convicted murderer named Eden. Eden was abused all his life by his mother, who birthed him at the age of 17. Later in life, he was molested by his stepfather. He explained that a lack of appreciation for his own life gave him a lack of respect for others’ lives, and he killed someone because of that. At the end, when it talks about gender stereotypes again, and talks about the importance of fathers, it almost seems like the thesis of the documentary changed. It seemed like the documentary changed its thesis from: our society's idea of masculinity is damaging to our culture, to: fathers are important in a child’s life. I loved this documentary, but it lacked direction occasionally and some of the filming techniques detracted from the overall product.
I would absolutely recommend this documentary to a friend. The cinematography is amazing, and one could learn a lot about proper filming techniques through watching this documentary. This documentary is a good model for other documentaries, and one should watch this before they embark on making their own. Someone could learn a lot through watching this documentary about the rule of thirds, color balance, contrast, as well as the proper balance between information, interviews, B-roll and slower moments, to give the audience moments to reflect. But the cinematography isn’t what makes this documentary great, and it isn't why I would recommend it to a friend. Behind the cinematography itself lies a great message. I would recommend this documentary because it inspires people to be better. To not bully, to not say “no homo,” to change the perceived idea of manliness, so as to make people feel more comfortable living in our society. Real strength is speaking out, showing empathy, sympathy, emotions, not what our culture thinks masculinity is.
Movie Critique 2 - Good Will Hunting "It's not your fault"
For my second movie scene critique, I chose to continue with Good Will Hunting, and I chose the famous “it’s not your fault” scene, featuring Matt Damon and Robin Williams. The scene takes place in a classroom. The scene starts out with two people, Williams and Skarsgård, arguing off-camera, with the camera focusing on Damon as he enters the room. The entire scene is well lighted, its during the day and there are plenty of windows, although they are opaque and you can’t see the outside. This is done intentionally so as to not distract us from the dialogue and the characters. When Damon enters, the rule of thirds is obeyed, and then partially broken as the camera cuts to a zoomed out shot, with Williams and Skarsgård obeying the rule of thirds, and Damon in the center. Each of these shots are half body shots, again so that the setting doesn’t distract from the dialogue and the characters.
After Skarsgård leaves, the famous and well-acted exchange between Damon and Williams begins to take place. We begin to see more of the setting, the classroom, as Damon walks closer and sits on the desk, and Williams mentions his “file.” The classroom is well-lit, windows and lamps are everywhere. It is also very messy—there are stacks of papers and books and there are papers stapled to walls everywhere, but it's done in a way that it’s not distracting to the audience. The exchange begins to take place. Each time an actor talks, the camera cuts to them. This sounds like it could be distracting, but it’s done in a subtle way, and the heavy tone that the scene adopts now makes the constant switching of camera angles less distracting. The conversation they are having is about physical abuse, and the toll it has taken on both of their lives. Now, the camera starts zooming in on each character while they are talking. This adds to the dark tone because it is intended to make us feel more empathy for them. A really interesting part of this scene to me was how the director chose to show clips while the characters were monologuing. For example, when Damon was talking about being physically abused as a child, it cut to a shot of his father walking up the stairs. This is reminiscent of B-roll, and it serves as a way of keeping the audience’s attention, instead of a long shot of his face while he talked. A couple different camera angles are used here. There are shots where the camera is level to the character’s faces while they talked, and ones from further away. But my favorite shot was of Damon from below, with the file that Williams is holding in the foreground.
When Williams says: “it’s not your fault,” the camera zooms in on the characters as it jumps between them, capturing their reactions. This adds tension and drama. When this intense sequence begins, ambient noise starts in the background. You can hear cars, and a almost inaudible drone begins. This adds tension, and I almost didn’t hear it, but if you go back to an earlier time in the scene you can hear the difference. The camera focuses in on each character as they say their lines, and every time Williams says the line “it’s not your fault,” Damon becomes more and more emotional. This was an incredibly well acted and well filmed scene, capturing the emotions of the characters perfectly.