MYST #2: Black Mass

Everybody loves a Johnny Depp film, especially if it based on a true story. My grandmother really wished to see this film so my family and I went to go see it on a Tuesday at 5pm. Yeah you read that right. With no one else in the theater we got to enjoy the film to i's fullest without distractions. I haven't done any real research about this film except seeing the trailer in film studies. Also I knew it was a mob movie, so that's always a plus. We are greeted to a setting of 1975 in Massachusetts with the Winter Hill Gang talking to an FBI investigator recalling what happened in the years of trying to control the crime in South Boston. All of the gang members who were being interviewed admitted to the horrific things they did to become powerful in their hometown they grew up in. 

Throughout this film, it is all based around James "Whitey" Bulger, who is the leader of this whole organization. This gang was eventually charged with murder, extortion, racketeering, narcotics, and many more. Since this is film is based off of a true story I am glad they really focused on one component more then any of the others. And that is the makeup department. To fit the roles of each and every character to the actors makes the story better visually. To make Johnny Depp come off as the famed Boston gangster, they added prosthetics to the upper half of his face, multiple different headpieces to correctly match Whitey. Not only did they spend 20 hours on make up with Johnny, but they also gave him blue eye contact lenses to match Mr. Bulger's actual eye color. Now Johnny wasn't the only one who had to go through extensive time with make up.

Jesse Plemons was also told to gain weight and add a "spongy" look to make it seem normal and not just the weight to resemble Kevin Weeks. I find that makeup doesn't seem to be looked at carefully in movies, but if it is a true story, I like to see resemblances from the actors to the actual people they are based on.
Since this is a mob film expect to see killings, blood, sexual inferences, glass shattered, and much more to make you sit on the edge of your seat or cover your face in horror. There is once scene in particular that caught my attention by surprise and made me gasp a bit. Every crew member of Whitey knows that when Whitey gets his hands dirty it isn't pretty at all. The scene  where Brian Halloran(Sarsgaard) goes against the gang and rats them out to the FBI. The gang soon finds out and Whitey shows up to where Brian is at the time and shoots up the car he was in with a buddy. Whitey appears with a AK-47 shooting and walking directly at the car killing Brian's friend. Brian then puts the car in reverse and slams the pedal all the way till he bashes into the cars in the parking lot. Brian has been shot with the AK-47 bullets but is still alive. He then tries to escape the car by crawling out. Bad move. Whitey is getting closer and pulls out a pistol and bluntly shoots Brian and walks away with no rush. I found it important to the story because Whitey marked his territory and his name to the gang that nobody messes with them. Obviously back then it is easier to get away with crime like that if you are gone before the police show up.  

I see a few resemblances from this film to Wolf of Wall Street. First of which is the fact that they are both based on true stories that are recent. Also, they both start and end the same way. They both start with the ending and then go on to explain the story and then end with the official ending.

Whitey and Jordan Belfort seemed to be the leader of a group of people giving them what they want without a worry in the world.

Memento

If you love movies that make you dive deep into thinking about whether or not you can trust yourself or others. Then Memento is right for you.  Leonard has short term memory loss and we know that this movie has a non linear narrative structure. And with the use of editing we can really understand how Lenny's mind works. It gives off a very good and interesting pov for the viewers. One of the examples editing plays a great role is how the movie is played in short increments and out of order, just how Lenny's investigation for another John G. has come out to be. The scenes that appear second in the film actually happened first, and by connecting the start and end of those two scenes, the timeline stays the same even if it is edited out of order. The beginning of the movie is actually the ending and the ending is the start of the movie, so the timeline of the film will tell you everything in backwards. In a way, this seems to be a great way to tell the story simply because of Leonard's condition. Nolan used relational editing to make the viewer confused by seeing each scene, but then it would make sense when the next scene appeared.

Since this movie contains a sub plot involving Sammy Jankis, there are numerous black and white scenes of Lenny on the phone with a mysterious unknown cop(possibly Teddy) telling him the story of how he met/dealt with Sammy's condition. These scenes tell us that the black and white portrays the film in a chronological order. Throughout the film we see that Lenny recalls her wife and how she died while talking to Natalie. Eventually the viewers are presented with flashbacks that are remotely close to Sammy's situation. The former memories are faded and the new ones are in color which is very contradicting to the previous flashbacks with Sammy being only black and white. We soon find out that Lenny is Sammy and Lenny was just using Sammy as a person to make him feel happy about his condition and the vengeance for his wife, who is actually dead because of Lenny's condition. Throughout the film I noticed a particular set of scenes that did not really connect well with the editing.

The story of Dodd seemed irrelevant to the story. If the editing worked it's way with the story of the character more critically then it would give less confusing parts of the story since their is a lot to keep track of. But all in all, the component of editing plays an enormous role in this film. Editing is basically the only component that draws the viewer to realize something funky with this film. It makes the viewer see how Lenny's life is drawn to be with the reverse timeline. It connects well with the idea about how the viewer sees the film is the same way how Lenny saw his life and what is has come to be. It definitely raised better awareness to the theme of lying to yourself to be happy. Lying to ourselves is connected with the editing and how it was jumped around to make it believe that Lenny was telling the truth, but in the end we figure out that we don't trust ourselves and accept our life as it is, even if it has gotten you sunk in a deep hole. I found an uncanny resemblance between this film and Fight Club.

Fight Club is played chronologically in order, but it does include a story of two people ending up to be the same person. And in the end the protagonist understands what's going on and accepts it and cannot believe anyone, not even himself.

Formal Film Study: (Martin Scorsese)

We all love and admire Marty with his big time movie hits where we see references from in all TV shows, magazines, and articles. But, how did Mr. Scorsese become who he is today? How did he progress through out his films starting from the late 60's all the way up to 2013. I grabbed his first film, Who's that knocking at my door?(1967). His middle film, Cape Fear(1991). And finally his most recent acclaimed film, Wolf of Wall Street(2013). Scorsese develops as a director from each of these films and I am about to share the components with you.

Cinematography: We know the camera work is always amazing. And we also know that Martin tends to have a pattern in his films of long slow motion tracking shots from right-left or straight-backwards. The speed of each scene tends to build up and work it's way back up to normal motion. In Wolf of Wall Street, there is a tracking shot of Jordan Belfort(DiCaprio) walking straight at the camera explaining what he is doing with the company. It is portrayed as a long tracking shot of this one target while there is only one direction in this motion. Some of these tracking shots may be perceived as a lazy editing act but Scorsese wanted the viewer to really pay attention to this one target in the motion because of deeper symbolic reasoning. Such as in the beginning scene of Cape Fear, where Max is walking out of prison and the tracking shot is in front of him walking away while the camera rises above and shows a view of the prison to explain that max came out of a place that grew on him just as though a king walking out of his castle. While Who's knocking at my door? was an older film, Martin knew what he was doing when he had the photographer film long panning shots of grey cityscape's and interiors with objects of religion to emphasize that this story revolves around a Christian protagonist.

Culture: Martin has a heritage of being Italian-American and we all know that he tends to go against the important values in each of these films towards the end. Italian values consist of having family always be there and helping them in a time of need. Watching Who's Knocking at My Door?, I noticed that the protagonist seemed to have lost his way without having the support of his friends when he gets rejected by his wife and then results going to church but hasn't found solace there either. Even though his friends aren't technically family, any close person to an Italian is considered family. They build that bond overtime no matter the events. Especially in the ending scene of Cape Fear when the family survive the terrorism of Max Caddy. While they did survive together they still all feel alone because Max terrorized each of them at some points of the film and we can see the damage on each of the characters. The damage is done on the family and they are separated mentally. Being mentally broken, you can definitely relate that to Wolf of Wall Street where Jordan ends up becoming sober and leading sales events because he has been labeled as a drug addict who has corrupted his life with money and sex. His friends, who seemed to be family, basically deserts him because Jordan goes overboard.

Visual Effects: What's a good movie without a little disorientation to our eye. We all love those effects that make us go gaga, especially if Scorsese is behind it all. Watching the profoundly Wolf of Wall Street, I noticed quite a lot of special effects from green screens to color fading . I am simply astounded by this component in this film. I especially enjoy the effect in the beginning where Jordan is describing his life before he tells the whole upbringing. And a scene of a Ferrari drives up in a tracking shot and it appears to have a color or red but then Jordan says in his dialogue "No No No, my Ferrari was white" as he is saying these lines the car changes color to a Snow White. This seemed to be as a hook to the audience to make them believe that the shots are very intriguing and will make you wait for more effects like this. Such as the CGI and green screens as it is mentioned on http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/01/14/wolf_of_wall_street_visual_effects_reel_you_won_t_believe_which_scenes_were.html. In this article it explains that there are multiple shots of these types of effects and along with that, they provide a visual effects reel. Another effect I see in these films is the eery inverted effect on characters eyes in Cape Fear while we see a sudden or darkening feel to whoever the effect is presented upon. This can be taken into a symbolic meaning of feeling a darkening even when we feel safe, especially at the end.

Scorsese's films all have something in common, I just happened to come across these components since it very known. If I went back and re-watched these films once more, I am sure I would have come across more key ideas of common elements. I do enjoy the editing of Marty's films such as Wolf of Wall Street(2013) and Goodfellas(1990). Mainly because the protagonist breaks the fourth wall by talking to the camera. Although Henry Hall narrates the movie, Goodfellas, it still does give off the effect of him talking to the audience. We all see patterns in certain directors but I do enjoy finding them in movies that are very popular by one of my favorite directors. It is also intriguing and interesting watching more of Scorsese's films since I see him as a good role model for my career. I never get old of Scorsese's films, hopefully Sinatra will be a hit in 2016.