This is mah shit

Activity 12:

If I were to direct a short film I would definitely use jump cuts as used in French New Wave films such as Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. First of all, French films are sweet. French people aren't all weird about sex and showing skin in their films like American's are. Any film I make would use some of the techniques of French films simply for the reason that I like French films. But for stylistic purposes I think it's a good idea. It's straying away from the use of clean editing that is used in many Hollywood films today, and gives a more gritty, real feel to the film. I would definitely use jump cuts in conversations, if only for the purpose of keeping the audience from falling asleep while the conversation is taking place. The jump will hopefully jar them back to the film they are watching. I would also use jump cuts in action scenes to speed up the scenes and to add suspense.


Activity 13:

Because jump cuts are so commonly used today, I think people have been jaded to them, and they are no longer as effective as they were during the French New Wave movement. The use of the jump cuts in French cinema was to jar the audience from the film, reminding them that it was a film and that the events weren't actually happening. The users of this technique were making a statement against consumerism. Ironically, jump cuts are commonly used in commercials today. While French director's used jump cuts to jar the audience, modern commercials use it to suck the viewer in, to show them their product in quick flashes that manipulates the viewer.


Activity 14:

Memento (2000)

Christopher Nolan
United States

The film follows Leonard Shelby who suffers from short term memory loss. The film chronicles Leonard searching for the man who killed his wife, while the events are shown backwards, revealing information piece by piece. Leonard writes notes and takes pictures to remind himself of things. I really enjoyed this film, and liked the use of the hand-held camera. It worked because of the nature of the plot, and also probably because of the unstableness of the protagonist. The jerky camera definitely added to the realism of the film, and I think Nolan did a good job of not overusing it. As a whole I thought the movie was great. It had an interesting plot line with plenty of twists, and the showing-the-events backwards component was an excellent addition. It makes the viewer think about the events, without them being spoon-fed to them. No other film I've seen was quite like this one, and I can easily say that this was one of Nolan's best films.