I’ve taken a good amount of film classes throughout my college career and not one has show Pulp Fiction. Which I’m very shocked that none of my professors have shown or gone in depth of this amazing movie. Not to mention that NONE of Quinton Tarantino’s movies have been discussed in depth or shown in class.  Some would argue he’s one of the greatest directors of our time, and quite frankly I agree with them. Pulp Fiction has been dubbed one of the greatest crime movies of all time. The amount of depth Tarantino has in his stories is enormous. But add four stories and twelve central characters to a movie and you have a monster story on your hands. Too add to the complex four different story lines, these separate stories are not linear. This movie was made for people who think, this isn’t a blockbuster hit where you can passively watch and be entertained, but one where you actively participate in.  Pulp Fiction is one of those movies that you have to watch twice, not only because it’s so amazing you crave the use of language in the film. His writing skills and use of language is poetic and creates a utopia of words to wallow in.

There is a ton going on in the film and a good amount to focus on but somehow the extremely talented Tarantino doesn’t overwhelm the audience in one particular story. As one story transitions to another you don’t feel lost in the transition or like it was jarring, it flowed very nicely keeping the movie flowing without any bumps or awkwardness. Tarantino balances the movies action, thriller, comedy and suspense, through his use of clever dialogue, with easy to stamp Tarantino’s signature feel to it. Tarantino is known for his witty dialogue in his movies, from his great one-liners to his complex exchange of poetic banter. There should be a college course just on his screenplays let alone his movies. With this poetic dialogue Quinton Tarantino has made his own genre by the sheer style of writing and acting of the film.

Pulp Fiction has created a cult following along with his other movies that captures audiences. Tarantino’s writing brings to life his dynamic characters with his use of method writing. You can tell when watching Pulp Fiction that Tarantino focuses on the literature aspect of the film on each individual line rather than writing it as a whole, which I think makes this movie so special. That’s why this film should be shown in this film class. You could create an entire class course just looking at his screenplays and not watch a single movie and still have more to talk about. It has so much going on that can be viewed and broken down for content is many different aspects.

Pulp Fiction IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/?ref_=nv_sr_1

8 ½ is a very dense film, and hard to understand. Fortunately this was the second time I’ve seen the film, and I picked up on a few nuances that I didn’t catch on my first go around. It’s a confusing film to process with dream sequences and flash backs, but these additions were very crucial to the films development. I thought the most profound dream sequence was the opening sequence of the film.

The opening scene of 8 ½ starts out with Guido in a dream sequence stuck in traffic in a tunnel bumper to bumper. Smoke starts to fill the car, as Guido try’s to escape but his car wont open. Guido starts to panic trying to break the windows of his car trying to get someone’s attention but everyone around him is just watching him struggle and suffer. At last Guido escapes his smoking car through the roof and begins to float out from the tunnel in gusts of fresh air, coming into the light. The next shot is of Guido flying through the clouds where he encounters briefly his huge unfinished structure for his new upcoming movie. The final shot of the sequence is a rope around Guido’s leg being pulled from the sky by his producers. Guido struggles to free himself from these restraints but is ultimately pulled to the ocean in which Guido then wakes from his dream state.

Guido’s opening dream sequence can be viewed as what he is longing for, his stressful career suffocating him and the harsh public opinion of his current film. One particular shot that interested me was the shot of everyone staring at Guido and a bus full of people pressed against the windows but only shown them from the neck down with their hands resting on the windows packed like sardines.  Fellini gives the illusion that we are looking at a group of headless passengers that signifies that these people are a zombie mass, not have any significant criticism to his work but just adding to the pressure to his unfinished work and mass that he feels is against him.

The quick glance of the unfinished tower is symbolic staple throughout the movie. It was interesting to note that he was flying above it signifying that this unfinished project isn’t a burden on him and carelessly flying through the air. When Guido is stressing about the film and is on site, the camera points up at the tower as a daunting ominous task and frames it as such.

Throughout the dream sequence the camera never once shows Guido’s face and keeps him particularly dark until he escapes his suffocating prison.  His escape from the tunnel resembles his death and resurrection, dying by the stress of his career and his overall unhappiness; he soon finds himself letting go and coming to an enlightened state. He would have stayed in this enlightened state if he was detached from his obligations from his film. The rope around his ankle controlled by the producers on the beach keeps him from his enlightenment.

This first sequence explains the whole movie in a matter of a few symbolic minutes. Not only that but it goes through what Guido really feels that he should be doing by relaxing and not working. It was all a matter of letting go of the stressful work and pressure of doing a project he doesn’t want to be doing. All the dreams foreshadowed or enlightened a certain aspect of Guido’s personal life that couldn’t be seen through his expressing and interacting with others, including his wife.

When I first saw Singing in the Rain by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, one of the first things that caught my eye besides the colorful sets and costumes was the camera movements. The first two films, Sherlock Jr. and Man with a movie camera didn’t have too many dynamic shots like Singing in the Rain did. The vast majority of the film was filmed in a studio which gave the director access to all the tools necessary to execute different types of dynamic shots. One of the types of shots that I felt added to the film were the crane shots. These crane shots were used in two different ways, by taking the camera up and away to shoot everything, put things into scale on how big of an operation this dance number was and the sheer space of the studio in all its detail. The second way the utilized crane shots were coming from far out and coming in to focus on a few characters gave the feeling of personalization and in a way you felt closer not only in relation to the camera but also on a personal level.

Probably the most effective type of dynamic shot used in the film was the use of tracking and pan shots. without tracking and pan shots in Singing in the Rain, the song and dance wouldn’t have the same fluidity or impact to it because dance is a dynamic movement and needs a dynamic camera movement to go along with the choreographed dance. In every breakout dance sequence or singing the camera was doing something dynamic. Never once did the camera just film passively it was always active during those particular times. weather it was a high shot looking down on Don in the pouring rain, or following him while he’s dancing though the flooded streets. Too add on these dynamic dance shots one of the more impressive aspects was the fact that the shots were very long which meant the dancers had to get all their steps right while trying to be in sync with the other dances, on top of that they had to sing. Very impressive and difficult task to accomplish and probably very frustrating doing multiple takes to get it just right.

Musical movies after Singing in the Rain set the standard for musicals on how the camera should move in relation to the action and dance being presented on stage. Les Misérables is a current example, a 2012 musical directed by Tom Hooper, took a different approach by turning the whole movie into singing and dancing but created dynamic camera shots to dramatize the characters and give greater depth to them even thought they were singing the entire time.

These types of shots were crucial to the films aesthetic, especially with musicals overall ambiance, more dynamic shots match up nicely with the fluid movement of the choreographed dance movements on screen.  Paired up with a solid musical score Singing in the Rain executed the perfect amount of dynamic shots that didn’t over power the film or make you feel like you were spinning through its movements, that created a timeless classic.