Film Analysis of Jean-Pierre Jeunet - Essay Example

?Film analysis of Jean-Pierre Jeunet Introduction: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, as a movie director, came into the limelight with his famous work Amelie, and in this paper a critical comparison of two movies of his creation has been undertaken. The critical evaluation involves the scene analysis and the technical analysis of the films. The visual style depicted in the films is also critically evaluated to understand the directorial venture taken by Jean- Pierre Jeunet and his worthiness and his credibility as a director. The two films studied here are A Very Long Engagement released in 1994 and the Alien Resurrection. The comparative analysis of the two movies helps us to understand the technicalities used by Jean-Pierre Jeunet in establishing the themes for his movies. Thesis Statement: Jean –Pierre Jeunet uses the help of detailed storytelling and uses cinematic approaches for the establishment of the themes in his movies. The cinematic approach used by him differed in various outlooks according to the subject chosen by him. A Very Long Engagement: A Very Long Engagement by Jean-Pierre Jeunet is another master class created by him. The movie is based on French background and a superb piece of storytelling approach was followed by the director to set the story on pace. The director has taken the help of flash back to depict a part of his story and his class of mixing the two eras falls under a special genre (Hurley). Jeunet has been successful in depicting the memories of the French war by using stupendous location and the use of long shots through the muddy fields. The long shots is panned at a fast pace with the help of Long cranes which signified the pace of the battle. The choice of exotic location throughout France helps to grasp the interest of the viewers. Locations like Paris, Brittany and Poitiers were used in the movie (A Very Long Engagement (2004)). The battle scenes used in the movie are supposed to be inspired from the movie Saving Private Ryan. Though the movie is war based, yet Jeunet has been successful in depicting a well composed and a balanced portion of the story as a love epic. The screenplay used was optimally balanced and Jeunet used his master class to combine the two and deliver a master class. In the war scenes the use of sound has been critically and carefully used to give the viewers a raw feeling of the ongoing of a war. The sounds used in the sequence are of high quality. The director places the story in personal vision rather than trying to depict it as a historical epic. The use of color images from the start of the story helps the viewers to land into realism or better termed as cinematic impressionism. At the end viewers are left with multi hued memories. The camera angles used by Jeunet were also very much critical. Wide angled close ups of Tautou is used. The focal length and the height of the camera were carefully studied to get the best view of the shots of Tautou. The director uses a mix of cold colors in depicting the wartime trenches and the warm color to elaborate the peace time. The main tinge of color used in the film was that of the color brown while a patch of greenish brown was used in the war field. The color used is monochromatic and spots of other colors are used. In the scenes of the trench, the face portraying the soldiers is aimed to have a different image than the rest of the faces used in the movie. The aim was to provide a markup distinguish in the faces (Cinematic impressionism).The use of voice over has been carefully handled in the film and its dynamism in the tone of voice was critically appreciated. The audio mix used in the film is also stunning. The quality of sound is superb as the rain drops falling in the coats of the soldiers seemed almost real. The use of supplemental material in the film has also been solidly handled (Schager & Gonzalez). The tones used overall in the film are unrealistic and often ranges from golden to sepia to gray according to the varied situations and the plots used in the movie. The expression of Mathilde, the protagonist of the story is superbly captured throughout. The change in her character and the eventual conclusion of the story is transparently depicted. However due to the vast numbers of characters portrayed in the movie, occasionally the movie loses its way. The use of colors and the shots outside the war field is chosen such that it resembles as painting rather than a movie. Though the war scenes have been claimed to be inspired from another classic movie , still its detailing and the brilliant use of wide angled and the close range shots focusing on the soldiers cannot be left ignored. The main part of the story depends on the exposition and it was a more challenging task, but Jeunet had successfully overcome the challenges. Every shots of the film are perfectly framed and the equal amount of captivity is provided by the enthralling visions. The narrations of the events are done in intrusive manners and all the attributes of emotion are blended in an inventive, lovely and in engaging fashion. A sense of magic has been relived in the movie by the use of albatross soaring high in the sky and the German biplane roaring down upon Manech. (A Very Long Engagement) Apart from the technical aspects of the film which helps in acting as a catalyst to the audio visual aspect, the performance of the cast cannot also be simply overlooked. The performances of them also have been simply overwhelming. The character of Mathilde has been superbly reflected and her feelings of unquestioning love and tragic loneliness make the viewers emotional and make the movie enthralling for the viewers to watch. The movie depicts a darker tale with presence of subtle humor and tells the story relating to the absurdity of war. (Berardinelli and Ebert, 569) Alien Resurrection: The movie Alien Resurrection by Jean Pierre Jeunet was released in the year 1997. The movie is a part of the alien series. After the release of the movie it received mixed review from the critics. The movie deals with various supernatural elements and the director does put in a lot of effort to create such an ambience. The film has a varied use of the special effects to highlight the special creatures of the film. The creatures are made to look lively by the different use of camera angles and the duration of the shot. A considerable number of miniatures are used in the movie as spaceships. In the movie the director along with the cinematographer did create some visual excitement in the movie by bringing into the light of the viewers a spaceship and an enthralling sequence of underwater scenes. However critics claim that the movie has left no space for imagination and scenes were overfilled with smashing and cuttings all over (Kaveney, 199-200). However this aspect of the movie can take us back to the twentieth century when the art of movie making started and such acts were prominent over the scene. In the movie much concentration was given to abstain from the wide angled shots. The designing of the spaceships is done very carefully and the director aims to make the spaceship appear darker and dirtier than their usual appearance. A different approach of illumination of the spaceship is done and it is taken care that some parts of the spaceship were illuminated and the rest was kept in dark. The hallways of the spaceships are made to look different. A good use of the technicalities was maintained by the director. The lighting effect was given the most importance and the frames were kept out of focus with the help of wide angled lenses. Special care is also taken into the appearance of the aliens and they were made to look shinier and have a wet look. As the movie concentrates on the aliens a green tinge of color and hue was used to provide the necessary and the required ambience (Ballinger, 90). A movie dealing with superficial elements had to concentrate on various factors and with so many factors into consideration, a punch of the movie was however been unable to establish. The story starts with Ripley, one of the main characters of the movie giving birth to an alien queen who in turn develops human habit and gives birth to its offspring and eventually kills her mother. The plot develops to be a story of alien matricide which helps Ripley to establish herself as the new alien queen (Nicol). The story narrated in the movie appears to possess a theme of a feminist approach. The music of the movie was in accordance with the theme and involved erotic and special sound effects which helped to portray the feel of the movie. The movie was a big budget considering the amount of cost involved in building the special effects and technology used in designing the super elements used for the movie, but it could not reach out to the audience in the big manner as expected. The two most important aspects of the movie are that of the technologies used by Jean-Pierre and his mastery in giving the final shape to the film. The underwater scene used in the movie is the most difficult of all and it was also challenging to give shape to the plans. The aquatic filming was very difficult and it required special technicalities and swimming abilities was required by the crew members in carrying the shot effectively. Use of computer generated imagery was used in some other scenes. Perfection in some of the scenes is being able to attend by the help of the crew members and the lead role in action. The extent of supernatural elements was shown in excess. In the birth scene of the alien which marks the beginning of the movie, is also repeated may a times throughout the movie. Sights of half aliens and aliens emerging from the ribcage of a human body were a popular sight throughout the movie (Alien Resurrection). Presence of inhuman elements occupies a major part of the movie and an image of wretched creatures emerging from different places is a common sight. The director typically framed Ripley’s character with feminine traits but posses’ masculine physical characteristic in order to create a feeling of supernatural elements but it often confuses the viewers. A husky voice has been used in resembling Ripley’s voice with the help of special sound devise (Ezra, 69- 72). In the movie various shots of spaceships moving against the backdrops appeared to be a lot gloomy and did not seem appropriate n the context of the movie. (Ebert, 6) Comparison: In the two movies studied above by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, we find a contrasting style used by him. The subject or the idea dealt in the two movies were completely different from each other and needed difference in treatment accordingly. The movie A Very Long Engagement tasted success all over and became popular for the directorial greatness of Jeunet. But same was not experienced in case of Alien Resurrection. The director is careful in setting the theme for both the movies and resolved to various means. In A Very Long Engagement the story builds around two plots and the director tries to make a difference between the two plots by his excellence. At the same time he had to be careful in his approach of storytelling through the help of the protagonist Mathilde as he used the flash back method. Distinctive color and tone is used to differentiate between the two scenarios. In the case of the movie Alien Resurrection the director dealt with a complete different theme of supernatural aspect and has to deal with various super elements. In this case he is assisted with the help of various technological tools to reach perfection. Indifferent illumination and miniature is used and various scenes effectively were used to set the pace for both the films. In A Very Long Engagement the obsession for love of Mathilde and her monotony of life was made picture perfect by the choice of location, color and the background score while dealing with her. The role play is also superbly carried out. Various expressions of the protagonist framed in close up shots truly reflected the courage and endurance in her. On the other hand pan shots are used and use of wide angled camera is popular in the war trench. Generally the use of wide angled shot is used to provide detailing and the importance of providing detailed shot was necessary in depicting the wars (Freeman, 78). A difference in contrast is used in the movie Alien Resurrection, where the director tried to use minimal of the wide angle shots. The director carefully designed the Newborn creature aptly and looked onto the detailing and became as the hybrid formation of human and alien (Trivia). Considering the formalism and the realism point of view of both the movies the approaches are different in this respect also. A movie tagged under ‘formalism’ uses the cinematic approach which is far away from the reality. In these movies personal vision or depiction of the situation from the director’s point of view is taken (Corrigan, Timothy, 90). Real world events are depicted in the movies which have been classified under realism. These kinds of movies are challenging for the directors as they have to take the challenge of establishing the story realistically (Jerslev, 15). In the first movie discussed the director has used a mixed approach of realism and formalism where he tries to depict the French war by the wide portrayal of the war trenches, clot bloods, and wounds, dust and mud and also uses the emotional quotient of Mathilde to weave the story, Whereas in Alien Resurrection the director takes the whole hearted approach of formalism to present his movie. Conclusion: The study conducted here reflects that master director like Jean-Pierre Jeunet used various cinematic approaches and resolved through different means while dealing with various matters of choice to depict in his art of moviemaking. The wide variety he possesses in describing a subject and the mannerisms he avails are appreciable. He aptly chooses the areas to be highlighted and his manner of weaving and narrating a story is a masterly act. The two films under study are widely different in respect of the subject and have been treated from different creative angles. The comparison also highlights the depth of knowledge the director possessed in movie making. His vast knowledge and sense of framing and portrayal of character has been unique. The use of color and music in accordance with the theme of the subject reflects his greatness. The great movies by the director have been a visual treat. The comparison brings a similarity on this aspect of artistic angle in the two movies of different subjects. Though the two movies are of different nature but the treatments they received from the director are unique. References Jeunet, Jean-Pierre, (director), Tautou, Audrey Ulliel, Gaspard (performers), A Very Long Engagement , California, Warner Brothers Jeunet, Jean-Pierre, (director), Weaver Sigourney, Ryder, Winona, (performers), Alien Resurrection, California20th century Fox “Cinematic impressionism”, theasc, n. d, October 18, 2011 from: http://www.theasc.com/magazine/dec04/engagement/page4.html   A Very Long Engagement (2004), This distracted globe, October 18, 2011 from: http://thisdistractedglobe.com/2008/11/25/a-very-long-engagement-2004/ Ballinger, Alexander, New Cinematographers, London, Laurence King Publishing, 2004 Berardinelli, James & Ebert, Roger, the ultimate guide to the best 1,000 modern movies on DVD and video, Boston, Justin, Charles & Co, 2005 Ebert, Roger, I hated, hated, hated this movie, Kansas City: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2000 Ezra, Elizabeth, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2008 Freeman, John, Photography: the new complete guide to taking photographs: from basic, Stuggart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005 Harley, P “A Very Long Engagement review”, talktalk, October 18, 2011 from: http://www.talktalk.co.uk/entertainment/film/review/films/a-very-long-engagement/816 Kaveney, Roz , From Alien to The matrix: reading science fiction film, London: I.B.Tauris, 2005 Nicole, Jonathon, “2 Cents: Alien Resurrection”, physicsroom, October 18, 2011 from:http://www.physicsroom.org.nz/2cents/alien.htm Schager, Nick & Gonzalez, ED, A Very Long Engagement, slantmagazine, October 18, 2011 from: http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/a-very-long-engagement/692 Jerslev, Anne, Realism and 'reality' in film and media, Copenhagen, Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002 Corrigan, Timothy, Corigan, a Short Guide to Writing about Film, New Delhi, Pearson Education India, 2009 Read More