The Shawshank Redemption

The Shawshank Redemption: the unlikely classic.

When originally released (though critically acclaimed on its second release), not much was thought of what appeared on the surface to be your average prison film - not a particularly high budget, no special effects and a relitively small constrictive set, could it really offer anything new?

The answer to that is, of course, yes. The enthralling, innovative and engaging plot holds your attention for the entire duration of the film, its perfect cast carry the narrative effortlessly with their outstanding performances - I refer primarily to Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, who's onscreen relationship will touch even the most cynical audience. Also, the underlying tone of resignation conflicts with the hope portrayed by the characters as the film progresses - this is visually supported by the cold, unfriendly and claustrophobic nature of the prison, contrasting with the promise and inspiration that the smallest piece of music or a few cold beers can bring.

The story follows the journey of prison inmate, Andy Dufresne, who has been wrongly convicted of murder and must learn to deal with the new and alien environment of an American state prison. An educated man, Dufresne ascends the 'ranks', both socially, in the eyes of his fellow convicts, and 'professionally', in the eyes of the authorities, eventually resulting in a banking job for the prison staff. This position aids Dufresne's ingenious and eventually successful plan to escape Shawshank prison.

The Shawshank Redemption is truly an excellent film for the most fundemental reasons - it saddens, it delights, it portrays reality and yet gives hope, it involves yet distances the audience and most importantly it entertains - a wholely captivating experience.

2012

2012: Pure Hollywood trash. The effects of course, amazing - every corner of the globe - epically destroyed by incredible natural phenomenons. The cinematography, again, incredible - it looks fantastic, as do the main cast - not even the end of the world will shift a hair out of place... but that is it - the script, actors and even music, leave something (perhaps many things) to be desired.

At an 158 minute running time, one soon tires of the effects, leaving an empty shell of a movie - no plot to speak of and lazy, unconvicing, and suspiciously recognisable characters ('The Day After Tomorrow', 'Independence Day', 'War of the Worlds' etc etc). One could even claim that some scenes were lifted directly out of director, Roland Emmerich's previous movies - tired civilians, struggling, through howling winds, to cross a barren snowly landscape.... we've seen it before!

I believe the main issue is with the plot - there isn't one. '2012' is merely a sequence of visually exciting events. The movie provokes no emotional response - we feel nothing for our planet. The end of our world, as portrayed, may well have been the demise of some distant, alien planet - we cannot relate, we do not care. A coherent story would have improved it tenfold - supported by the visuals - it could have been incredible!

The other aspect I felt let the movie down (and I make reference to '2012' as a movie, not as a film, not as cinema - a little snobby critical terminology), was the actors and the lack of believable and convincing characters. John Cusack, a usually decent actor, delivers a safe performance - he plays the cliched, unlikely hero who will do anything (and endure ridiculous amounts of physical harm) to save his family. What struck me most was how unrealistic the character's reactions to the unfolding events were. I'm not suggesting the entire film should be spent watching the actors screaming and crying in terror, unable to say a single word - but a balance has to be struck. From the start, the adult characters are able to deal with emotional turmoil that is beyond anyone's worst nightmares, with occasional concerned glances, and the children, who's worst experiences before these events take place, would have been along the lines of a scraped knee, fail to shed a single tear (and occasionally manage a comic line or two). Just as in Spielberg's 'War of the Worlds', the main character's story is a father struggling to deal with his ex-wife's new husband bonding with his children - original eh? This story continues to near the end of the movie when the new husband is killed in a tradgic accident - one might think there might be an emotional response from his wife, but no, she almost instantly settles for her ex, kissing him passionately amid the disaster. Suffice to say - up until this point, there was no indication that the couple were unhappy...

I realise I have ranted quite enough. I will make a good effort to try and find a film that I like to blog about next time.

It's not quite the end of the world - but it's not great!

What is a typical 48hrs of television?

Michael Ferns DFTV1 RSAMD
What do I watch on television?

02/11/09

7:00am BBC1 ‘Breakfast’ (on television)

I watch ‘Breakfast’ to catch up on the latest headlines before leaving for the Academy in the morning. I always like to know the most recent news before the day begins – I guess its just habit now.
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7:00pm DAVE ‘Dragon’s Den’ (on television)

I have always enjoyed this show. Although I know how contrived it is, it is pure entertainment for the same reason that one watches the likes of the ‘X-Factor’ auditions. Also because the nature of the subject matter, new and innovative business ideas, interests me.

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9:00pm BBC1 ‘Life’ (on television)

The BBC produces another fantastic, beautiful, informative and entertaining nature piece by the legendary broadcaster and naturalist, David Attenborough. This is, by far, my favourite type of television programming. The BBC are truly the masters of this genre!

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03/11/09

7:00am BBC News24‘BBC News’ (on television)

To catch up on the latest headlines.

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7:30am Channel 4 ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ (on television)

Although it follows the same formula as all other American sitcoms, I find it to be very clever, well delivered and most of all, hilarious! It is relaxing to ease into the day with a half hour of light comedy.

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6:00am Channel 4 ‘The Simpsons’ (on television)

No matter how many episodes you have seen, it never fails to provide clever, witty humour. A classic.

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10:00pm ITV3 ‘Taggart’ (on television)

This is an integral part of Scottish televsion culture. Although a little embarrassing, I must admit, it was one of my inspirations to begin filmmaking. It’s a safe formula that never fails to intrigue.

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04/11/09

6:00am BBC News24 ‘BBC News’ (BBC News website)

I often check the website for more specific news items. The website separates the types of news so that you can read and watch the news you want, when you want.































Michael Ferns DFTV1 Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

Inside

What makes a bad film? A poor script? Bad photography? Unconvincing characters?

'Inside' is a bad film. It ticks all these boxes.

The film takes place in one house for the entire 83 minute running time, following the 'story' (and I use that term loosely) of a pregnant woman who, on the verge of going into labour, is stalked by a nameless stranger who wishes to steal her child for her own. 'Inside' is one of those very dark films, literally, where, when not shown in optimum conditions, is almost impossible to see.

The direction is, in my view, poor, the script (besides being totally unoriginal) is banal and the acting is almost as bad. There was nothing left to the imagination. It seemed to be more of a exibition of bloody prosthetics than a coherent film, and that was all it was, scene after scene of blood and gore; the weapon of choice, a pair of scissors, which ended up in every single bodily orifice possible to inflict mximum pain on the victims. I say 'scene after scene', however that is not eniterly true, the film was pretty much, besides the odd brief flashback, one continuous scene, in which the audience tired of the bland location after about 15 minutes.

The formula here was clear: one main character who must be kept alive throughout, despite an absurd amount of injuries which, realistically, would have killed her within the first 5 minutes: she will 'sustain' the plot. One crazed killer, make her a woman - more interesting that way, to walk around in shadow and mutilate people with a pair of kitchen scissors. A host of minor characters who will enter the house, answering the womans cry for help, and be mutilated in turn. There you go, a movie!

The film for the first 70 minutes of 88 contained no supernatural elements whatsoever until, without explanation, a police officer, who has seemingly been killed, turns into a zombie and stumbles about, missing both his eyes and one arm, making groaning noises. This is the first and last paranormal element to the film, completely unexplained.

You might think, after all this gore, there may be some message to come out at the end, perhaps - "don't try and steal other people's unborn babies and kill a mass of people along the way because its wrong", no, infact, the crazed killer succeeds in stealing the baby, by performing a successful cesarean section with the blunt scissors and that is how the film ends, with the killer cradling the baby in a darkened room.

Fabulous!

Life (BBC)

It is no exageration to say that I have never seen television quite as remarkable as this! The BBC are the masters of this genre and they keep outdoing themselves with every new series.

The new nature series ,'Life', narrated by David Attenborough uses state-of-the-art filming techniques to achieve a stunning look at extreme animal behaviour - Events that have never before been captured on film are presented to us in fantastic HD, superbly edited chase sequences show us real life in action and extreme close-ups of rarely seen exotic animals shown in 60fps slow motion allow us to see every detail.

This mind-blowing footage includes Komodo dragons bringing down a fully grown buffalo, cheetahs working together to kill an ostrich almost three times their size and the amazing hunting technique of a chameleon whos tongue shoots out like a missile to catch its insect prey.

What amazes me is not only are these events captured at all but they are shot with almost perfect photography - lighting, focus, movement, framing - it truly is incredible. Although I am suspicious that quite a few of action that happens takes place inside a contained environment, there are sequences that could only be taken for real in the wild and a short 'behind the scenes' piece at the end of each programme allows us to see the skill and patience of these photographers, sometimes spending several months in one position to capture just one shot.

Several new and innovative filming techniques have been used to give the programme its very highbrow and quality feel. The Gyroscopically-stabilised helicopter camera known as the Heligimbal was used to shoot the spectacular aerial shots without any camera shake, a similar technique was employed for use on a boat also. Another innovation, first used in Attenborough's previous series, Nature's Greatest Events, was the use of the FrankenCam, a motion-controlled macro camera developed for the programme by Ammonite Films which is capable of shooting extreme close-ups of tiny subjects.

Life's Executive Producer said, "We've filmed them in a compelling way – using high definition cameras with the latest remarkable technologies, like ultra-high-speed, stabilised aerials. And we wanted epic stories about major global events - but told with intimacy and strong narrative story-lines. I think we've succeeded."

I agree that they have succeeded to produce both an educational and beautiful series that I believe is the type of programming which truly justifies the licence fee!

Life is on every Monday at 9pm for the next 8 weeks.

Platoon

'The first casualty of war is innocence'.

I first heard about the film Platoon when my father purchased the soundtrack CD. I found the music extremely atmospheric and thought provoking even before I had had seen the film. Of course this inspired me to view the movie, which I found not only entertaining and exciting but harsh, gritty and most importantly, honest.

War is unrelenting, which is mirrored effectively in the pace of the film: there is no room to breathe. Scene after scene invokes tension and sadness. The audience is shown the real grittiness and evil of war, where hereos do not exist.

We get an insight into the thoughts and feeling of our main character, a young American recruit (played by Charlie Sheen) who enters the army by choice with the intention to do his duty for his country. However we find that, as does Chris Taylor (Sheen) 'innocence is the first casualty of war'. Because of his circumstances, Taylor is forced to do things he never thought he would be able to do, therefore he finds he must distance himself from his emotions if he is to do his job correctly and more importantly, survive himself: his innocence is lost. Also, if the viewer did not know much about Vietnam then their innocence is lost also by watching this film.

Platoon uses symbolism greatly through its characters, the most obvious example being that of Elias and Barnes who represent, respectively, good and evil. Taylor represents innocence.

I thought the direction by Oliver Stone was fantastic, the movie felt real, often being difficult to believe you were watching a movie at all. I found that I never sat back and thought about a particular shot, good or bad, which I do with most films I watch. I was completely engaged with the plot, it was unrelentingly fast paced and the battle scenes honestly explicit.

The performances were equally as good as the direction. It took me a while to distance the association between Charlie Sheen's character Taylor and Sheen's lighter comedy roles which are all I have seen him in before now. However the supporting cast, Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger were fantastically convincing, making the experience, sometimes, almost too real.

Essentially, Platoon is not really about war, but the phscological effects it has upon individuals. It was based upon Oliver Stone's real experiences which I feel helps to give the movie a true feeling of authenticity, a lack of Hollywood gloss: A true experience.

I recently watched a really clever, witty and moving film by acclaimed French director, Francois Truffaut. Day for Night, the original French title being La Nuit Americaine, is essentially a movie about making movies. The title comes from what French filmmakers called the method where night scenes are shot during the day using filters to control the light. The story follows the cast and crew of a movie, all staying together for the duration of the shoot, focusing on the personal and professional releationships that form between them (Truffaut himself plays the director 'Ferrand' within the film).

I found it provided an insight, if not somewhat slightly dramatised for entertainment purposes, into the ups and downs of the filmmaking process; the close bonds that form between cast and crew members in addition to the stressed and frenzied environment a film set can be at times. Although the real message that shines through is how well people work at a profession they truly love (even if it to the exclusion of everything else!)