CRE. 301 BLOG 1 ACROSS THE UNIVERSE The film opens with a montage depicting large crowds most of which are soldiers, this bears a strong resemblance to the ideas in many futurist paintings. Below I have included a screenshot from the opening scene of the film and a futurist painting by Christopher Nevinson. You can see that the director has taken influence from futurism as both images share similar ideas. Both are large crowds of soldiers there s almost too many things going on in both images to only focus on one thing. The director s influence from modern art is also very clear in some scenes of the film. An example of this is the come together part where many bright, vibrant colours are used in shots to depict the hustle and bustle of New York.
The colour pallette in these scenes along with many modern art paintings are almost identical with the focus on the use of yellows, oranges, reds and blues. The screenshot below is a perfect example. The overall tint of the image is yellow with many vibrant colours scattered around the scene. The modern art painting below has all the same qualities. The dada influence comes later after Jude decides not to get the bus back, they rush down into a field and another musical number happens. During the musical number many of the scenes depicted are greatly influenced by the dada movement. I have taken a screenshot below and placed a piece of dada art above so you can see the influence. The piece is by Raoul Hausmann and is called The art critic.
The last most noticeable influence within the film is cubism. This is most recognisable in the strawberry field scene where Jude makes an art piece out of strawberries. The alignment of the strawberries is a direct reference to cubism. I have included a screenshot from the film below.
CRE. 301 BLOG 2 THE CONFORMIST It is clear right from the opening sequence that The Conformist has taken much of its cinematic influence from avant-garde with its use of strange camera angles and distinct colour palette. It takes heavy influences from fauvist and expressionist art movements. One of the shots early on in the film struck me as its expressionist influence is clear, this is due to the straight lines and overall framing of the shot. It is almost like watching a scene within a scene. Another scene in the film also has expressionist influence is when one character is talking to another from on top of a staircase.
The framing of the shot and overall mise en scene of the scene is very expressionist, the characters look very over powered and small compared to the grand scale of the shot. Influences of fauvism can be seen mostly in the colouring of the scenes. The colours represent certain moods such as coldness, or warmth and passion, an example of this would be the scene on the train where warm colours are used to show the passion between the two characters. Another good example is some of the outdoor scenes just over halfway through the film where an overall blue tint is used to try and depict how cold the city is.
One very clever use of colour in one scene is when a man is taking a bunch of yellow flowers to a woman he passes through some almost colourless places with the only colour in the scene being the yellow from the flowers. Yellow is one of the most used colours in fauvist paintings such as this one below which is by a famous fauvist artist named Andre Derain. I have also included a screenshot of the related scene.
CRE. 301 BLOG 3 FRIDA From Frida s first opening scene it is very clear that the director was influenced by De Stijl style art. This is because of the use of bright vibrant colours. The shape of the windows and doorway also look like they were created with De Stijl and Bauhaus in mind. Muralism is featured quite prominently throughout the film and it is very clear the director took much influence from the Mexican art movement. We are first introduced to muralism early on in the film when a man is painting a woman in a large auditorium then again several times later in the film. Some of the shots within the film almost look like they belong in murals themselves which I believe was the intention of the director. I think this is what influenced Frida herself to paint the murals depicting her life. One of the screenshots below show some a mural featured within the film, I have then taken the art work of Diego Rivera to compare the two.
There is much influence in the film from the Bauhaus art movement. This is prominently seen in many of the buildings throughout such as this scene below showing Diego s and Frida s house. The Bauhaus influence is unmissable with the square style buildings. I have taken a screenshot of the scene below and have also included a picture of the The Bauhaus Dessau as a reference. Much of the paintings which Frida does throughout the film are a way of expressing her emotions and I think it was also the director s intention to also use the paintings as a way of showing the audience what was happing inside Frida s mind at certain stages throughout the film. Below I have included some various screenshots of Frida s work from throughout the film.
CRE. 301 BLOG 4 BLUE VELVET Blue Velvet begins with a very relaxing almost hypnotising opening sequence which immediately alludes to both surrealism and social realism. It almost makes the audience feel as though they are within a dream state of mind. We are then introduced to the opening shot which is of red roses with the blue clear sky in the background. The colour palette of this shot is very similar to the colours used within social realism paintings. An example of this can be seen below. This colour palette is almost reversed in a later shot within the film with the use of dark, gloomy colours accompanied by eerie sounds, this is almost a transition from a dream into a nightmare. The shot I am referring to is the zoom of the ear in the field which I have included a screenshot along with a surrealist painting. As the film progresses we see many more scenes which are influenced by surrealism, the scene where the two characters are in bed and the man strikes the woman a cut away shot of a flame is shown. This gives the film that dream like feeling and plays on the emotions and minds of the audience. The scenes which follow are then presented in slow motion accompanied again with eerie sound effects, this alludes again to the dream turning into a nightmare. I scene which I think really stands out from the film is when they are driving out to the country after kidnapping the main character. The various cut away shots to the bridge zooming past and then the shot of the open road make the audience feel like this is a bad dream, it puts them in the protagonist s shoes and lets them see what it would be like to live that nightmare. That was also the idea of surrealist and social realism art. The artists wanted the viewers to feel like they were looking
into the dreams and nightmares of the artists. I feel David Fincher captured these ideas well within his film.
CRE. 301 BLOG 5 FACTORY GIRL Factory girl is set in the 1960 s and follows a woman named Edie Sedgwick and her working relationship with Andy Warhol. During the 1960 s various art movements began to develop such as Pop art and Fluxus Art. Andy Warhol was the most popular Pop Artist of all time. Due to the film featuring Andy Warhol as a character much of his art work gets featured quite a bit throughout the film such as his famous tined soup and his Marilyn Monroe painting. There is a montage of various different Pop art pieces at around 21 minutes. I feel this montage captures exactly what Andy Warhol set out to achieve with his art with the voiceover stating, He was throwing America back in their face. Turning the assembly line into a punchline. I feel this is a very accurate representation of what Andy s idea of art was. He took regular everyday objects and activates and found a way to manipulate them in such a way that people considered it as art. Below are some screenshots from that montage. Another type of art which has some influence in the style of the film is Fluxus art. Fluxus is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They varied in performance, Neo-Dada noise music and visual art, urban planning, architecture, design, as well as literature. It was an art movement called abstract expressionism which was the main influence for Pop art. Abstract expressionism was an art which tried to express and convey the horrors of war. Pop art was like a way of repealing against this movement as pop art wanted to create a happy post war vibe. Some examples of abstract expressionism are shown below.
CRE. 301 BLOG 6 BLOW UP Blow up is a very stylised film which was shot in the 1960s. It takes influence from art movements such as performance art and land art. Performance art is a performance presented to an audience within a fine art context, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. In the 1960s a variety of new works, concepts and the increasing number of artists led to new kinds of performance art. Scenes in Blow up which I feel is inspired by performance art are the photography scenes. The way that the models move and flow are very reminiscent of performance art pieces. Land art on the other hand is is an art movement in which landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked. It is an art form that is created in nature, using natural materials such as soil, rock and water with introduced materials such as concrete and metal. Sculptures are not placed in the landscape, rather, the landscape is the means of their creation. You can see some influence of land art within the film when the photographer goes into the park in search of some sort of inspiration. A very important scene if not the most important I feel is the very end scene. This in itself is a piece of performance art where the two mimes are playing tennis in the park. The fact that the photographer not only goes to fetch the ball for them but believes in the bigger picture, the reason why they are doing the mime tennis and the fact that they have an audience who are actively conveying their emotions throughout the match. I have included some screenshots of that match below.