Final Exam

This is the American remake of the Belgian film Rosetta. Since the political climate is very different between the two countries, much of the details of story going to need to changed. Rosetta is a teenager who struggles in her social class. She lives in a trailer, and is a victim of the system--she gets fired from her job because it is cheaper for companies to not have someone on their payroll for too long. Unemployment is a huge problem everywhere, but it is much harder for young people with no skills in Belgium, than it is here in America. Though she struggles against it, there is someone in the world who wants to be her friend, and do normal things with her that other young people do. In that sense, there are many aspects of Rosetta that are universal, and this film can therefore be remade to fit other countries.
America is very different from Belgium, so to make this more relatable, a lot of things are going to be changed. It’s against the law to a teenager to not be in school--Rosetta is in school in the remake. She still lives in a trailer park, but her mother is not just an alcoholic, she doesn’t work because she is a “prostitute” for getting disability checks. Rosetta has a minimum wage job--at a McDonalds and it is not enough to pay for everything. What is coveted in this remake is an entry level job at an office that Ricky, her classmate has. Sexuality in the sense of puberty is not really something that Americans are into.

Scene 1: A shot of Rosetta gray boots with steadi cam. There is no sound but the ones that are actually in the background--cars, birds, people and Rosetta grunts. Rosetta is dumpster diving for food. She finds some old bananas. She gets out and starts walking. The camera follows her from the side, still hand held. It is only then that the viewer realizes that she is outside of her high school. It is lunch time. Rosetta hides from the others.


Scene 2: This is at Ricky's apartment. It is dull, white walled, and just plain awkward. The lighting is somewhat dimmed, not to set the mood, but because his light bulb doesn't work too well. They are eating potatoes and corn. All that is heard is their clanging silverware and the radio playing swing music in the background, which is far more lively than them.
Ricky: How do you like the food?
Rosetta: It's good.

They finish eating and stand up to clean the dishes. Ricky and Rosetta get close.

Ricky: Do you want to dance?
Rosetta: (bashfully) I can't dance. I don't want to.

Ricky takes Rosetta's hand anyway and starts awkwardly dancing. Two stepping. Rosetta has the slightest smile on her face.

Ricky: Are you having fun? I'm having fun.

They get closer. Rosetta is about to speak. She then starts feeling her terrible stomach pain.

Rosetta: (frustrated and uneasily) I have to go.
Ricky is speechless. Rosetta accidentally knocks over the dishes and leaves.


Scene 3: Rosetta sits looking out by her window in her tiny bedroom of the trailer after a really bad day of not getting promoted at work. Her mother is yelling in the background.
Rosetta: Your name is Rosetta. My name is Rosetta. You found a job. I found a job. You've got a friend. I've got a friend. You have a normal life. I have a normal life. You won't fall in a rut. I won't fall in a rut. Good night. Good night.
Rosetta starts to feel her stomach pain, and starts putting the blow dryer back and forth at it.

You can't go home again.....

The greats of European cinema all have one thing in common: social commentary. The Lives of Others and Persepolis have just that. Though completely different films, they both have a very similar theme--characters with love for their country, have been wronged by their country's government and these character must make a life-decision based on what's right for themselves. While average American viewers can't necessarily relate to that, the feeling that is given transcends lifetimes. These people are torn, and they don't fit anywhere. They never will; they will only just pretend like everything is okay and that they didn't have to face the challenges that they've faced.

Banilieue Blues

Watching La Haine, it became clear to me that Kassowitz did not want to portray the city Paris as its usual portrayal--a place of romance and liveliness. Rather, in this film, it is definitely seen as a place of hatred, one where the actual residents of its suburbs cannot feel safe. Paris as a city is filled with outsiders and cops that don't understand and will never understand the lives they live. In this film, I feel as if the banilieue is supposed to be perceived as a home to these people, not anyone else.

Aside from the tourism, the people that actually live there do not have these wildly romantic lives with long pieces of bread and hearts and wine and all those other bourgeois things. I think Kassowitz wants the viewers to really take a second look at Paris, and understand why its suburbs feel so hostile. This is a real aspect of Paris that no one ever seems to want to see.

Dardenne Dramaturgy Defined

Having watched the Dardenne Brother's Rosetta and "Dans l’obscurité”, the most evident of parallels is the way the camera is handled--steadicam , and long bouts of real time footage, allowing anything to come into the way of the camera while trying to shoot the main subject. In the case of the short film, the red movie seats got in the way about every couple of inches of the shot. This allows the viewer to feel as if they are there and not necessarily interrupting, but a real audience to what is happening.

Another signature Dardenne feature was the sound in this short. There's no dramatic music, just the sound that is surrounding the subject. There are no special parts where certain sounds fade, this is just essentially the most real the shot can get.

Much less technical and more in depth to the story, the short and the film both showcase issues of the lengths people are willing to go get by in their social classes. This short had a very tragic underlining to it, but with these, come a lot of heart. The theme parallels between "Dans L'obscurite" and Rosetta are simple: people having a really hard time doing what they need to do to get by in life, even if it means going as far as taking advantage of other people who are actually really well-intentioned; therein lies the ironic beauty. These are situations that people are put in. Society and their class has led these people to believe that they have no one to rely on when really there are many people in the world who want to help them.

Trickery.

Having watched He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, the idea of semiotics have become much more clear to me. This film does exactly what film is about, in a very extreme manner. In the beginning of the film, I thought, "how wonderful, another film with Audrey Tatou being cute and in love!" I was wildly mistaken. The first half, yes, it was as though her character was just in love and going through some hard times with her boyfriend. Turns out, he isn't even her boyfriend. He doesn't even KNOW her by name. The first half of this story shows us and has us believing that she is a sweet girl, but she's actually a complete psycho. Much like Hitchcock's the Rear Window, the semiotics in this film go to an extreme. Most films ARE supposed to take you to a certain point of view, and these do. But, the viewer often forgets that that being biased also means that they don't have the full story. Therein lies the manipulation. The viewer when first watching is supposed to give the utmost trust to what the film is telling them. The storyline does not always have to match. This vulnerability is probably the hardest to achieve in film--the viewer feels betrayed, but realizes that life is that much more complicated.

He loves me, He loves me not

The French New Wave and its Paralells

The French New Wave was an innovative time in film. After having watched Breathless, I realize why. While it is important to note that the content of the dialogue is something to be discussed, what struck me most were its stylistic elements. After all, the French New Wave was an aesthetic movement in cinema.

One of my favorite aspects of Breathless was the jump cuts. The jump cuts were a great and spontaneous way to portray exactly what the scenes were showing us, but without trying too hard. Essentially, what is great about them is that the director is able to collage different shots taken of the scene, and still let out the same message. This very much reminded me of Un Chien Andalou. For instance, the representation of a car accident in Un Chien Andalou is just a shot of a car that jump cuts to the shot of a car with a person right next to it while in Breathless, the character is just running and the sound of a gunshot jump cuts to him just ending up on the ground. While Un Chien Andalou came first, I think it is important to give credit to Breathless for putting this in the mainstream. This portrayal of incidents that should be somewhat gore-filled could just be indicative of what people could handle in film at the time. After all, All Quiet on the Western Front was a shockingly gorey and violent film at its time, but to us now we just see it as PG-13.

Another great stylistic element was the usage of real time. To me, real time is a way of getting a certain raw feeling from a scene, because you know that it’s done without editing, and your attention really must be kept throughout the whole scene. This was something apparent to me while watching this music video for Francoise Hardy’s song "Tous les Garcons et les Filles".

I had watched this and thought it was so stylistically different from modern videos and I really thought to myself that this was innovative. Eventually I came to the realization that this song and music came out in the 1960’s, which is exactly around the time of the French New Wave. So with that, we can make the conclusion that the French New Wave influenced more than just film. However, I do want to make mention of the final scene in Truffaut's the 400 Blows, which was all in real time--not only is that my favorite example, but I really feel like it provokes a great emotion that is REAL because we see it happening without editing at all.

As far as plot content, I will make mention of one thing. The movie Breathless approaches the ending in a huge event happening, but then just a feeling of __________. What's great about that is that it's left up to the audience to decide how they want to interpret the ending. It could either be hopeful(which everyone usually wants it to be), tragic, or really it could just be a sense of acceptance(which showcases the existentialist theme from these movies). This reminded me much of the ending to Michel Gondry'sEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The end lines of "okay." really portray what these film makers want from the audience--for them to figure it out themselves, because this is life.

FIN.