A-Level Film Studies - Daniel Kallin

  'The director is always the most important influence on a film.' Compare how far your two chosen films support this statement. [40] In both Wilder's 'Some Like It Hot' and Penn's 'Bonnie & Clyde', the director can be seen to the most important influence on a film. Both filmmakers have recurring themes in their filmographies, unique to them, making them auteurs, and these qualities are exemplified in the two films mentioned above. In Wilder's 'Some Like It Hot', the director is essential to the film's identity. This is first scene with the social and political values it presents, where Wilder goes against ordinary conventions of the time to insert themes of gender representation and sexuality, using the guise of comedy to get it through the Hay's code. These underlying societal critiques are also seen in Wilder's 'Sunset Boulevard' where there are underlying themes of mental illness and alcoholism, proving that these ...

  No Country For Old Men (Coen, 2007) Opening Monologue - Generations: Long-term jobs Same jobs as parents Felt safer - didn't carry a gun Family is very important - especially father figures Landscape hadn't changed - roads and cop cars have Tropes in Westerns: Cowboy costumes - gunslingers, hats Desert - sandy colours, mountains in the background, wide open space Violent but confident men - slow, take their time before they shoot Wild West - nobody knows who everyone is - ghetto - only news is rumours by word-of-mouth Discovery Scene - Old vs New: Cars contrasts the long walk through the desert Binoculars - not usually in Westerns No music  Wristwatch but kept in his pocket - new thing used in an old way Wild West - less isolated as he drove there - feels safer Leaves shotgun and picks up machine gun Notes from The New York Times reviews (Scott, 2007) Coen Brothers are such familiar auteurs that they have their own subgenres within their filmography which No Country For Old ...

  Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944) Film noir Both visually and morally dark Use of lighting to suggest a crowd Low budget - between the wars and post-depression so lack of funding Plot-wise: dark, detective element - defines the genre Detective elements - lighting turns it into noir 'noir' = black - dark subjects and themes, moral ambiguity Femme Fatale -  Double Indemnity is similar to Sunset Boulevard's Norma Desmond Is Some Like It Hot a departure for Wilder's directing career? Yes. SLIH is very different to both Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity as it goes into a comedic direction, focusing on issues just as deep but with the guise of humour. Whilst Sugar is depressed, she is also a humerous and fun character. In films like Double Indemnity, Wilder steps into the darkness of the film without hesitating, with humour playing a minimal role. This fits in with film noir a lot more, embracing darkness over light. All of these films do have the use of subterfuge in com...