A-Level Film Studies - Daniel Kallin

  Refer closely to two different sequences and analyse how key elements of film form contribute to the representations in City of God . City of God uses its sequences to explore a variety of different forms of representation, such as: masculinity, women, poverty and class, the youth, and favelas. The opening sequence is particularly pertinent in exploring representations of the favelas, by introducing them to the spectator using film techniques such as hand-held cameras and an erratic cinematography, and, whilst doing so, also explores masculinity and youth in their relationship to the society built in the favelas. Another important sequence in exploring representations is the motel massacre sequence, as it explores the impact of the favelas onto the youth and their descent into crime, whilst also looking at female characters and masculinity. These representations are consistently reinforced throughout the film, using a wide range of film features to explore them fully. In its open...

 A Brief Introduction to Brazilian Cinema by Peter Rist - Brazilian cinema received little recognition in the wider world until recent international success from films like Central Station (1998) and City of God (2002) Early Brazilian Cinema - Films were first screened in Brazil in 1896, and the first films made there were in 1900 - The period of 1908-12 has been called the golden age of Brazilian cinema - Post-1911, foreign films began to dominate the Brazilian film market, relegating Brazilian filmmakers to newsreels and documentaries - Big cities still produced films, including the later-acclaimed, avant-garde Limite (1930) - Brazilian cinema finally industrialised once sound created a language barrier - The first major film movement in Brazil was the 'chanchada', which took after Hollywood backstage musicals, and combined them with Brazilian comic theatre and carnival - This led to the great success of comic team Oscarito and Grande Otello, most notably in Carnival Atlántid...

  City of God  (Lund & Mireilles, 2002) - Space, environment, and political agendas are relevant - Distinct boundaries of the form - Similar rawness to British social realism but extends into wider contexts - Outsiders of society and class - Non-professional actors - Real places and spaces - location in world cinema - Complex narrative structure - three major strands - Spans the 1960s-80s - Cyclical nature of narrative parallels idea of a cycle of crime, repetition and hopelessness - Male world - representations of masculinity - Gang chasing a chicken who is caught in between the narrator and the police - Flashback to the 1960s from the 1980s - Context of favela's -government neglect, lack of essential resources in the housing projects - Motel massacre followed by shift in time to the 1970s, influence of drugs Opening sequence: 360* camera spin - cyclical structure - Knifes and drums - cultural yet dangerous - Fast-paced close-ups, unfocused, zooming in and out, chaot...

- Influence of wider contexts like time, place, spaces, culture, tradition - World cinema offers unique narratives and stories outside of a mainstream cinematic worldview Ida (Pawlikowski, 2013 - Influence of European tradition in terms of styles, takes inspiration from film movements such as Italian neo-realism, French New Wave, Polish New Wave - Also taking inspiration from film noir - with the use of monochromatic lighting and colour scheme - Narrative comes from European history and specifically from Poland and the Jewish community - Relevant to the failed initiatives for an integrated Europe Pawlikowski's first film made in Polish, funded by Polish film institute, uses their personnel, filmed on location in Poland - Set in Poland 1962 - After WWII - communist rule (under Stalin and the Soviets) - Many Polish-Jews died from the Holocaust - After 1945, Poland mostly a homogenous nation - Ruled by Polish People's Republic - After Stalin's death in 1953 - some relaxation o...

 To what extent can it be said that your chosen documentary is shaped by the filmmaker's approach?  Refer to at least one filmmaker's theory you have studied. Kapadia’s documentary Amy demonstrates that the filmmaker’s approach is instrumental in crafting audience perceptions to the events of the film, allowing Kapadia to create a narrative around Amy, whilst only using footage already made to give Amy the space to, as it were, tell her own story. Through this, Kapadia’s style of filmmaking is slightly removed from the more conventional extremities of documentary, seen through Longinotto’s observational style of letting events play out organically without any involvement from her, and Broomfield’s participatory style of putting himself onscreen to become a part of the story. Kapadia still uses elements of those theories in his editing of the footage, but his complete non-presence visibly in the documentary, in any form, hints at a level of separation between the content of ...

Amy (Kapadia, 2015) Observational Kapadia is hidden/not visible - Spectator can observe events and arrive at their own understanding of the events, or the 'truth' - No interfering voice or authorial presence DEBATE: Who is to blame for her tragic death? Scene observations Flashing cameras from paparazzi - makes spectator feel as uncomfortable as Amy, serves as a transition: she never catches a break and nor do we, questions whether the viewer is also complicit in how the world saw her - Spectator always expecting her death, mistrustful of everyone - Amy's music is heightened by lyrics on screen drawing connections between her life and her songs, and creating a poetic element to the documentary

  Aguirre, the Wrath of God: Herzog's 16th Century Documentary As if Herzog and his crew had travelled back in time to the 16th Century to make a documentary, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, is a shakily-shot and unreliably-told tale of the delusions of power, the mania of religion, and the pointlessness of hasty warfare and colonialism. Power-crazed Aguirre, played by the brilliantly creepy Klaus Kinski, is willing to destroy everything and anyone, including himself, in order to achieve fame and glory and riches and, in a landscape rooted into the reality of actual Spanish colonialism at the time, fails to reach the supposed grandeur of his Cortés-like predecessors.  Comically absurd and increasingly insane, Aguirre, is a film which makes you feel like you are actually there in the jungle, slowly losing faith in reality and God as the old hierarchies and laws don't make any sense once any semblance of a power structure fails to work. The faux-documentary style leads to a greater c...