Daisies

Man, that movie was incredibly bizarre. I get what the movie is trying to say, and while I can respect that, I really did not like this film. I'm a big fan of narrative, and obviously, there really wash' touch sense of narrative at all. It was random, it was all over the place, and it was at many times just plain annoying. They played with sound in such a unique way, but really overemphasized it at times to a very annoying result. Specifically the scene where they're watching the dancers, the music is so repetitive I started to get a head ache. One thing I did like about the film was the usage of colors, the vividness of them, and the symbolism behind them. I found it very intriguing. But man, other than that I did not find much worthwhile in this film. It was a pain, and it felt like it lasted 2 hours longer than it really did. I get it, but man, I really just don't get it.

Chytilova uses humor in a lot of ways to try to convey her movie. One of the most prominent uses of humor I think is in juxtaposition. She uses juxtaposition very often in close up shots just to confused and amuse the viewer. I think specifically of the example with the scissors when they're near the toes, and yet they are cutting up sausages instead. She also uses humor in juxtaposition of scenes, like when she goes from scenes of a slap in black and white to scenes in color with the person falling down from the slap. There definitely was some humor to be had in those kind of scenes. A lot of the humor though honestly just came from the women themselves. They seemed to be these sexual weird risqué women, and yet all their actions were incredibly infantile. It was quite counter to what culture might expect, which made it pretty humorous. A lot of the humor honestly relied on being counter-intuitive to what the viewer would actually expect. Finally, a lot of the humor just came from the tight editing. The cuts were placed very well to lead into visual cues from the actors, and also to cue towards different things that they were relating to in the scenes. The cake scene I found especially tight as far as editing went. We got to see some prior reactions to the cake hitting them up close, and post reactions, and everything seemed timed pretty well for humor, if not as much for accurate timing. The editing was on point though which was fun.

Vertigo

Scottie's obsession with reconstructing Madeline out of Judy is all-together a very disturbing scenario, and I was very impressed with the film by how much it made me feel disturbed, and really, disgusted. From a very matter of fact point of view, the idea is really disturbing. The man is so obsessed with Madeline, he kind of fetishizes her and idolizes her, and really just can't let go. And so he forces this poor girl (who turns out to actually be Madeline, which I'll address shortly) to basically massacre her own self to become this fantasy he has. As we watch it happen in the film, they do a great job of emphasizing how it's exactly what he wants. The woman with the suit constantly is saying the man knows what he wants, and the hair stylist comments that she knows what it is he wants. It's all about his wants, not about what she wants, or maybe what's right. It's also messed up simply because of how "perfect" he wants it to be. She can't do anything right until she does it completely right, and he almost berates her when even one thing is off. Because he doesn't really care about her. He just cares about this ideal, and until she matches up to it, he won't quite be happy. At the same time all this going on, it's actually oddly fitting, and thus, kind of less wrong (but still disturbing). She is the one who put this "curse" on him, as it were, and so now she is cursed to have to fill this fetish of his that was really her, but wasn't the true her. So even though he really does love her, he'll never love the real her, and that's the dramatic irony that she's faced with.

Detour

In the film detour, we see a very interesting main character. While at the beginning, you might rush to call him a hero, even after the bar scene, simply because he seems like an honest person. However, as the movie goes on, it's played up to make him feel more and antihero, or maybe even a villain. The film does a good job making you believe this a lot by what it subtly does. As with most noir films, lighting is key. While it is black-and-white, they still managed to play a lot with the darks especially when filming our hero. The hat is almost key here as it creates a constant chatter on his face. Later he does take it off though, but the open shirt and disheveled look still lends to a confusing image. A lot of the confusion on moral standpoint comes from the actors face though. He doesn't excellent job of either emoting a lot, or not at all. When we see him sitting in the car, or just thinking, he has an excellent display of no emotion. But when we get nice and close, he does quite a good job of showing his anxieties. This causes a bit of a confusion as to what kind of a person he really is. But inevitably, we realize what we have here is an unreliable narrator that we're seeing this film through. As he begins to question himself, and we hear him going back and forth in his head, we understand that what we're really seeing is just somebody's version of what happened. And when we've got somebody who appears as unreliable as he is, we realize that what they're showing us is more than likely not what we're actually out to see.

Freaks

I have to say, when watching the film Freaks, I really enjoyed it, and thought it was a really great film and a great representation of equality, and the deeper message of inner beauty vs outer beauty. After reading the articles about it though and watching the introduction, it was a bit of a bummer to find out how many critics found it to be more demonizing and creating of difference. I do understand the thought behind that all, but I feel like Browning did an excellent job in portraying these people in a good and true light. From Browning's point, he really made you like and care for these people, and flipped our views of human beauty on our head, by showing us how much more powerful inner beauty is, and how deceiving outer beauty can be. I felt like it made this point strongly, and therefore was a good representation of "freaks". Even from a cultural and simply an employee standpoint from the time, these people were all consenting adults. Now granted, our culture may have forced them in a way to not be able to find many jobs aside from this, or "freak shows". And that's another sad issue in and of itself. But this was a venue for them, and it was something willingly entered into, and it seems wrong for people to be so prejudiced against something like that simply because they believe these people were slighted. Just because they may have physical deformities does not mean they're not just as smart of an adult as we all are, but I think too often people overlook that because they look so different, and maybe so "wrong". It's sad really, that they had to be treated this way. I love that Browning put in the character of Phroso, a man who tries to emphasize that these people aren't really any different than us other than the way they look. I think that was the point of his movie. And doubly too, that maybe sometimes they are even better than people who look "normal", because their hearts are in a better place.

Sherlock, Jr.

I was very impressed at the humor I found upon watching Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. It was very much a slapstick comedy, relying heavily on Keaton making a fool of himself physically, using funny physical theatrics to get out of tough situations, or simply his funny looks. But it also drew on a lot more than that. Keaton created genuinely hilarious moments, whether it be him watching the screen of a couple to know what to do with the girl, or awkwardly giving away the dollars that he owns because he felt like he gave away somebody else's dollar. It's all real comedy gold that isn't necessarily too physical (as far as slapstick goes. It's definitely still physically happening). Keaton did a great job combining these hilarious moments with slapstick hilarity, all with relatively small amounts of dialogue. Quite hilarious. Some of his awkward moments make me feel similar to how I do when watching something like Guardians of the Galaxy, or Parks and Recreation, or really anything with Chris Pratt. He's got a subtlety to his comedy in the physicals, but something that really drives home. He says or does something small, but in the context and with how he's acting, it's made to be quite hilarious. Keaton and Pratt seem to be similar in this area, and I know there are others. Keaton definitely was a comedian that could spread across time, and still be funny and relevant today.