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Foreword

In April of 2008, after months of hard

Film Journal,

articles, reviews and interviews required all

make all of our wonderful editorial board,

new blood, as some of our past contributors

on May 8. I want to welcome as editors

next year.

our project. I also would like to remind them

have promised to take me to the Oscars and

the time this happens--I am 115 years old…

contributed to the journal with a comparative

study of the archetypes of evil present in

and

and

” is a

it was indirectly) to the economic downturn.

in and 8½

Metaphor” explores the themes of identity,

” discusses the multiple ways

truth can be twisted to satisfy a particular

end this issue with a very playful note: Josh

reviews and creative works than we expected.

If your contribution was not featured this time,

for our next issue. The editorial board of

and I, as their advisor, hope you

enjoy this new copy; we would also like to

thank you for your individual contribution and

work.

Advisor

4

Character Archetypes in and

Lubitsch in Translation: Making Contact with the “Lubitsch Touch” in Coppola’s

Review of (1999)

Appearance and Reality in and

: A Visual Metaphor

“What we have here…is a failure to communicate”: Inarticulate Characters and the Search for Truth in Akira Kurosawa’s

Movies of a Generation

5

Character Archetypes in and

Antagonist

Villain

for you over which you have little control.

Your destiny appears to be inescapable,

the exact opposite to what you hold true in

In the plotlines of most stories, there

are characters whose only purpose seems to

be to stand in the way of the main character

for children or the ones about heroes, have

very distinct lines between

. In opposition to the hero,

blur, just as they do in the real world. In such

make sense only to him/her, and often tends to

the devil itself. The use of the quintessential

is the major similarity between

and bloodthirsty, and the appearance of the

characters in scenes from their respective

between

same archetypes in order to create the main

characters for their stories.

features a

Anthony, a well-dressed loafer who was born

into wealth. As such, he spends much of his

murders for each other, which is the subject

emotional and interpersonal actions are twisted

and confused: for example, he has an obsession

with his nails, a quasi-sexual relationship with

to conversation, no sense of conscience or

6

and the focus of the movie, as portrayed by

& Ormonde).

are shrouded in a deeper mystery than those

of the classic

curious amount of mind to the way his hair

and ordinary people. As a matter of fact, the

more and more pressure on Moss. Almost

wife, very nearly kills a shopkeeper over a coin

toss, and blows up half a city block in order

he seems to be in some kind of euphoric trance

characters have a peculiar twisted idea of

morality, which allows them to commit the

of a sense of entitlement, and excuses his

personal relationship with their respective

needs a little motivation to keep up to his end

honor to kill Moss.

Remarkably, there are also some

dominance from one man to the other, and

the two constantly twist in conversation from

there seems to be a love-hate relationship

does not respond when Moss tells him that he

is the female character removed from the

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on. In

too much” is a familiar character archetype

,

in

the role of a character who understands that

the situation her husband is in is worse than

are not the objects of sexual desire within the

she is pursued by men in ; Moss,

in .

and despite the fact that they are suspicious of

the actions of their respective wards, they try

to protect them from situations they openly

neither one feels adequate as a policeman by

it to the scene of the showdown between the

those two showdowns are radically different

the fact that both policemen are forced to

follow the actions of the other characters at an

their roles.

beyond their control, both decide to take the

law into their own hands, both attempt to keep

normality” who are subjected to a sudden jolt

close calls), his refusal to accept help until

his actions become more and more dubious

Moss is also constantly on the run. After he

steals over two million dollars from the site of

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makes a border jump into and out of Mexico

and barely escapes with his life.

and the suitcase and

These

props make them just as central to the action

as many of the other characters in the movies,

delusional perception of his relationship with

archetypal characters of the same caste to

that these common archetypal characters are

forced to react to their situations in different

crime) the parallels between the main

2008.

Orr, John.

Richard Allen & Sam Ishii-

Richard Allen & Sam Ishii-

9

Lubitsch in Translation: Making Contact with the “Lubitsch Touch” in

of his productions. Audiences in America

like

they were entreated to a plush and exotic

lavish homes, and suave romance. Indeed,

resonates in

of the similarities and nuances between

and ,

this paper seeks to identify what comprises the

This peculiar choice for the host of the city

establishes the subversive humor of the subtle

a reputation for beautiful architecture and a

whose reprehensible profession is masked

by a slick suavity that allows him to access

rich lives of these people from a cynical and

This same type of cynicism appears

in

to 80 years remove from the former makes

use of several of the same elements that make

a masterpiece

at Tokyo, another lush and exotic city that

surveys the city from his car-- or when the

from a dream and found themselves misplaced

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soaked arcades and mystical temples.

who appear to be from completely different

and explore the undeniable

somewhat-absurd manner in which their

compare to the security he would experience

shamelessly, he chooses the lady thieve

labyrinthine city unites them. The juxtaposition

wants to live life but does not know exactly

desire to shake up the routine in their lives

as well as a way to end the complacency

acute and somewhat sad awareness of the irony

each other; in her main

elevator and, where both tower over their Asian

immediately surrenders the need for formality

two people establish a curious relationship, a

friendship born from alienation that discounts

their social roles and makes them accept each

of human behavior without moral evaluations

Touch”: characters who share no common

have been avoided entirely, but who can be

subjected to the forces of a powerful love.

sense of humor to accompany the characters

the humor of what is . To explain the

is not shown, what is not heard, what is not

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audience to hear it. Rather, he substitutes the

in on the tone of their conversation. Thus, the

joke evolves out of what the audience who is

needs to with the smallest details.

shower-head that only reaches to his neck,

Murray to turn up the heat under his comic

be funny, who could be the life of the party,

seems to arrive out of the possibility for

humor, but it always returns to itself to keep

the beauty of the city, but of its sublime ability

to make one feel so lost and alone. There is

Tokyo that weaves them in and out of arcades,

for a possible life with her. In other words,

their jobs and normal lives. It is this trait of

they perhaps could have had in another life.

walks out of the door says more than words

of them that he loved her, and stole from her.

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must leave each other in the near future, yet

they carry on their conversations about life,

personal lives. Instead of provocative shadows

on a bed, they lay on top of the covers as two

and exhausted. They almost seem like father

place it in the center of the screen, yet this

in the periphery of the camera shot, the touch

newfound friendship, and to sadly remind them

sense of a real passion with an ironic awareness

four of these characters know that their love

cannot be permanent, that it must be omitted

from their lives when the time calls for it. As

relationships…), he stops the car for a second

he looks at her with wide-open eyes and bends

does not allow the audience to hear whatever

two characters can be more than an in-joke.

is undeniably , and that is what makes it

away into the crowd, and the camera concludes

two people are thankful for what they shared

and may continue to live their lives hopefully

better than before.

and work as wonderful

aware of the irony it adds to the stories and of

the possibilities between any two people at any

place in the world, yet it never settles to fully

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prove to be undeniably human, and we as an

audience can only smile back at them as they

__________. Rev. of

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Review of (1999)

In , director Sam

Mendes not only rebukes the muddled

theme that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

member can think of someone they know

whose personality is mimicked by one of the

performances by Kevin Spacey and Annette

these are ordinary people we would encounter

and the two Jims are all stereotypically normal

darkly satirical nature.

account of her sorrowful life, but hate her on

she obviously has no desire to improve

time or desire to actually live this perfect

life she dreams about. The most prominent

her to the point of a mental breakdown, not to

mention into the arms of another man.

relevant to the time period in which it was

the American dream has adapted to meet this

successful, but in order to successful.

Mendes comments that we, Americans, will

happiness, which we believe is more important

than actual self satisfaction; Americans place

The second most important theme in

wind. Mendes refutes the idea of aesthetic

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appears with more and more makeup. The

but the rose red of their front door is faded,

even sets the standard

nearly always be shown from a more direct

dies and enables the other central characters to

ends with

leaves the viewer with an optimistic outlook on

the future.

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Appearance and Reality in

became one of the most important movements

8½ and

are very

different stylistically, they both deal with the

follows

only an indeterminate black shape can be made

of plot, mis-en-scene, and camera movement,

In an essay on , Antonioni said

points out

, instead it is socially and contextually

nor can he prove that he saw a body when

clue in a detective story.”

In the same way, the scene in which

Thomas stumbles into a rock concert shows

is loud and raucous. Their behavior is not

what is expected with this type of concert,

outside the concert into a completely different

it is taken out of the context that was created

for it.

Antonioni used a much sparer mis-en-scene

unreal in his quest to unravel the murder.

a tool of perception, however, that Anonioni

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of the camera tampers with the narrative and

For example, in several scenes the camera

breaks with traditional continuity patterns,

explanation of the movement of the characters

ball. The audience is reminded that the movie

camera creates a way to interpret certain events

events. This idea is summed up at the very end

question the story that the lens of the camera

8½ because it

to be looked at, watched in its movement,

felt in its duration, but not, ever, an idea to

no theories about art, and avoids…heavy

does not try to prove any philosophical

derived from just as does, but in a

very different style. Also, because the subject

8½ expresses

explicit way than

completely blur the lines between dreams,

memories, fantasies, and reality. There is

such as in the Roman bath scene in which

in his life as if it were reality, but the set is that

of an ancient Roman public bath.

of 8½ is based on

and the

there are clues to

his crew watch are actually screen tests for

the characters keep the same name as their

that he too is part of the elaborate story

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8½ is now

one of the characters of 8½

135 minutes, then,

intends to make… or

So, while both and 8½

questionability of reality and the nature of

8½

ends with the resolution of a problem nor with

a philosophical epiphany of some kind; rather,

interpretation, and 8½ ends with an expression

medium of expression.

The Films of Federico Fellini.

th

Fellini the Artist.

Rohdie, Sam. Antonioni.

19

: A Visual Metaphor

faithful to the qualities and spirit of the written

, directed

In the short story, there may seem to be an

inadequate amount of material, character

This leaves much of the story up to the

interpretation of the viewer, similar to the way

one reads a book.

themes of identity, time and memory, while

narration.

arc is represented in color, while the other is

black and white. The color scenes take place

pattern, audience members are disoriented and

scattered cinematic techniques provide an

memory to the audience.

The black and white scenes move

forward in time at a much slower pace.

named Sammy Jankis with the same condition.

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unreliability need to be appropriate. Unlike

dreams and dishonesty, the lack of short-term

memory forces the audience to simultaneously

In an attempt to justify his detective work

incomplete memory.

in a dark, lonely hotel room with a soft focus

characteristic elements of mystery, violence

kill, whether by mistake or desire, without

characteristics of sexual prowess and bad

intentions make her the stereotypical femme

fatale.

your wife.”

Similar to the theme of distorted

several days, weeks, or months have passed.

accident and even these dates have no relative

warp where every moment feels like his wife

just died.

undeveloped until the end. Furthermore, all

of the main characters wear the same clothes

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these consistencies, the viewer never knows

simplistic approach further supports the spirit

several rooms.

that the story of Sammy Jankis may actually

been able to alter his reality. This is evident

Identity may be the best theme that

inferences must be made based solely on the

himself to use his amnesia as an opportunity

quick to reform old intact memories to meet

makes the conscious decision to plan the

Sammy is in a mental institution, a few frames

some way, which causes false accusations and

less than moral behavior. Pain and isolation

that connect time, memory, and identity in

has proven, an immense amount of creative

require viewers

Works Cited

Theatre Journal

Film Quarterly

22

“What we have here...is a failure to communicate”: Inarticulate Characters and the Search for Truth in Akira Kurosawa’s

objective fact: A man has been found murdered

in the woods and his wife has been raped.

of the forest, and the discrepancies of the

answers are provided to justify the crimes

more interested in why the witnesses refuse or

are unable to tell the truth of the event rather

than the actual event itself. This denial of the

,

proves to be revelatory and prophetic towards

the nature of humanity by the end. The priest

accounts of the three members of the murder

frame, but two, in order to mythify the actual

event; the audience, then, must remember that

some objective reality towards the actual

strain of events). The men sit underneath

a broken remnant of architecture, which

sense of morality in the universe or the decay

obvious effort to make some sense of the

contradictory accounts from the perspective

objective stance towards the characters and

their accounts, the audience relies on him to

determine any thematic assumptions. To him,

threatens the moral stability of the universe;

and the harmony of the universe are inherently

to make sense of the accounts transcends the

desire to determine what actually happened;

true to themselves.

the jury, Kurosawa literally recreates these

scenes amidst the forest. The transition from

is the of society and its values. In

23

absolve into instinct and unabashed emotion.

If the forest reduces the witnesses to their

to establish what actually occurred between

sharply-contrasted shadows of overhead leaves

Perhaps the emotions evolved in that forest

be translated into rational explanation.” Indeed,

is purposefully melodramatic, for the forest

the brush, his sexual instinct is unfettered.

impossible to tell if the witnesses even know

truth of what actually happened that day amidst

The verisimilitude of these scenes,

audiences witnessed supposed scenes of reality

only to have their assumptions questioned and

is that we should suspect even what we think

the characters conceal their motives, or hide

their alliances, or refuse to admit the truth,

words the emotional trauma of what they have

seen. To further complicate the plot, all three

haunted these witnesses to possible self-

delusion. It is in these articulated discrepancies

the eyewitnesses conclude their accounts, the

spectator is that individuals can be depended

eventually reveal their narrative biases: The

speculative medium that channels the dead

not come to a resolution, the priest and the

audience are left to their assumptions and

understand it.” The squall continues to

crash upon the decrepit ruins, and any hope

even if Kurosawa believes that human

without concealment or embellishment, he

wants his audience to know that he does

have

mankind, robs the baby of its protective jewel

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and blanket and leaves it to death. The priest

both of his stories and his entire character,

until the woodcutter admits that he already

has six children and one more will not be

much different. This statement humbles the

account of the murder and rape may never

be fully revealed, but the priest understands

that the witnesses of the story are not base

creatures just because they are unable to admit

is not cold and alone, for after the priest has

this revelation, the rain stops and the sunshine

audience members around the world on a new

level; considered as one of the masterpieces of

experimented

with narrative structure in order to convey a

universal theme about humanity. Kurosawa

Kurosawa believes deeply in the human will

the priest do not know what happened in that

faith. Answers may never be revealed and our

questions can only deepen, but our sympathy

extends for these characters who, in the end,

seem all too human.

, dir. Akira Kurosawa.

Kurosawa, Akira.

25

Movies of a Generation

all students

relate with. Usually, it is the classic movie

over time, certain movies stand out not only

because they make students from other era feel

and represent the times in which they were

released.

will be thrown off campus and expelled from

relationships, and stupid pranks help make this

movie a classic. After all, who does not know

weekends.

to barely squeak by and pass. The students

think all the teachers are too strict, and the

school.

As we fast forward another four years,

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born. Ferris wants to have what he believes

is his ideal day: to skip school, drive around

for Ferris, his principal and his sister want

comes really close but escapes punishment

an all time low and everyone in the school is

believable and fun idea that everyone enjoys.

it was clear that this was a movie for the

new catch phrases and shows what house

the studious nerd who reads poetry for fun, the

to everyone and shows how true friends can

three words.

really care about you.

Four years later, with more applications

almost an impossible dream, a school which

accepts virtually everyone is a fantastic idea.

up for orientation. This makeshift, fake school

applies for accreditation, and the rest is history.

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that very closely resembles the actual time

prepares to deal with an economic crisis and

been a constant joy for people all over the

world, and with these classics in mind, many

it most. Movies, whether comedy, or not, seem

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Editor’s Note

second issue of

to the back and read another wonderful note by

our entire staff to put out the best issue we

possibly could, just in time for exam week…

semester, there are even plans to build our

hope everyone who picks this up enjoys your

work as much as we did.

and I have no doubt they will make the journal

on

To sum up, thank you to everyone

who submitted and to everyone who reads

for their work. And maybe next year, the new

staff will have the issue out exam week,