Final Post: History films and medieval history

After watching multiple history films in this class, I will admit I still am not a huge fan of them. Most of the films we watched felt slow and took forever to get to the point. I struggled to pay attention all the way through most of the films. The hardest film for me to continue and pay attention to was Camelot because it was very long. It was three hours and I felt as if every scene had already happened and was being repeated. I really enjoyed watching A Knight’s Talebecause they incorporated a lot of modern music and language. I found this easier to pay attention because I could relate to it more. The film still portrayed a medieval theme but did it in a more modern way.

All of the history films that we watched had to do with the medieval time period in history. Since the medieval time period was very old-fashioned, it was hard to relate to the time period after living in the modern world today. I have gotten used to watching modern films which have modern language, music, and film techniques. In these medieval films, the music is old and slow, the language is hard to understand because they used different dialect, and the film techniques involve poor camera angles and slow transitions. With the old film techniques, it made it hard for me to continue watching because I am used to better film quality, but since it was made earlier on, they did not have as good of technology as we do now.

The medieval films we watched helped me to understand the medieval times even though most of the time they lost my attention. The films were different then the films I am used to which got me out of my comfort zone a little and made me think in a different way. I feel like it was good for me to see different film techniques and learn more about the medieval time period.

Open Post #2: Reflection on Hollywood History

History has never been one of my strong subjects. As I was coming into this class I did not know how much history would be involved and I was very nervous to see what my performance would be. I was intrigued by the fact that we would watch films because I am a big movie person, but the fact that they were history films did not sit well with me.

Some of the films were better than others, but most of them were very slow. The plot line in the history films moved very slowly and it seemed like it took forever for them to get to the point. In some of the films, it was difficult for me to pick out what the main focus of the film was. The scenes were scattered everywhere and I could not pin point the main ideas. Other films were very easy to follow along to and I understood completely what their main point was. These films were the ones that kept my attention and were more fun to watch.

The films I did not enjoy were the fighting films. I felt like they were drug out and took forever to get the points of each scene across. Some fighting films were better than others but they still did not quite meet my intriguing level. My favorite film was The Sword in the Stone which was a children’s movie that actually had a good plot line. The story was very good at connecting with the children’s imagination and kept the attention of the audience by presenting interesting events. This movie was very different than the rest because the events went together a lot smoother and they were easier to follow.

After four weeks of this class, I have learned about what the films were like many years ago. Some days in this class were better than others, but overall, I found it quite interesting to learn about the history of Hollywood films.

Double Feature: How to Train Your Dragon

I watched How to Train Your Dragonin order to complete my first double feature paper with comparing this film with The Sword in the Stone. This film was a really cute children’s movie and had a lot of similarities to the film The Sword in the Stonethat we watched in class. The filmmaker did a great job at making the film connect to the imagination of children and doing so in an appropriate manner. The used unrealistic dragons to put an imaginative feel on the film. I thought having the film include these creatures was the perfect edge to keeping the children intrigued.

The director did a great job with pulling at the children’s imagination, but I feel like the film could have caught a wider range of children if it was real people instead of animated. The older ages of children would have been more interested in a film with real people and realistic looking dragons. This edition would have made the film seem more mature, so the audience would have felt like it was a more interesting topic to watch. Although having the film animated makes a warm feeling for the audience, putting the film into a more realistic looking cast would have appealed to more of a range of children.

This film was very creative and had a very good plot line that was easy to follow and appealed to many people in the audience. This film had more positives than negatives in my eyes. The effect of each character and the scenery around the film made it very fun to watch. Throughout the whole movie I was constantly intrigued and rarely ever took my eyes off the screen. I think the director did an amazing job at pulling in the audience with the imagination and cute romance between the two children. This film was very cute and I enjoyed watching it.

Open Post #1: Black and White Films

Before I took this class, I had no desire to watch black and white films. If I knew it was black and white I would not watch it. Hearing we were going to watch several black and white films in the class, I was not thrilled. The first black and white film we watched was The Passion of Joan the Arcby Carl Theodore Dreyer. Not only was this film black and white, it was also a silent film. This did not help my bad attitude towards the desire to watch them.

The Passion of Joan the Arcwas very hard to watch, but putting the film in black and white helped set the mood of the film. The black and white scenery helped create a dark feeling when the movie was supposed to be sad or suspenseful and a light feeling when the scene was happy and hopeful. The changes of the colors in scenery helped me to realize what the tone of the film was supposed to be at each point.

By putting the film in black and white, the filmmaker could also separate the good people from the evil people. They did this by surrounding the good people with a bright white background and the bad people with a dark black background. Some other black and white movies have used black clothing for the evil and white clothing for the good. This portrays feelings of the separate characters.

Although black and white films show the story line well, I think that color is able to give a more accurate representation of the story. In a color film, it is easier to make out scenery details and what the people are supposed to resemble. With black and white films, it is harder to tell the details of the little backgrounds and small details of the film.

After watching a few black and white films in this class, I realized they are not much different than color. Although they may lack certain details, they are very similar. They portray the same meaning as color films and have a definite story plot. This has shown me not to give up on a movie just because it looks boring and not colorful. All in all, black and white movies are not as bad as they seem.

Comparison: Battle for Love

Romance and fighting play a huge role in the plot for many movies. In both, Cecil B. Demille’s film The Crusades (1935) and Michael Curtiz and William Keighly’s film The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Romance and fighting are a huge role to how they create the movies. The directors include romance because they know their audience loves a good love story. Making the audience wonder if the love will win in the end, is what they love the most. The audience also loves a good action film. Involving fighting into the plot, creates suspense and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats. In both films, there are battle scenes and romantic sparks between characters. Along with the similar themes throughout both films, another similarity between them is that they both have happy endings. The two characters that are in love, end up being together in some way; whether it is physically together or together in the heart. The ending of both films is very uplifting and result in the good guys winning.

Although these films have similar plot themes and events, there are many differences. The most obvious difference, is that the film, The Crusades,is black and white, whereas the film, The Adventures of Robin Hood,is in color. Through this difference, the technology in the time of the film is portrayed. Another difference is the settings of the films. In the film, The Crusades, majority of the film revolves around Jerusalem and saving the Christians in Jerusalem. On the other hand, in the film, The Adventures of Robin Hood, it took place mostly in England and in the medieval time period. These two different settings give off two different time period feelings. Also, having two different settings in the films, allows the audience to see two different cultures.

These two films are very different, but very similar as well. Throughout the plots of the films, the audience is shown romance and fighting. These themes allow the film to be interesting and keep the attention of the audience. Giving the audience two different settings and cultures in the films, made the comparing differences easy to evaluate. These films have given the audience great plot lines and stories to watch and enjoy.