The Last Screening(s)

It's hard to believe, but it looks like the semester is at its end. And for the last day of film screenings, we crammed in 4 independent films. I think that counts as a marathon! We started off watching Tiny Katrina. This documentary film was about a small girl who lived with her family in the Russian wilderness. She was only a toddler during the filming of this movie, but it was incredible to see how much she had learned through living with her family. She was already helping the family accomplish daily tasks. I loved how nothing the family said was subtitled. I didn't understand a word of what was said, and yet I understood exactly what was going on. Since the film focused mostly on Katrina, we rarely saw anything that went on outside of the small encampment, but there was plenty of interest in Katrina's story. At the end of the film, we see that an oil tower has been built in the distance and can be seen on the horizon. This is a very foreboding tower, as it means they mean to drill for oil in the area. This probably means that Katrina and her family's tribe are in trouble.

Another film we watched was Choreography for a Copy Machine. The concept behind this film was almost as awesome as the film itself. Almost. Using a copy Machine, Chel White took what must have been hundreds of images and put them together for a stop motion animation. The final result was absolutely incredible and I can't imagine having to do that. I can tell just from this that White is a very talented animator.

Another film we watched was Martin Arnold's Alone, Life Wasted. Arnold's style was similar to that of Bruce Conner's. He took clips from old TV shows and movies and spliced them together differently to tell a different story than the one that was really going on. I enjoyed this film at first. I really got the point of it, and thought it was very interesting how slowing down parts of a film and replaying it over could change the feeling of it. Towards the end however, I felt it got a little excessive, and some parts were replayed way too many times. I appreciate it for what it was, but it could probably have been half the length it actually was and still have been effective.

Ah...and save the best for last. The last film we watched was an animation called Ryan. This film was absolutely incredible and left me breathless. It was directed by Chris Landreth and it was about his encounter with Ryan Larkin, who was a very influential animator from the past. Ryan had stopped animation and was currently an alcoholic living day by day. The truly incredible part about this animation was that it depicted its characters mental disabilities through physical damage. For example, in the first shot, Chris is explaining scars he has on his face and head as mental impairments he had come across in life. The film goes on to cover many different issues that were going on in not only Ryan's mind, but also in Chris'. I feel like Ryan took on a very strong issue that many artists have, and nailed it.

Grey Gardens

Today we watched the single greatest thing that has ever been caught on film. That may be an exaggeration, but that's alright. It was wonderful! The relationship that the Maysles established with the Beales was incredible. There were parts where the Beales acted so natural that I found it hard to believe there was a camera in the room at all. The Beales were definitely two very interesting characters, and ones that held my interest. It was interesting to watch their endeavors and arguments throughout the film, and to see how they lived. I wouldn't have been able to imagine that anyone would be able to live like they did. And not only was it shocking that they had that lifestyle, but they actually embraced it! They fed the raccoons that were infesting their house! It was surprising to me to see that the documentary took place after the Beales had cleaned up the house, since it still seemed to be in such awful condition. I guess that the Beales have their way of living, and nothing can change that. I have to admit that this documentary held my interest the entire time I was watching it.

The Roots of CGI

Ah CGI...an art form that plagues every movie theater in the country. An art form that can be used correctly or horribly horribly wrong, but rarely in between. And this was the birth of it all. Today we focused on the first computer generated animations. Essentially, just dots and small light shows that were digitally created. To think that this would be the start of half of the films we see released in theaters today. But while it is easy to look back on these simple animations now and blow them off, it really was an incredible feat for the time they were introduced. To be able to create an animation digitally was a very large step forward, and as we can now see, was a step that was led to something huge. It's interesting to look back to see where it all started, and then look at how quickly its progressed. I can only imagine what kind of CGI animations will be created 20 or 30 years from now. Hell, I could hardly keep up with it all from the past 5 years!