Video Essay: L'avventura

Tam-anh Nguyen is a senior and film major at UMD. She made this video essay for a course and was kind enough to share it with the blog. Check it out! 

L'avventura FILM441 Final Exam Video Essay from Tam-anh Nguyen on Vimeo.

Netflix: My Best Friend

     It's been a long, exhausting day, and I can hardly wait to go home, change into my pajamas, and snuggle up with my laptop for a relaxing binge-watching session thanks to my favorite streaming service: Netflix.

     I only recently signed up for Netflix. Previously, I didn't watch much TV, or many movies, and if I did, it was either at a friend's house, or from some seedy website that always left me with a guilty feeling inside. For some reason, the cost didn't seem worth it to me, and Hulu and the other competitors weren't particularly appealing, either.

     One thing that I really appreciate about Netflix is the constant innovation of the service. When I had first heard of Netflix, it was a service to rent DVDs online. Now, you can rent DVDs or stream movies and TV from practically any device (I don't know why I would need Netflix on my Nintendo 3DS, but it's good to know that option is available), and you can share your account with your friends, family, significant others, neighbors... While watching television shows, it automatically skips past introduction sequences, saving you from hearing the same intro theme time and time again, especially convenient while it plays one episode after the other, without the viewer having to lift a finger (the addition of the prompt "Are you still watching?" makes me laugh each time it pops up. Of course I am, Netflix. You know I am.). I can't help but think back to a course on American television that I took while studying abroad in Austria. We discussed Raymond Williams' idea that American television in particular is an endless, confusing flow, a theory that I found laughable at the time. Now, I understand a bit more what he meant.

     Besides the refreshing new features that the website develops, I enjoy the selection of German-language films that are available. Borrowing or buying German-language DVDs is risky; the DVDs are formatted in the European style, which my Mac can read, but my Mac forces the user to choose a format a certain number of times before permanently switching to that DVD-reading-style. This is, of course, assuming that I find the movie I'm looking for, at a cost that won't set me back too much. So far, Netflix hasn't let me down.

     The lack of commercials is perhaps my favorite part about Netflix. The holidays bring my favorite movies to cable networks: Harry Potter marathons, A Christmas Story, and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer are my favorite things to watch, just not through cable. Commercial breaks seem far more frequent than I remember, and they're longer than ever before. One year, as they cut to commercial during a very non-suspenseful scene in the third Harry Potter movie (perhaps my favorite in the series), I was so frustrated that I broke out the DVDs and continued the marathon on my own. Watching a movie on a cable network has become a chore, one that I need no longer do with my Netflix subscription.

Thinking about all of this, I wonder what the future of cable and other traditional television sources is. How can they compete? Will they, do they need to? The same could be said for movies, as Netflix continues to produce original shows and films. I know I'm not the only consumer who would rather pay less money to watch something new, and in the comfort of their own home to boot. How is Netflix shaping consumer choices? Can Netflix hurt the future of TV and/or film?

Submitted by Wendy Timmons

Movie Night

     About once a week, I get the most mundane emails from my apartment complex. "Office Closure" - "Pay Your Rent Online" - "Emergency Water Shutoff Notice" - so on and so forth. These emails usually get deleted straightaway, without me reading the contents. Yesterday, I got an email that piqued my interest, titled, "Community Movie Night." What a great way to get to know the people in my neighborhood! So, for once, I opened the email. Big, red letters appeared:

FEATURING: ANGRY BIRDS!

     Never mind.

     My visions of seeing a recently released, stimulating movie and discussing it with the people that live so close to me vanished, replaced with the vision of a crowded room, filled with noisy children with no concept of personal space. This isn't the first time I've been let down by the promise of a movie night. As a teenager, my parents and I traveled to Arizona almost every year and we stayed at a resort in Sedona. If memory serves correctly, Wednesdays were the designated movie night, with a projector set up near the edge of the pool for swimmers and loungers to enjoy equally. There, too, the selection of movies was, for lack of a better word, lame: children's movies that barely cracked 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, movies that were so inconsequential that they vanished from recent memory, movies that were easy (and probably cheap) to obtain and show.


     It's because of these disappointing movie nights that I've come to really, really, really enjoy German movie night on campus. My first movie night at my alma mater, Montclair State University, was in 2011 or 2012, and the movie was a classic: Lola rennt (Run Lola Run (1998)). It was also my first encounter with a professor who was head of the German department, and would later become something of a mentor to me, an inspiration at the very least. He tried to begin a discussion afterward the viewing, but the event was so poorly attended (if I remember it correctly, I and three other people, not counting the professor, showed up), that the discussion didn't go very far beyond, "I liked it," and, "It was interesting." Thankfully, German Film Night has grown in popularity at MSU. Here at UMD, German movie night has great attendance, and the films tend to be more artsy than what was shown at MSU, where the movies tended to be pop films.

     Film nights on either campus are simply a delight, and in comparison to the film night at my apartment complex or at that Sedona resort, I appreciate the efforts that the professors put in to choosing films that are intellectually stimulating, well made, and with plenty of useful examples of language or culture. Some professors bring in DVDs or VHSs from home, sometimes they stream the movie from an online source; it's rare that a professor won't be able to find the desired movie, and the lengths they'll go to have always impressed me. Perhaps the discrepancy between campus and living community is the motivation to show the movie. Professors want us to grow, to appreciate art and our subjects, but they also want us to enjoy ourselves while we put in the time to get that extra credit point; business owners want to forge stronger communities, but aren't necessarily looking to give us the intellectually nutritious art films that only a few will appreciate, choosing instead the brain candy that are children's films, which are easily consumable at any age.

     Although I immediately dismissed the email, a flyer advertising the event hangs in the hallway, reminding me each time I walk past; maybe I'll go to the event after all. It is being shown tonight, and I could definitely use the distraction from Inauguration Day and my term paper. Perhaps it will be worth it.

A Tangled Skein of Hot-Pink Yarn: Arrival

     As I sit untangling an epic tangle of hot-pink yarn purchased with the overly optimistic (delusional) intention of knitting it into a hat or two, I can’t help but think of the new movie Arrival, directed by Denis Villeneuve. It might be surprising to link knitting—well, to be more precise, untangling a gigantic knot—with a sci-fi movie about aliens visiting earth, particularly when that movie stars a professor of linguistics (played by Amy Adams). Shouldn’t I be singing the praises of a film that uses the phrase “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis” in an utterly serious way, that might even be considered a promotional video for the Humanities, without dragging my failed knitting project into it? Well, sure: like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979), with which Arrival shares the aspiration to philosophy, we have three main characters, each of whom represents a branch of knowledge: Colonel Weber, played by Forest Whitaker, represents the Military-Intelligence community (or the State); Dr. Ian Donnelly, played by Jeremy Renner, represents Science (specifically, theoretical physics, but he seems to have a strong background in cryptography along with every other branch of science and technology); and finally, our hero, Dr. Louise Banks, played by Amy Adams, represents the Humanities (more specifically, linguistics—that is, historical linguistics, linguistic anthropology, and of course near-native fluency in several languages). When the Colonel barges into Professor Banks’s office and offers her the chance of a lifetime, recalling what a great job she did with that Farsi translation, then walks out when she tells him that the odd clicks and hums on his recording of the aliens can’t be deciphered without face-to-face communication, she guesses which academic he’ll approach next (“at Berkeley”) and poses a riddle: “Ask him for the Sanskrit word for ‘war’ and its translation.” Sure enough, the Colonel’s back the next day in a helicopter, explaining that professor So-and-So from Berkeley said the word meant “disagreement” in English. Prof. Banks’s rejoinder: “A desire for more cattle.” Humanities 1: Military Intelligence: 0. (Whether the translation is accurate is of course beside the point, and anyway, anyone who hasn’t studied a language in depth is surely going to be confused by the idea of translating the word for “war” back into English—um, isn’t it “war”?—without an explanation of what such a question could mean. The point is: Prof. Banks rocks. (See some discussion of the movie’s linguistics theme here and here)) And then in the helicopter, when Dr. Donnelly is blathering on about possible implications for science of the given situation, Prof. Banks looks him in the eye and says drily, “Well, we have to communicate with them, first.” Ha! Humanities 1: Hard Science: 0!

     But can a Hollywood film sustain this kind of inside baseball for long? In Stalker, the Writer, the Professor (the scientist), and the Stalker (the guide) spend most of the film walking in the “Zone” and talking. Arrival can’t afford to linger past the gorgeous first forty minutes (as Anthony Lane points out in his November 14, 2016 review in the New Yorker, and must proceed, first, to unravel and then reknit an entertaining geopolitical parable, and second, to propose a new understanding of time. Do you see where my tangled hot-pink yarn comes in? At the risk of ruining the movie for you—not to mention your suspense about my knitting project, I will say: untangling the horrific mess of yarn involved working both forwards and backwards.

     But there’s more to this as well. In the U.S., where buying finished clothing is far cheaper than making it at home, knitting is a hobby, an activity that has long been associated with progressive women’s community. As I untangle the wool, I chat with family members; we turn on our old turntable and listen to old Yes records (really). I email a friend to ask what kind of needles to get and how many stitches to cast on and watch YouTube videos reminding me what my grandma taught me long ago. (I get a little choked up as I watch a young woman teaching me how to knit on circular needles.) I become part of a virtual community of women that stretches through time and space. There’s something wonderful about this, but it’s also strange. Is the impetus towards traditional women’s crafts a reaction to the recent resurgence of the Locker Room’s male space? Arrival makes a similar gesture: the three branches of knowledge-power in the film in fact can be condensed down to two essential ways of understanding the world, male and female. Again, without spoiling things, suffice to say that the Military-Intelligence branch will remain resolutely male, while Science will waver, and of course the Female branch, through its close connection to Intuition and Dark Magic (or, whatever, a different concept of Time) will save the world. And have a baby. See what I mean? It’s a tangled skein of hot-pink yarn if I ever saw one.


Submitted by Elizabeth Papazian

Let's Discuss: Streep and Trump

In just one week, President Elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated; love him or hate him, we'll have lots to talk about in the coming years.

Trump represents a curious intersection of politics and celebrity, the likes of which the American public is not accustomed to. It seldom occurs that television celebrities become presidents, and Trump is one of, if not the most controversial celebrities of our time. Time will tell what will become of this presidency.

As a public figure in so many ways, Trump is the target of a lot of praise, and just as much criticism. As of today, his latest critic and subject of his infamous tweets: Meryl Streep.

The 74th Golden Globe Awards ceremony was held this past Monday, on January 8th, and Streep was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award. The award, according to the Golden Globes website, is given to those who "have had a definite impact on the world of entertainment," ranking recipients among the likes of "Alfred Hitchcock, Lucille Ball, Sidney Poitier, Sophia Loren, Sean Connery, Barbra Streisand" and many others. Streep was recognized as "an icon of the performing arts."

Her speech, as she accepted the award, lasted six minutes; she began by acknowledging her peers and their humble, international beginnings, and used the opportunity to address the nation with a political message, clearly denouncing Trump: "Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners, and if we kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football, and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts." She also talked about his mocking of Serge Kovaleski, a reporter with a disability, and how this "kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing." She ended with a call to action to protect journalists, and an anecdote in which she emphasized the importance of empathy.

Naturally, this story spread like wildfire; Trump, in response, tweeted that Streep is "over-rated" and "a....."; Noah Trevor, host of "The Daily Show," found Streep's speech to be "tone deaf," because it overlooked the overlap of audiences between football and the arts, and the perpetuation of negative stereotypes that Hollywood is guilty of; Robert De Niro responded to Streep's speech with an open letter; and Twitter, of course, exploded.

As students of film, we have a lot to ask ourselves:
What do we think about Streep's speech? It's no surprise that Streep is politically vocal and active, but what do we make of a celebrity using an acceptance speech as a platform for a political statement?

Is she justified, or should she separate her political life from her acting career? Can she? Or is celebrity intractable, an unchanging part of one's personality?

What do we think about Robert De Niro's letter? De Niro and Streep are well-known and well-loved by the public; how large of a role does their celebrity play in influencing the opinions of us lowly non-celebrities? Is there something condescending in her speech, or is she telling it like it is?

What do we think about her attention to her peers' humble beginnings? Is Hollywood as diverse as she says? Is it for better, fostering diversity, as Streep might say, or for worse, feeding negative stereotypes that are already well-situated, as Noah Trevor would say?

We at UMD Film Forum want to hear your thoughts. Please respond with a comment, respond to any comments, or send an email to umdfilmforum@gmail.com with a blog post!

Submitted by Wendy Timmons

Review: Life is Beautiful

     Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful (1997) is an atypical tale of survival during the Holocaust. It takes a unique and unexpected approach to presenting the story that absolutely works for and would be enjoyed by all audiences. Roberto Benigni experienced significant film eras in Italy and had family members that experienced the Holocaust. These qualities give him a unique perspective that allows him to flawlessly use humor to assert his identity in the face of abjection and to reinforce the sentiment presented in the title, that life is beautiful—to both the characters in the film and the audience. Benigni, as both director and main actor, uses comedy throughout the film to bring to light the ridiculousness of the Italian Fascism ideology and later the Nazi dehumanization of the Jews. Guido uses absurdity and a bold, clown-like disposition to remind and reinforce to his wife and son that they are loved, that life is beautiful, and that no one can take away their humanity.
     Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful is a complex tale following the evolution of Italian Fascism to the mass movement of Jews to concentration camps during the Holocaust, all from the perspective of one boy who tells the tale years later. The film is divided into two parts; the first half is more light-hearted, lively, and colorful and follows the love story of Guido, an Italian Jew, and Dora, a schoolteacher and the woman of Guido’s dreams. The first part of the film also includes subtle elements and scenes foreshadowing the future abjection of the Jews. Some of these scenes include brief camera shots of stores marked as being “Jew shops” for identification. However, the general subject of the first half of the film is Guido and Dora’s relationship progression. After Dora and Guido enter a picturesque and colorful green house together, there is a short time lapse and then their son, Joshua, emerges from the same green house years later. This not only serves as the climactic scene of Guido and Dora’s love, but it also provides an excellent transition for the second part of the film because the audience recognizes by the presence of Guido and Dora’s son, that the scene is years later. In this latter part of the film, the family is brought to a somber, dark, and dull concentration camp, in which Guido must use humor to shield his son from the horrors of the camp, keep him alive, and his humanity intact.
     Roberto Benigni was born in 1952, right at the end of the Golden Age of Italian Cinema, a time period that heavily influenced Benigni’s work as a director. He was also heavily influenced by Charlie Chaplin, and even imitates Chaplin’s walk in The Great Dictator during one of the most important scenes of the film—Guido’s walk to his death, an observation made by Jodi Sherman in a 2002 article. [1] In this scene, a captured Guido must walk in front of his son’s hiding place before he is to be shot, as he passes his son he “smiles, winks, makes a funny face, and then struts past with a goose-step walk,” maintaining his humor and humanity until his final moments. [1]  He doesn’t want Joshua to be afraid; he maintains the same persona that he has held throughout their entire experience together in order to protect Joshua’s life and his innocence, right to the very end. According to Sherman, “This last gesture enables Joshua ultimately to resist the abject and leave the camp with his humanity intact, and his story ready to share”. [1] 
     One concept from the Italian Neorealism period is evident in Benigni’s Life is Beautiful. Italian Neorealism films often depicted poetic, pathos-filled, and “truthful” stories—a characteristic of Life is Beautiful. This film captures one of the worlds most awful and truthful events in human history, the Holocaust. Therefore, the film itself is intended to evoke emotion from the audience purely based on subject matter. Benigni enhances this connection between audience and characters by using humor, as well as pathos to allow the audience to have more empathy for the characters through their struggles. The film itself is partially based on Benigni’s own family history, which heightens the audience’s empathy for the characters. Knowledge of this history gives them a specific connection to the characters in the story, and doesn’t allow the audience to view this as another objective Holocaust story.
     Although the film holds a comedic narrative, the story is still tragic. When Guido and his son Joshua are loaded onto the train destined for a concentration camp, Guido leads his son to believe that he has reserved them this train for a special trip. When Joshua notices that they have stopped the train to let his mother on, he is excited that she will be joining them. Guido hides his horror and sorrow to shield his son, however the audience can see how devastated and heartbroken he is to see that the love of his life has chosen to come. This reminds the audience that amongst all the humor and games, these people are about to go through the worst experience in human history. This is a very sobering and humbling scene for the audience and sets the stage for the future horrors and dehumanization of the concentration camps.
     Amidst all of this horror, Guido makes it his mission to make sure that his son and his wife are alive and their humanities remain intact. There are multiple instances in which Guido puts himself in danger, just to get a message to his wife, Dora. In one of these instances, Dora is going through the clothes of the elderly and children that were sent for a gas ‘shower.’ She fears that she will find her son’s clothes among them. At the same time, Guido discovers brief access to the loudspeaker and he seizes his opportunity shouting over the intercom his signature greeting, “Buogiorno Princepessa!” followed by the excited banter from her son about the game they’ve been playing. This scene is striking in that it shows Dora’s reaction to not only hearing her husband’s playful voice, but also her relief in hearing her son is alive and even sounding happy. The actions taken by Benigni as director and as actor in this scene convinces the audience that amidst horror, life can still be beautiful.
     Life is Beautiful is a great film that audiences across the board would enjoy. It sheds light on one of history’s most talked about events and uses a different narrative to tell a special story that the audience can connect with. The use of humor is unique to traditional depictions in Holocaust films, however Benigni’s approach betters the film. Overall, Roberto Benigni does a fantastic job directing and acting and creates a film that does not disappoint. 

[1]Sherman, J. "Humor, Resistance, and the Abject: Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator." Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, vol. 32 no. 2, 2002, pp. 72-81. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/396013.

Submitted by Sophie Ellis

Review: Nosferatu the Vampyre

     If you are looking for a good example of gothic film and aren’t afraid of a little blood sucking, then this is the film for you. While it won’t have you hiding under your sheets, you will definitely feel uncomfortable at times. I would recommend this film to students who enjoy studying films and can watch it for cinematic qualities, such as how the director uses dark lighting and a gloomy eerie setting to make his audience uncomfortable.   

     Nosferatu the Vamprye is a suspenseful film that will surely make you pleasantly uncomfortable. While there were parts of the film that are scary and suspenseful, I didn’t find it to fall under the title as strictly a horror film. Nosferatu the Vampyre is more of a Gothic film. In the opening scenes of the movie, the director, Werner Herzog, emphasized a love story between his main characters Jonathan and Lucy. For example, Lucy asks Jonathan to go the beach where they fell in love, and then that location becomes a symbol of their ongoing love though all the hard and interesting times. Lucy will periodically return to that same beach while see is waiting for Jonathan to return and when she is awaiting his recovery. The location of Dracula’s gloomy castle paired with the suspenseful music created an eerie supernatural element. Staying true to more of a Gothic film rather than a strictly horror movie, I never felt that any of the characters were ever in true danger. Herzog used the casualness of his characters’ interactions to create more of an uneasy feeling for the main character Jonathan and less of a horrified state.

     What’s important to consider when watching this movie is the deeper meaning behind the characters. Herzog, instead of focusing on terrifying his audience, focused more on the emotions of the characters including the villain Dracula. Dracula, while truly evil, was actually misunderstood at heart. Herzog uses dialog to portray that Dracula isn’t evil just to be evil, but is actually a miserable creature. He has been living in his lonely castle for centuries and centuries and is unable to die. He has nobody to share emotions with and nobody to love. Herzog’s use of intense emotion such as Dracula’s search for meaningful human existence supports the elements true of a Gothic film.

Submitted by Tim Bouchard '20

Review: La La Land

     Damien Chazelle’s La La Land (2016) is essentially a film about Hollywood. It seems his idea of creating a city symphony for Los Angeles is fulfilled through the two main characters in the film, Mia (Emma Stone), an aspiring actress, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a struggling jazz pianist, in that the relationship the two have with each other serves as an embodiment of what happens in LA: relationships fail and people change, often for the worse. Instead of getting beautiful shots of the city itself, Chazelle gives his audience fantastic musical numbers and dance routines juxtaposed with shots of single locations that represent a changing and aging city.

     Being a film about Hollywood, La La Land is extremely self-reflexive. The tap dance routine between the two leads begins with Emma Stone taking off her heels after a party to put on tap shoes, as if to acknowledge how ridiculous musicals can often appear in their spontaneity. The height of this self-reflexivity comes during Mia’s vision of a past that could have been. The opening sequence of the film, a long take with possible hidden cuts of a dance routine on an LA freeway, is represented in Mia’s vision as a set of an old musical from the studio system. This set, complete with a director with puffy pants and a megaphone labeled “DIRECTOR,” features extras holding steering wheels while walking up and down a highway set rather than filming on location.

     However, the film is also makes reference to Chazelle’s first film, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009). Aside from evolving from the original concept of Guy and Madeline, La La Land features “Boy in the Park” on the radio, a song originally written for Guy and Madeline. In addition, the film expands upon Chazelle’s love of jazz. His first film followed a trumpet player, his second, Whiplash (2014), followed a drummer’s quest to become “one of the greats,” and La La Land features Sebastian, a jazz pianist who is a bit of a jazz purist and refuses to see how the music has changed. Chazelle’s own views of jazz seem to be reflected in the film with Sebastian’s angry reaction to the question of Kenny G and portrayal of contemporary jazz in a comical way.

     The film reminded me of David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (2001), in part because they are both films about Hollywood and the problems that exist with “show business.” Singin’ in the Rain (1952), itself a film about Hollywood, can serve as a link between these two films: Mulholland Dr. and Singin’ in the Rain both open with a dance routine that has no bearing on the plot and the film served as an influence for La La Land. Both films provide an alternate view at how characters’ lives could have been different, although this aspect of La La Land is clearly set up as a fantasy unlike Mulholland Dr. where it can be difficult to determine what is happening at any moment. However, it is this desire for an ideal relationship on the part of the characters that really seems to tie these two films together.
     Overall, La La Land is a beautiful film. The use color evokes that of the ‘50s rather than draining the color like many films today. Linus Sandgren’s cinematography only adds to the beauty through the extensive use of long takes, particularly during the dance routines, which utilized single takes for the entirety of the routine. Chazelle’s references to the styles of the old studio system both feeds the Age of Nostalgia and presents new ideas. While the film is underlined with the typical stigmas associated with LA, La La Land does seem to try to put a positive spin on the town. It does not have the classical Hollywood happy ending, but it still feels like a happy ending, which serves as one of the films greatest triumphs.

Submitted by Michael Levy