Citizen Kane: Being Simple Is Always The Best

Citizen Kane

Would you watch a movie with all the new, inexperienced actors or experienced and popular ones? Also, would you watch a movie with all the newly invented effects or those with simply long shots, and lightings? I suppose you’ll choose the second option for both question. One surprising fact is that Citizen Kane doesn’t possess any of the characteristics that you haven choose, however, it still has attracted several viewers and supporters all over the world. Why so? Many people say it’s because of its acting, while others say it’s because of its great literary elements. But I think it’s because of its unique script writing and ideas. Maybe this ties in to the phrase “nothing/nobody is perfect”. Like every person, every movie lacks in one criterion which other movies might be better at and vice versa. In this case, since Citizen Kane is lacking in its acting and special effects, it has to make up for it by having an amazing script writing and idea. There is another reason why I respect Citizen Kane for its uniqueness: the way the story is told. Unlike other movies, this movie has incorporated several flashbacks, and portrayed different views of different characters. This is different from a normal movie—which starts with an exposition, conflict, and resolution. This movie starts with a mystery instead. Then slowly, the story goes backwards. This type of showing has not only made the movie seem realistic, but it has also made me feel like I’m involved and responsible for solving the mystery of Kane’s life. Citizen Kane has proved to me that complicated filming isn’t needed for a movie to be considered good; instead, it is the script writing which defines what a good movie is.

Nothing Is Impossible: The Search For Hope In The Secret Garden

“Where you tend a rose, my lad, A thistle cannot grow” (Burnett). Mary’s servant’s words were the motivation of Mary’s desire to allow Colin to be able to walk again—when Mary looks after Colin, he will be healthy and always well protected. This seemed impossible because according to Colin’s family doctor, Colin is too weak to be able to walk again. The Secret Garden is an adventurous and dictatorial book, which teaches us not only the beauty of nature but also teaches us the importance of not losing hope. The movie has successfully achieved the spirit “hope” of the novel through the use of narrative voiceover, mise en scene, and also by focusing on each characters.

“Even if the roses are dead, there are other things alive”. (Burnett). Mary’s words clearly show how optimistic Mary is, as she still clings on to hope for beauty even though she was exposed to ‘ugly’ sights. The spirit of the novel is shown in the movie through Mary’s voice-over narration. This narrative voiceover has allowed me to feel as though I was in a close relationship with Mary, as I could understand more about her through what she said, and through how she felt about different situations. For example, I initially believed that Colin, a crippled pessimistic young boy Mary meets in her uncle’s house, would never be able to walk, but as I watched the movie, Mary’s actions and words has influenced me so much that I started having hope in her. Throughout the movie, this voiceover narration shows how hope plays an important role in everyday life, because without hope, one will be like Colin, lying down on the bed, thinking about when life would be over for one. The director has further implied on “hope” through film techniques (mise en scene and editing).

Using limited dialogue, the director uses mise en scene to foreshadow Mary’s hope for changing Colin’s future of being able to walk again. Just through this one scene, when Mary Lennox sits in a caravan with her servant, there is an establishing shot of the entire caravan on the long skewed road it has to travel. The entire road, which leads to house, becomes brighter and bigger, creating a message of what’s waiting ahead for Mary— succeed in changing Colin’s future. This scene itself seems to foreshadow Mary’s journey: she will face a lot of troubles (represented by the skewed road), and she will have a long way to travel (the distance of the road), but she will not give up on hope, and achieve her goal (the house). The director has also used some editing to show how much Mary’s teachings as influenced Colin by placing scenes of Mary’s teaching and Colin’s efforts to follow what Mary says next to each other. After each day, there seems to be gradual improvements in Colin’s ability and attitudes towards him walking in a few months later. This then has increased our hope for Colin. However, this wasn’t the end. The director concluded by placing Colin in a bright lighting environment, which contrasts with his dark personality, showing that he is the dominant figure, like a God, who accomplished something that thought to be impossible. Through these mise en scenes and editing, I was able to know more about the tough journey she has to go through, but the movie itself has helped enhance Mary’s hope for Colin by focusing more on each characters.

The film has also captured the spirit of the novel by focusing on respective characters and their actions. Colin, for example, believed that he wouldn’t be able to walk. Just by the focus on Colin’s facial expressions and actions, I was able to notice Colin’s depression, and his pessimistic view towards his life. He would scream in the middle of the night, waking all the servants up, and cry to Mary about how he felt a hump in his spinal cord. But most importantly, the focus on Mary allowed me to notice Mary’s determination to change Colin’s attitude and future. Mary’s actions towards Colin were different from a simple scream—while stomping into his room, frowning and yelling “Someone stop him from screaming! You are so selfish! I’m not going into you’re room anymore!”. She then pushes him, touches his backbone, and does anything that would help Colin to think he will be able to walk. Gradual improvements in Colin through Mary’s actions captures the spirit of the novel, whereby when one doesn’t give up hope and continues supporting others, one will always be able to have a successful outcome.

The Secret Garden is indeed an inspirational movie, which unlike other movies and novels, was able to maintain the exact spirit of the novel. This film has successfully conveyed the spirit of the novel without any distortions of the content, and dialogue, but simply through focusing on the characters, using mise en scene, and with a narrative voiceover. Hope, as proven in both the novel and the movie, plays an important role everyday life, as it helps motivate one to have greater chances of succeeding in life.

The Godfather 1: A Role Model For Non-tech Movies

After watching The Godfather part 1, I have finally found out how I characterize a great movie—one that uses unique film techniques to convey as much plot elements as it could, using less technology, along with an indeterminate ending. Furthermore, I have learnt the true beauty of movie, whereby technology doesn’t determine how great a movie is, instead, the film techniques and story plots determines that.

Throughout the movie, there were several different plot elements and film techniques, which helped to build up the main message of each scene. The most memorable one for me was the verbal irony. When Michael swore faith in church, the director used continuous jump cuts of him saying his faith, and a scene of people getting ready to shoot someone. These two scenes contradicts each other, and the first thought that came up to my mind was how clever it was for the director to create the message of how Michael means the opposite of what he’s saying, and his true evilness simply through jump cuts. It was effective, as it has not only clearly conveyed its message, but it also has helped to increase the viewer’s expectation of what would happen next. All these different film techniques and plot elements helped the movie free from any monotonous scenes and portrayal of characters. Of course, there are much more plot elements and film techniques in the movie one can anticipate.

What amazed me the most was that even though this movie was made in the 1970s, it still is as interesting as the current high-tech movie, Transformers. After watching The Godfather 1, I started valuing movies for its plots and film techniques, rather than the types of technology (such as robots) that are shown in other movies. I believe that movies were originally found for the purpose of relating to real-life, and teaching the viewers valuable lessons; unfortunately, technology has destroyed that purpose. Objects that current technologies make, such as robots, aliens, spaceships seem to distort the main theme of a movie. For example, teenagers and children often watch the movie just to see the new cool effects movie directors have found. Therefore, I have learnt that technology is more like an element used as a back-up or support for the lack of great story plot; in contrast, a movie that has no form of technology but has a great plot helps defines how great a movie is. Therefore, I have concluded that movies that can have a high rate of viewers without any form of complicated technology are considered successful.

I believe this movie could be compared with other current movies, like Transformers, today and still be voted as the top five movie ever made for having the great usage of film techniques, and showing plot especially without any forms of complicated technology inscribed in the movie.

Words aren't Necessary to Show Everything

In the film Rear Window, I felt that it was interesting how the director could convey the personality of a character without using dialogues, and simply through the different usage of shots, mise en scene, and editing. Not only that, the director has used several of the different forms of editing to create a sense of realism. There were some obvious motives for some shots, such as James’ point of view shots (which shows that he is a peeping tom), the sound effects (which creates suspense throughout the film), and the dark lighting (which shows danger), but along with these, there were some other shots that meant more than a simple: creating suspense etc… For example, through the use of lighting, and position in the scene, we could determine Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly)’s dominance. When she is with L.B ‘Jeff’ Jefferies (James Stewart), on the screen, she is always in the bright side; not only that, she is taller than James. Both of these provides with the idea of importance, and her bright, cheerful personality. But this isn’t all—the director also used this to compare and contrast the relationship of her to the dark-natured James. This may be used to show how James and Grace will be hard to get along, and perhaps, they shouldn’t be together. The most common shot I’ve seen is either the high angle shot or the crane shot, but the one that gave me the most impact was the crane shot of Grace and her helper. When both of them were on a mission to look at what was under the pot of plants, while they were walking up the stairs towards the plants, the director used a crane shot. Along with the dark surrounding, this creates a quiet, secretive mood. Not only that, the effect of this shot seem to be like there’s no one watching them except for us, which makes them look like they’re going to be in danger. One of the most interest editing I have seen in this film is crosscutting editing. They were used in several occasions when James looks out of his window, and the camera captures the image of what he’s looking at, then cut back to his reaction, and then back to the image. The function of this editing seemed to create a simultaneous time, which means that there is no cutting of time—everything is natural. Also, this editing has also provided us with James’ point of view shot of what he is looking at. With the constant use of dark lighting, and tight shots (neighbors portrayed within the frame), the director was successful in creating a secretive spirit throughout the entire film.

Family First Forever

Family First Forever
Novel: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Movie moments
The huge wooden house, which contradicts with the bright green surrounding, sits alone in the middle of the chocolate garden—this marks the happy ending of the movie. Charlie, who brought his entire family to the chocolate factory, runs about the chocolate garden as though he is the owner, picking chocolate fruits and all the amazingly decorated chocolates he find. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in my opinion, is the most amazing movie I have watched several times, not only for its greatly animated pictures, but also for Charlie, my role model.
As an Asian child, I grew up in a family that put family members as a priority in any situation. However, I did not like it as I had to give up a lot of my personal interest just for my family, and I thought no one would ever do that. It wasn’t until the release of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that I changed my view completely.
Before the release of the movie—which was when I was in 5th grade—I became impatient about the movie. I have read the book so many times that my expectation of the movie grew to the extent that I would draw cartoons of the characters in the movie, and paste it all over my wall. Finally the movie was released, and the kids in my grade started to talk about how awesome the movie was in accordance to the chocolate garden, and how they wished they were there. Strangely, instead of noticing the same thing as them, I just remembered about how Charlie was willing to give up staying in the factory just to be with his family members. Also, when the movie focused mainly on the other characters, such as Veronica, and Augustus who got what they want despite the protest from their parents, in my mind, I went “they are so selfish! I never want to be like them”. Of all those characters, Charlie stood out the most, and he has influenced me so great that I always tried my best to bring happiness to my family.
This book and movie has made me read more of Road Dahl’s books that has Charlie as the main character. Not only that, this movie gives me great memories about my childhood when I did anything I could to make my parents happy, but also explains how until now, family is always the top of my list no matter what.

Survival For the Fittest, and Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Novel response
The Secret Garden
The Secret Garden is a perfect novel for children who are struggling in adapting to a new environment, and teenagers who judge people according to their appearance, and not their true character. Through the portrayal of the little girl, Marry Lennox, and the new house she lives in, I was able to learn a lot about her, as the story unravels with new adventures. The overall tone of the novel is neutral, unless the author describes someone with emotion words, such as excitement, yelled, etc. Even though this book is a rather easy book to read, its richness in the word choice and the vivid descriptions helps to revive the quite monotonous tone of this novel. This novel is more like an adventure book, but it seems more dictatorial to me, as it has taught me two very important rules in life. With an unbiased information, I was able to make clear distinctions between all the characters.
Mary Lennox is a spoilt, unloved child who had her own way in everything. Her life continued as normal, until malaria broke out and she was forced to move to her Uncle’s house, in the English moors. Each preceding chapters were descriptions about the secret garden she found in her uncle’s house, so after the first few chapters I read, I was curious about how the story would continue, as each story seems to fade away. However, as I read on, I started realizing something – that every few chapters, there is a main theme to the story. For example, when Mary first spoke to her uncle, whom she described as old, hunchbacked, and mean, turns out to be a really nice person. Another example would be when she heard rumors about how mean and bad tempered her uncle’s son, Colin is. She was proven wrong when she finally met him and spoke to him. Mary was even told by the gardener that she, him, and Colin are three selfish, ‘bad’ looking people; at first Mary agreed, but later she realized that none of what the gardener said was wrong—the people were actually nicer than they actually looked. Through all these experiences, the first lesson Mary learned was that she couldn’t just depend on the person’s appearance and rumors to judge about that person.
Throughout the novel, the author compares and contrasts between two parts of the world Mary had lived in– India and English moors. The author tries to portray how important it is for someone to assimilate to the culture of the country of current precedence in order to live without difficulty. When Mary first moved into India, she was struggling about what was expected from her new servants, and she was mad at how people regarded her as less important than when she was in India. No matter how hard she tried to make her servants listen to her, and follow the Indian customs, none of them compromised with her; thus, she had no choice but to follow the culture of the new environment with the help of her new servant, Martha. She even tried to speak in Yorkshire! Colin also faces a similar trouble, because he himself was stuck between being at home, and also exploring the outside world. The author slowly describes how Mary helps Colin to relieve himself from the stress he is in by helping him to conform to the new environment. There also seemed to be a symbol: the bird. The bird itself was flying around the garden, communicating with Mary and the gardener, and also looking for a best spot to build its house. The bird probably found it hard to adapt because the gardener would always change the layout of the garden, which makes it seem like a different environment for the bird. This symbol seems to clearly link the trouble Mary and Colin is going through, by showing how tough and important it is to adapt to the environment.
Indeed, all this can be linked to the theory of ‘survivals for the fittest’ and also the phrase ‘don’t judge the book by its cover’. Since this book is narrated in a third person point of view, a reader will definitely be able to distinguish the troubles of each character without any bias, and also the main themes in this novel.

Memorable Movie Moment

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