response to artists screening
The first video I watched was the Mulholland Drive diner scene. This was a very eerie scene where the man is telling his friend about a creepy dream he had. They do a really good job of making it feel very uncomfortable the whole time you're watching even though it is relatively light out and it appears to be normal life going on around them. The camera keeps cutting between the two men having the conversation in the diner as they're talking and it is placed slightly behind the man facing away from the camera. The camera moves around slightly while they're talking and towards the end of their conversation looks like it is moving up, like we are looking down on them. The second video I want to talk about is the Bridge scene analysis from The Royal Tenenbaums. I thought this scene was very aesthetically pleasing, the colors all went so well together and it looked really warm despite being a rather cold scene. When the narrator talks about how the gap between them metaphorically was shown by the literal gap in the bridge I thought that was really cool, I don't think I would have noticed that otherwise. It was also really cool how they show them literally separating by removing them from the screen so they're not on at the same time together at the end. I really liked this scene breakdown, it pointed out so many things I would have looked over if I was just watching it on my own.
Yes, the Tenenbaums essayist did a fantastic job of pointing out the intentionality of every one of Anderson's visual decisions. Anderson's films are certainly considered "formalist" (as opposed to, say, Greengrass's "realist" style, referenced in the Coen's video essay), and are therefore heavily composed and constructed to create visual harmonies and implications. Also, a good observation that Lynch's camera gradually rises—a subtlety that is very disturbing by the end! As you go deeper into references like these, begin to apply the artist's decisions to your own work and project plans, as such analysis will help you to appreciate the emotional and psychological result of narrative choices.
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