Red

Red is the last film in the Three Color Triology directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski in 1994. According to Anthony Leong, Red" is the triumphant conclusion to Kieslowski's "Three Colours Trilogy", a point of convergence for the three sets of characters in the series. It is the warmest of all three films, and indeed this also stems from the main theme of the colour red of the French flag-- fraternity (or friendship). On a deeper level, it is a film about the invisible connections that intertwine our lives, the nexi that are not always apparent, similar to Kieslowski's earlier film "The Double Life of Veronique". This theme is best summarized by the opening sequence, which makes the technology of the telephone transparent to the viewer. We see a phone being picked up in the film's setting, Geneva, and a number is dialed. The camera then races along the invisible network of wiring, through several switches, along an undersea cable, and re-emerging in England.

The color red in the film is displaced throughout. The richness of the color is shown in the Jeep, the photo shoot and Valentine’s apparel. The camera angles are similar stylistically in the first film, Blue. The camera angle follows the car’s taillight and moves with the pace of traffic. This film is not as emotionally heavy in the sadness aspect. It is actually more hopeful and realistic. The retired judge and Valentine have the best conversations. The effects in this film support and distract less when the judge and Valentine are interacting. Their conversations show how life is not always black and white. It also shows that people can never cease to surprise you. You never know what people think or say when they are by themselves. Kieslowski depicts this when showing the judge ease dropping on all of his neighbors’ phone calls.

Throughout the film Auguste and Valentine seem to be missing each other. They are always so near to each other but because of them being in different relationships or the wrong timing it doesn’t work. The whole time the audience is hoping that they will meet each other. The way that they are both longing to be loved and shown affection convinces the audience that they are ideal. The other idea that reoccurs in the film is doing the right thing. Valentine starts this by bringing Rita back to its owner. She affects everyone that she comes into contact. This rubs off on the retired judge by keeping him company and wanting to notify the neighbors of what he is doing. Through the experience that she has from going next door, she learns that doing the right thing is not always so easy. The retired judge finally comes to the conclusion that he needs to turn his self in. This shows that people’s burdens get to be too tiring to deal with. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn’t always have a nice package resolution. Kieslowski depicts this by the ending scene with Auguste and Valentine surviving with the characters from the previous two films. At the end of the film, Kieslowski leaves the audience with hope.

White

White is the second part to the Three Color Trilogy directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski in 1994. Some critics would say that this was the weakest of the three films. Others would say that it does not fit in with the trilogy. To some degree, this film is different in personality but Krzysztof Kieslowski does a wonderful job of tying it together with the first film, Blue.

The way that Krzysztof Kieslowski ties in the film is the courthouse scene with Karl getting a divorce from his wife of six months and Julie trying to go into the courtroom to find the mistress that was seen in the pictures with her husband. The subtle image if Julie trying to enter the courtroom makes it easy to miss if viewers were not paying attention. Krzysztof Kieslowski also does a great job of showing different point of views within both films. Blue, viewers are able to see Julie’s point of view and then White can be experienced through Karl.

The character, Karl, makes it easy for the audience to sympathize with him. He is a quirky guy who loves his wife but seems to have really bad luck. Just when the audience thinks that Karl is down and out he proves to them that he is smart and has things figured out. One example is when Mikolaj and Karl are talking and Mikolaj reveals to Karl that he is the one who wants to be killed. Karl says, “We all know pain.” Mikolaj responds, “Yes, but I wanted less.” This is a wonderful universal theme that is timeless. Krzysztof Kieslowski seems to be speaking through Karl by saying what should be done with this pain? Should people wallow in it or should they make something of themselves like Karl and move forward. The ironic thing is that Karl moves on and creates a fortune for himself all for one reason, his wife. This brings up another idea on love. The film leaves people feeling that Karl and Dominique have found their love again. The question to ask is why did he have to trick her to come to Poland? If she loved him, shouldn’t she have wanted to come anyways? Also, if it was love in the first place with their marriage and the whole wedding scene with doves why would she through him to the curb just because he couldn’t perform physically up to her standards but yet she would cry at his funeral?

This film does fit in with the trilogy. The films Blue and Red tend to be on the heavy side but White holds the together. It compliments them very well because it is still aesthetically pleasing, intellectually stimulating and contains well developed characters.

Blue

Krzysztof Kieslowski directed the Three Color Trilogy. The three colors blue, white and red represent the French flag and its’ motto. Blue, the first of the trilogy, was filmed in 1993. According to Nick James, Blue is the very model of a latterday European arthouse work of craft and prestige, and that it is a constituent part of a larger work, the 'Three Colours' trilogy. Schooled in the virtues of neorealist visual storytelling, sumptuously photographed in 35mm colour and impeccably pared down to its vital essences, Blue devotes the vast bulk of its screen time to gazing at Juliette Binoche, an actress of great talent and beauty, as she goes about doing remarkably everyday things. But the film is far from an enraptured hymn to graceful looks and elegant posturing. It's savage irony and remarkable austerity that hold sway.

The camera aesthetics in the film is captivating. The camera’s characteristic typically follows every move whether it be a charcater or an object within the film. For example, the camera follows the wheel of the car before the wreck and also the boy’s feet running after the accident. The colors are very rich, especially the color blue. The color reflects off her face, Julie. Another great affect, the imagery of the music notes as Julie is reading them. The two outsides are out of focus and the middle remains in focus as the camera pans for the audience to read the music. The music and blackouts are very awkward. The music tends to come first and then the blackouts follow. The abrupt change in the film makes them pace uneven and the pattern less flowy.

Throughout the film, the audience is following Julie to see if she will ever overcome her loss of her family. The film seems very heavy especially since things keep happening to Julie. The audience starts to wonder how much more can she take as well as does this kind of luck happen to more people thank one would think. The theme that seems to fit this film is rebirth. The examples that back this idea up is the mouse and its’ babies, the mistress and her being pregnant, and the finding of love that Julie has with Olivier. Julie and Oliver share great conversations together. It is easy to miss out on what is being said because of all of the effects that are going on around the characters.

This film definitely challenges viewers after they see this film. It leaves them asking the question: what would you do if you were Julie and how would you overcome all that she has lost? Would you try to ignore the lost and suffering or embrace it, learn from it and change from it?

The Double Life of Véronique

The Double Life of Véronique is directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski in 1991. This film is one of the most aesthetic appealing films. The rich colors, unique and invigorating camera angles keeps the audiences attention throughout. The colors that were breath taking were green used to light different scenes as well as the leaf in the beginning of the film. The rich red is used in the film throughout sometimes found in set design other times as costume design. Some angles that were memorable were when Weronika is kneeling down on the side walk. The camera makes an abrupt change in point of view. Lastly, the camera inside the grave and the audience can see the dirt thrown on the camera which is a representation of the grave.

According to Doug Cummings,… Double Life is, in many ways, a passionate celebration of intuitive thinking in and of itself and the interconnectivity of emotions generated by music, performance, and beautiful cinematography. A glittering tone poem with a careful arrangement of narrative patterns and details that remain remote, it's certainly Kieslowski's most abstracted and poetic film. Whether or not it offers any deeper meaning beyond its own amber-hued surfaces probably depends more on one's interior predilections and aesthetic convictions than any explicit content on Kieslowski's part.

Another critique Jenny Jediny claims that the visualization of feeling is one of the film’s strongest aspects. Kieslowski’s mise en scene is mesmerizing in its focus on the odd, affecting minutiae of life Véronique’s actions are of note, as they provide a more concrete narrative than the plot surrounding Weronika, but Kieslowski continues to draw out the emotional complexity of Véronique’s inner self while weaving in reminders of Weronika. At the beginning of the film, Véronique played with a green leaf and its tiny veins, and she now touches a grown tree, perhaps the same the leaf fell from, and from this small history springs not only Véronique’s own past, an ever widening connection of individuality within the larger context of human experience.

This film is definitely one that has to be seen several times and even then viewers are not able to get the film in its entirety. Every part of the film seems to have a purpose and reason for being displayed or shown in the film. It is up to the audience to dissect the film and figure out the many layers involved with the piece as a whole. The film is very pure in the sense of its colors and camera angles but is very liberal in the sense of sexuality. This can and is somewhat distracting for viewers who are not use to that type of sexuality being shown. Sometimes it is harder to grasp the aesthetics of the film because of the sexual nudity within.

His Girl Friday

Howard Hawks directed the black and white film His Girl Friday in 1940. According to Tim Dirks, His Girl Friday is Howard Hawks' speedy and hysterically funny, modern-style screwball comedy, and one of the best examples of its kind in film history. The film marked the beginning of a number of screwball comedies in the 1940s that emphasized the conflict for women in deciding between love/marriage and professional careers.

During the film, Hawks shows how hard it is for someone to quit something that they were born to do i.e. Hildy and the paper. These lines in the film contribute to this idea: Walter- You’re a newspaperman you can’t quit, Hildy – That’s why I am quitting. Going some place where I can be a woman. Hildy and Walter are very similar in the idea of manipulating people to get what they need or in some cases the story they need. Walter manipulates Bruce in the film several times one in particular is writing him a bad check. Hildy manipulates Earl Williams, the man in trial, into getting an exclusive story for the paper. Another similarity is how well they compliment each other. They have experiences and personality traits that compliment each other and have that Bruce and Hildy could never have. An example is when Hildy kicks Walter under the table and they both take rum in their coffee.

After reading Lauren Rabinovitz’s critique of the film, seems to lend a better understanding of the film after reading what she has to say. Although film critic Molly Haskell praised the way that the movie allows a woman to find her identity in a non-domestic sphere, Hildy still faces rather restrictive options— marriage to home, children, and pallid Bruce or marriage to career and ego with a maniacal Walter. Hildy's choice to remain with the press is less a decision to relinquish her "feminine" longings for home and family than a commitment to the continued excitement and kinetic activity of the world of journalism. Her decision to remarry Walter grows out of their mutual understanding, respect, and love for professionalism. Hildy's ultimate decision for an active, motion-filled life is her only possible choice in a "Hawksian" world. As Hawks himself suggested, her solution is the only way that she can work up enough sense of speed so that she won't have to think about how limited her options really are and how bad life really is. Throughout the 1940s, career-marriage decisions for women provided the crises in several screwball comedies. His Girl Friday marked the transition from the subversion of women working for ends other than marriage to more explicit statements regarding money-marriage-sex roles in the genre in the 1940s (Rabinovitz, Lauren).

This film has a universal theme that is relatable for future generations. This film also shows that things are not always black and white. Women still have to decide whether to have a family or to be competitive in the work force. Yes, we have gotten better on this issue than compared to the past but still have a ways to go. Women have also become more independent and self sufficient. Some women on the other hand would rather have a man take care of them for the rest of their lives which send mix signals to not only the men but society as a whole.

Bringing Up Baby

Bringing Up Baby is a black and white film produced in 1938. Howard Hawks directed the film and is perhaps the greatest director of American genre films. Hawks made films in almost every American genre, and each of these films could well serve as one of the very best examples and artistic embodiments of the type: …screwball comedy (Bringing up Baby)… (Gerald Mast).

According to Gerald Mist, Hawks was a master of point-of-view, knowledgeable about which camera perspective would precisely convey the necessary psychological and moral information. The type of shots that are done throughout the film are establishing shots, crane shots and moving in up close with a crane especially when the scene has the dinosaur bones in it. The shots with Susan Vance, played by Katharine Hepburn, and Dr. David Husley, played by Cary Grant is very different than with Cray Grant’s character and his fiancé, Ms. Hannah. As a couple they are not on the same page. Dr. David has the idea of having both a marriage and work, he wants love, but his fiancé wants it to be about his career. During their interactions the audience can feel the awkwardness and see the magic between Susan and David.

Tim Dirks claims that Bringing Up Baby is one of the funniest, wackiest and most inspired films of all time with its characteristic breathless pace, zany antics and pratfalls, absurd situations and misunderstandings, perfect sense of comic timing, completely screwball cast, series of lunatic and hare-brained misadventures, disasters, light-hearted surprises and romantic comedy. With the way Hawks uses the different situations between Susan and David, there is nothing but pure comedy. Both characters share the comedy of equality which is very different from the Old and New comedy traditions. The characters evoke laughter equally at the idea that men and women are different and at the idea that they are not (p 122 Cavell). Cavell continues this idea of comedy of equals with saying that is it a comedy of privacy, evoking equal laughter at the fact that they are, and are not, alone. Some of the scenes that fit this description is when they are looking for baby around the house, in the forest, and at the end when she comes to visit him at his museum.

This film also does a great job showing the female pursing the male which back in the day was not really common. It was the men who planned everything out and would win the over the girl’s heart. But in this film, Susan is the one who is after David. She is the one in control and has David in a daze. He wants to get away from her but somehow he is drawn to her. She plans when she is going to see him again and is the one that can manipulate him to do anything she wants. David fights with her through the whole film but also during the fighting he shows his feelings for her for example when he rushes over to check on her because he thinks baby has done something to her. The ending, resembles the idea of the walls of Jericho and how it had to come down in the film, It Happened One Night. The bones had to come down for David to finally give in and spend his life with Susan in common love.

The Philadelphia Story

George Cukor directed the black and white film, The Philadelphia Story, in 1940. This film fits the screwball comedy genre but is not one of the funniest films of this genre. The entertainment comes not from what the characters say but how they deliver what they say. The film deals with love, marriage, human growth and class distinction. Things that can be relatable back in the 40’s and even still today to some extent.

There are two events that foreshadow what will happen later on. One is when the Spy magazine gets trampled on by the horse’s hoof. The camera makes sure to follow the magazine till it hits the ground and the horse running over it. Its meaning is later explained when viewers finally learn that George is not the right one for Tracy because he is only worried about his reputation and how this marriage will make him more popular in the press. The significance of the horse running over the magazine shows that Tracy will not end up going through with the marriage. The other is when Dexter gives Tracy a model of their boat that they sailed on in the summer after they got married. Tracy puts in the boat in the pool while she is swimming. The boat is close to her and then the audience sees her get out and the boat continue to sail in the pool. This shows that Dexter has always been close to her even after their breakup. He is working on a way to get back to her.

Stanley Cavell makes two great points in his book the Pursuit of Happiness. One point is the audience is torn between what guy they want Tracy to end up with. Both men, Dexter and Mike, are great guys who love and appreciate Tracy and vice versa. Cavell claims that the one picked is the one chosen by the genre that makes the perfect fit. One reason Dexter is chosen is because Mike belongs to the wrong class. The thing that Dexter has on Mike is that Tracy and he grew up together. It also fits the notion that the heroine can rewin or win back the female character. In the film, when Dexter gets in the car to check on Tracy to get her to come inside after she has been drinking is probably the most intimate moments throughout the whole film. Mike and Tracy have a shared interest in books and such but they do not have memories together like Dexter and her.

Another point that Cavell mentions is Tracy and her father’s relationship. The two of them have a showdown when he returns. Tracy has assumed his position as the figure head when he lefts and now he has come back to reclaim is position and she is not willing to give it up so easily. The father is able to reclaim his wife quite easily from Tracy. This shows that Tracy’s mom can’t and want offer her comfort or protection which the film shows their loss of connection through the rest of the film. One example would be when they are at the party and Tracy thought her mother left a long time ago.

I leave you with a line from the film, Tracy: The time to make up your mind about people is never.