Welcome to my blog for Rio Hondo College's course titled The Art of Film! I am very much looking forward to learning how to look at movies, and so I shall begin:

For me, an interesting movie is one that takes me to another world during its duration, but also provides me something to take with me. I am compelled by films that I watch and cannot stop thinking about for days, because I know that I have been moved by something I have seen. Noteworthy movies are ones that I can see a lot of people relating to or enjoying because they communicate a universal theme in a unique way, or a new topic in a comprehensive manner.

One of the movies assigned this week, title "Le voyage dans la lune" (A Trip to the Moon), directed by Georges Melies in 1902 is certainly noteworthy. A couple minutes into watching the silent short I realized I had already watched it in an English class a few years ago. 

Also, the iconic scene where the shell hits the moon's eye was in the movie Hugo (2011),  which features Georges Melies as one of the central characters. Watch a scene from Martin Scorsese's Hugo: http://youtu.be/oNFpTsbUR0k

I appreciated the fact that since this film was silent, the actors had to communicate to the viewer with the use of constant movement. Just having read the first chapter of Looking at Movies, I have already been introduced to a few cinematic techniques that help portray a movie maker's vision into a captured motion picture and I can definitely notice the motion picture's evolution. It was interesting to be taken back to a time when different angle shots were not being employed, but instead only the focus characters moved differently than the people in the background.

In contrast, the other silent short assigned for this unit titled "The Great Train Ride" did not thoroughly amuse me. I recognize that its an important piece of movie-making history, but I found myself lost about halfway. I have realized I, like many people, have become accustomed to the manipulation invisibly present in movies of today. Nowadays, you can be doing chores while periodically glancing at movies and still have an idea of what is going on in the story and how you should be feeling about the particular scene; soundtracks and various shooting techniques play major roles in manipulating films into exactly what their respective makers want to present to viewers.