Momento: Blog Post

            “Momento” has very straightforward camera shots.  What I mean by this is that since there is one really main character, the camera is mostly focused all on him whether that be close ups, medium shot, or full body shots.  One very specific moment is when Lenny is looking for a pen in Natalie’s house so he doesn’t forget that he just beat her up, and that she is going to use him.  The director uses mostly close ups on Lenny when he is searching for a pen to show the urgency in his face.  Another time camera shots are prominent in the movie is there are quick concise flashbacks to when his wife was raped and supposedly murdered.  During the movie it is a very dark quiet scene and then out of nowhere the screen cuts to a clip less than a second long of a mouth being suffocated by a shower curtain, and then again.  I think the director does this to catch you off guard and wondering who that is, what’s happening, and intrigues you for the upcoming scene.  One point in the movie where I feel the camera work was not very good was the black and white scene where Leonard is in his room on the phone.  The camera is shooting a low to high shot which normally represents power, superior, noble, heroic, etc., but here Lenny is frantic and is trying to figure out the situation and is the complete opposite predicament.  The theme of, you can never really trust anyone is emphasized by the camera shots in the movie.  Since the majority of the camera time is spent solely on Lenny, it proves how you should just believe and trust yourself.  Although I’m not sure that the director should use the angles and shots in this way because if I were Leonard I would not believe and trust myself because of his condition.  This movie with its keen camera shot and angles can be compared to “Apollo 13” for the camera shots and angles.  In “Apollo 13” when the spaceship is on fire the camera shoots close up shots of all the astronauts to emphasize their emotions, for they know where their destiny lies.   

Formal Film Studies Post

Style:  Even though the movies are different from one another they still have traits that are similar.  All three films have a combination of action scenes and slower, plot explaining scenes.  For example “The Dark Knight” has a scene where batman is trying to find and fight off the joker in an abandon building, but then once he does the camera cuts to the jail cell where the joker is.  During the action scenes in all three movies the camera is always making quick and concise cuts from picture to picture because there is always something else going on.  Like with the Avengers, the camera has to compensate for all the Avengers in the scene fighting.  A difference between the two Avengers movies and The Dark Knight is color.  The Avengers have more light to it because all of the Avengers are generally good light side heroes.  With Batman it’s not that he is a bad guy, but they shoot most of his scenes in darkness and shadows (hence the “Dark” Knight) because that is his kind of character. 

Industry:  These movies are what every viewer wants to see from a Hollywood movie.  There is action, suspense, drama, and an interesting plot.  If you look at all good hero/action movies, they all exceed those four characteristics of a great Hollywood movie.  As more and more superhero movies come out, directors must find new ways of grabbing viewer’s interests.  The movies resemble the traditional superhero theme where the bad guys start wreaking havoc in the beginning but then in the end the good guys come and defeat the bad guys.  Although I feel that soon directors will have to start finding new ways to approach superhero movies. 

Technology:  As the film industry expands and continues, the technology that they use gets better and better.  I think my generation movie watchers take for granted the special effects that movies have now a days.  We haven’t been around long enough to compare movies now to those in the future or in the past.  My dad would always comment on the special effects of a movie whenever I saw one with him and I never really thought anything of it.  But now I appreciate it more that I know more about cinema history.  The three movies have exceptionally good special effects which make the action scenes that more exciting. 

4) My biggest discovery I have thought of after watching all three movies is the directors uses of suspense.  I think that is the most important element of superhero movies.  Without suspense there would be no viewer interest in the movie, for you cant get excited for an action scene without suspense.  For example, if their were no boats with hundreds of people on them about to explode, their would not be nearly as much excitement about the fight scene in the abandoned building between batman and the joker. 

5) A smaller interesting detail I found that I mentioned earlier was how all three films had short camera cuts during an action scene.  Especially in the Avengers movies where the director had to balance the amount of time each Avenger was getting on the screen so it looked like they all did an equal job in the fight.  When you have just one superhero like batman there are still short cuts but just less of them.  Whenever batman would be fighting multiple guys at a time there would be more cuts because he would switch form guy to guy. 

6) A review from Snappow.com says “The Dark Knight’s” “music allowing for an even grander sense of suspense and captivation.”