Spoorloos: A Horror Film or Not?

The 1988 film Spoorloos  is considered a horror movie by some critics, but I would say that this movie is more of a thriller than a horror film due to the fact that horror films usually deal with a person's nightmares and the antagonist is usually of supernatural (but not always) origin. In this regard, I think horror films have the viewer asking "What is happening?" In Spoorloos the viewer is asking, "How did it happen?" and "What will happen next?", which in turn makes Spoorloos more of a crime thriller. The film is based around the main character named Rex who is searching for the kidnapper/murderer of an old girlfriend named Saskia who mysteriously went missing while he and she were on a biking trip three years prior. It showcases the various struggles that Rex deal with while trying to move on (unsuccessfully) from Saskia kidnapping as well as how the kidnapper/murderer named Raymond committed the deed.

I say the Spoorloos is a thriller because the movie starts out with the crime being done (the kidnapping of Saskia). We then see Rex looking around Saskia, but what we feel as viewers is more panic than fear, mainly because we have seen shots of Raymond watching Saskia. His watching elicits a suspicious and fear for Saskia, even tough we know what is going to happen. When Saskia goes missing our suspicions are thus confirmed. This is the only point in the movie in which the question of "What is going to happen?" could be asked by the viewer.

As we continue through the movie we see various scenes of Rex and Raymond crossing paths: Raymond and Rex passing missing posts of Saskia, Raymond watching Rex get interviewed on TV, Raymond observing Rex after he sends Rex a letter telling him he wants to meet, etc. During these encounters the viewer asks "When will they meet?" not "Are they going to meet?" simply because we have seen that both parties have an obsession with each other: Rex wants to find Saskia's kidnapper/murderer and Raymond wants to meet Rex out of curiosity. These questions are not questions one would ask in a horror film. There is no surprise because the viewer knows what is going to happen, its just a matter of when. The viewer (at least me) is not scared because they/I know they are going to meet.

When Rex and Raymond do meet, and Raymond tells Rex that the only way for him to know what happened to Saskia is to experience what she experienced, the viewer/I knows that Rex's curiosity will take over. Rex goes on this journey and throughout  we hope that Rex can curb his curiousity to survive. Otherwise Rex will share the same fate as Saskia. The fact that we know what will happen if Rex chooses one way or another is another element that makes this movie a thriller. In horror films there are not choices that the viewer can anticipate the what will happen to the characters. In this film we know know the outcome depending on Rex's choices. Ultimately this is what sets this film apart from a horror film. The audience knows the outcome, but the movie just illustrates how the outcome came to be. Thus making this film a thriller rather than a horror film.

Killer of Sheep: Analysis of Engine Carrying Scene

Killer of Sheep is a film neo-realism film by Charles Burnett. It centers around the Stan who is a man living in Watts, a ghetto of L.A. during the 1970s. Throughout the movie, a constant theme of seems to prevail: no matter how much one works, one will never get a head. Stan feels this way throughout this movie and spends a great deal of time battling with this concept. This, in turn, leads to his ever growing detachment from his family and friends.

However, despite this detachment, Stan does try to do things to better his family's life. This is exampled by an scene in which Stan and a friend go to purchase an engine. This, of course, is prefaced by a conversation that Stan has the day before with a neighbor in which the neighbor asks him, "What do you want with another raggity ass car?" His friend Gene replies,  "Tryna get ahead, man." Stan's neighbor replies "You niggas sick. You think you middle class!" Stan goes to defend himself saying he's not poor because he donates things to the Salvation Army. In this scene, we see the angst he has and how much he is desperately trying to get ahead, but constantly being reminded of how this will never be.

The engine carrying scene then serves to mirror the words Stan's neighbor said. In this scene, Stan and Gene go to buy an engine for a car from a man. As the Stan and Gene carry the engine down the steps from the man's apartment, the camera pans out, giving the audience the view of the steps from below. The audience sees how many stairs there are (there were many). This can represent the fact that the men have far to go, both metaphorically (because Stan is getting the engine to better the life of his family and he has far to go in order to accomplish this task) and physically (the men have to carry the engine a long way). After that the camera pans in on the engine and bodies of the men, not their faces. This is to emphasize the effort that the men are putting in. After the men get the engine down the stairs, they load the engine in the back of Gene's truck. The camera pans out again as the men get in the truck, giving a view of the engine in the back of the truck. As the men pull off, the engine falls out of the truck and breaks.  During this shot, the truck is also going up hill. The truck moving up hill and the engine falling down hill symbolizes that as Stan is trying to move forward and do better (going up hill),  he just gets knocked back down to the same place he was before (the engine was his mode for moving up and without he is in the same plight as before). The panning in on the engine after the men leave it broken just emphasizes the severity of the situation and symbolizes the brokenness of Stan's plight.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Creation of the Myth of Clint Eastwood

In the movie The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Clint Eastwood's creates the  character of the silent and ruthless action hero, which in turn became the symbol of masculinity. This character was/is a character in which Eastwood is known for playing throughout most of the movies he has done since. Eastwood's combination of slow and deliberate movements, glaring stare, and usage of an even speaking tone of voice all laced with a combination of arrogance and nonchalance are the components of Eastwood's signature in most of his movies.

In the first scene when we first meet Eastwood's character "the Man With No Name" (also referred to as "Blondie" by the character Tuco), Blondie confronts three men who are trying to capture Tuco for the $2000 reward. As he confronts the men, his movements are slow and deliberate, yet also carry an arrogance which is announced when he informs them men that they will not be collecting the bounty for Tuco. Even as he tells one of the men to step back and challenges the three men to a shootout (which he does silently, his challenge is simply inferred by his telling the man to step back), he does not change the pace of his movements, neither does he change the volume of his tone of speech or use inflections in his tone. He seems calm and collected.

Another example is when Tuco captures Blondie after Blondie double crosses him. As Blondie is taking aim to rescue another bandit by the name of Shorty (Blondie was running a scam with a Tuco but double crossed him and left in the desert and his new scam partner was Shorty), Tuco arrives and points a gun at Blondie's head. In this moment, Blondie does not flinch, but simply asks can he save Shorty. When Tuco says no, there is no protest by Blondie, just the acquiescence of his fate for the moment. Even when Tuco has Blondie walking through the desert with a gun aimed at his back, Blondie's stride suggest arrogance and nonchalance. This in turn makes one think that all will work out, and Blondie will prevail. Eastwood's personification of Blondie, thus, becomes this person in which nothing phases them. Blondie is  always calm and his movements are always deliberate and slow. He always has the upper hand on those whom he faces.

These attributes came to be the landmark of what is Clint Eastwood's myth. In the Gran Torino we see an older version of "Blondie" in the cantankerous character of Walt Kowalski. He is slow and deliberate with  his movements and delivers the same smoldering stare. In the scene in which he first confronts Spider's gang, he goes so far as to threaten then even when he is clearly out numbered and out gunned. This is the seems to be repeat of the introduction scene to Blondie in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Kowalski uses the same even tone and again is unphased in the face of his circumstances.

Eastwood took certain characteristics, such as slow and deliberate movements, glaring stare, and usage of an even speaking tone of voice, that he brought to the character of Blondie in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and made them his signature. These characteristics of Eastwood's characters also made him the epitome of masculinity and created the myth of Clint Eastwood.

Awara: A Musical or Not?

In the 1951 film Awara directed by Raj Kapoor, musical accompaniment is used to emphasize and often predict the events to come in the movie. In this way, the music in Awara seems to be more of modified score in which the music narrates the story as it is being told. Therefore, the music in Awara is a character in itself. It is because the music seems to be a character that I feel that Awara is not a musical, but a movie in which the score takes the form of the narrator.

In a musical films, songs are typically sung by the characters and most of the time they elucidate something about the characters and/or the plot. Sometimes the music just serves as breaks in the storyline. In the movie Mary Poppins, for instance, the character Mary Poppins employs the use of songs to add fun and make the movie whimsical. An example of this is when Mary sings about a spoonful of sugar when making the children take their medicine. This song does not have a "voice" of its own; it is simply Mary Poppins being whimsical so that the children will take their medicine.

In contrast to Mary Poppins' "A Spoonful of Sugar", the song in the beginning of Awara in which the sailor and dancers in the field are singing "Beware" seem to foreshadow that a bad event is coming. This bad event is the kidnapping of Leela by Jagga. However, because this song is not sung by the main characters, this leads one to think that a song foreshadows things about the plot. Thus, the music is the narrator of the story. This is again shown after Leela has been cast out by Judge Raghunath (who was a lawyer at this time). The song is sung by a group of men (who again are not the main characters). They start singing about how the Lord play tricks and how "In murky waters He makes a lotus blooms" after which we here the cry of Judge Rahunath's son (a son of "noble" birth= blooming of the lotus) being born in a gutter during a rain storm (gutter in rain storm= murky waters). By this second song viewers realize that music serves as the narrator of the story and that all the music does is elucidate the plot.

Although music can elucidate the plot in musicals, (a great example of this is the 1954 film Carmen Jones in which the main character Carmen Jones sings about her own death), the key is that the main characters are usually the ones producing the music. In Awara, the songs are sung by "extras" and sometimes unknown singers. In doing this, the view focuses more on what being sung rather than who is singing it. The music takes a life of its own and becomes the narrator rather than "prop" of the characters. For this reason I feel the music is a narrator and that Awara is not a musical.