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12/2/13English 1103-028Dr. BlairMy Discourse of Film Criticism(and Review of La Vie D’Adele)I have many hobbies and talents; things I consider a part of me and very much “mine”. Whether I am playing bass in a local band or drawing my newest celebrity crush, I take pride in everything I do. It’s an outward expression of who I am and reminds me that I have a voice; that I am alive. Out of all of these hobbies, nothing has been able to resonate with me more than the art of cinema has. Combining my favorite media, visual arts and writing, film is a medium unique to itself in the way that there is nothing like it on the face of the earth. Movies resonate with people, teach us lessons, and constantly remind us that we are not alone. Whether we are the emotional girl longing for love, the young man looking for adventure, or the broken-hearted rebel who hides his pain underneath a leather jacket, there is always a character we will be able to relate to and a story that will resonate through us and reverberate off our heartstrings.Unlike all of my other hobbies however, my interest and study of film has been all self-taught up to this point. Since I am still in the middle of learning my Discourse, I hope to clearly convey what I have learned through words related to cinema, analysis of a film I am currently studying, and how this applies to me today. As a child I was more interested in studying computer generated imagery (CGI) but as I grew and started looking at universities, I realized that I didn’t really connect to it like I originally thought. Around this time I became enamored with cinematography. There’s something about the eyes of the film. People tend to take it for granted as they watch any movie and don’t think about the fact that everything is pre-planned, executed, and cut together with a specific purpose and every zoom, angle, crane-shot, and lens has a specific purpose. That kind of powerful, yet surreptitious presence is what pulled me in so much. Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a great example of this. The cameramen “danced” around the actors as they performed their ballet pieces, giving the film a dizzy and claustrophobic feeling.his past May, I went on a senior trip to New York. It was only my second time going but the strangest thing was that as soon as our charter bus exited the tunnel and we were bathed in the orange glow of the streetlights, my face lit up. I have lived in many places and attended so many schools my tally is almost in the double digits and despite all of this, I have never found any place I could call home. For some unknown reason, entering the city that night made me feel like I finally had. My feelings were reinforced by the little things New York had to offer: the smell of the crisp night air, the sound of the late-night traffic outside our hotel window, and how alive it all was. You could almost feel the skyscrapers contracting and expanding as they breathed. Everything thrived. I called my mom instantly and told her I wanted to go to school there eventually.I decided to look into New York Univeristy (NYU). I was instantly drawn into the campus being in the middle of the city, the diversity of its staff and students, and the fact that it has the number one film program in the country. I had received notices from them back when I was first applying to colleges in junior year, but ignored them thinking there was no way I would go all the way to New York at such a young age. It’s pretty humorous how things always seem to come full circle. I hoped to transfer in the spring but the college I am applying to, Tisch, has a strict policy for its Film and Television majors: I must attend in a summer session. I was crushed to realize I would have to wait another full year before I would finally feel like I was progressing somewhere but after a while the sadness began to slowly wear away. I decided the best thing to do would be to make the best of an unfortunate situation and to just go with the flow.While I am working on the application and all of its requirements, I am continuing my studies at UNCC, working part-time at a sushi place, and playing in a band. I know that if I keep busy, I won’t give myself enough time to be sad and summer will be here before I know it. I noticed that my friends who have declared their majors are taking classes more geared to those fields while being undeclared, mine are just neutral, general courses. I was jealous that I wasn’t being immersed in the field I was dying to study while everyone else was and this discouraged me even more. However, I soon realized that my passion for film had not dwindled (if anything, I was more motivated at this point) so I swallowed my pride and figured that the best I could do is just keep doing what I already was and learning as much as I could in my own free time; Self-study is encouraged in artistic fields. “Academia is the death of cinema,” director Werner Herzog states. “It is the very opposite of passion. Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates.” () As I did this, I became to dabble in film criticism and found that I love it.I was never drawn to mainstream cinema. As I got older, I realized that Hollywood tends to use airbrushing and explosions to cover up the mediocre acting and limp storylines. It turned me off. “It must be good,” you could tell me. “Look at how many people have seen it and how much money it has made!” I would respond with a simple statement: just because something is reinforced by larger numbers doesn’t make it better. A couple hundred years ago, the majority of people were for slavery, women didn’t have a voice until the ‘20s, and even today the image of the ideal American is a white man. American cinema may try to prove otherwise but we’re seeing the world with blinders on. We are only scratching the surface of what truly exists around us: diversity, vulnerability, and realism. I recently came across a film that seems to encompass all of these traits.La Vie D’Adele (Chapitres 1 & 2) – “The Life of Adele (Chapters 1 and 2)” is a French film directed by Abdellatif Kechiche (“Keh-sheesh”) and starring Adele Exarchopolous (“ex-ar-cop-o-lus”) and Lea Seydoux (“say-doo”) debuted on May 23rd at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. The film shows diversity but immersing us in the French culture that us Americans are so unfamiliar with, vulnerability of the actresses that’s so palpable it can be seen more and more as the film progresses, and realism in how the process was planned and executed.When I first heard about the movie I wasn’t only drawn in by the story but also by the amount of buzz it was getting in cinematic circles. First off, the release of any sort of same-sex love story is going to cause controversy; we can look back at the release of Brokeback Mountain in 2005 as a sort of precursor to this. Being part of the LGBT community myself, I quickly shirked this aside because unlike everyone, it’s a part of my life, ergo, it doesn’t shock me.Secondly, this film has an NC-17 rating. For those who are unfamiliar with how this works in the film industry, I’ll tell you a little bit about the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA is in charge of rating every film before giving it to the general public. The ratings, in order, are G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17. We’re all acquainted to the first four but I find that many people either don’t know the guidelines or haven’t even heard of an NC-17 rating. The MPAA states that “an NC-17 rated motion picture is one that, in the view of the Rating Board, most parents would consider patently too adult for their children 17 and under. No children will be admitted.?NC-17 does not mean "obscene" or "pornographic" in the common or legal meaning of those words, and should not be construed as a negative judgment in any sense.?The rating simply signals that the content is appropriate only for an adult audience.” ()This ties into a third reason why this film was so controversial and warranted the NC-17 rating: the sex scenes. There are five in the film and, when totaled, are rumored to occupy around twenty minutes of the total running time. The controversy isn’t held in the total amount of sex itself as much as one scene which has a running time of around seven minutes. This scene seems to define the movie for many people; whether it’s if they want to see it just for the sex, if they leave because of it, or if they simply just shift uncomfortably in their seats, everyone has something to say about it. Having seen the film twice myself, I can see why the scene is so uncomfortable: there is no music to cover any sounds, the lighting is bright, and the positions leave nothing to the imagination.The scene began to spark rumors that the director was a tyrant who exploited his lead actresses and that the sex was unnecessary, drew away from the story, was similar to pornography, and many other bogus claims. When asked about this, Adele, in broken English, adamantly defended the scene stating “it’s too bad people make a big deal about this scene because there are seven minutes and they are used to beautiful lights, two bodies, sexual things for like one minute and it’s finished. But, here it’s like real sex, real life…two people who can love each other and how we can be special with someone.”Despite the controversy, I was drawn to this film for having what Hollywood doesn’t: diversity, vulnerability, and realism.I am constantly drawn in by the unfamiliar and I find different cultures to be so enamoring and the French are no exception. Along with their beautiful language, France is a country of art. Being the birthplace of cinematography, I thought it would be rudimentary to study its work and to get a well-rounded view of film and how it relates to different parts of the world. If one was to watch films like La Vie En Rose (2007) and The Artist (2011) and compare them to the mainstream cinema of Hollywood, one could say that there is a certain je ne sais pas that makes them stand out in your mind. Immersion into another culture isn’t just eye-opening, it’s humbling. Americans are viewed as an egotistical people who think that our way is the only and right way and I’m quickly learning that our world and culture is just a small blip on a spectrum of many others; we aren’t singular. It’s rare in an American production that you’ll see an actor give their all for a film. They won’t hesitate to wear a wig but would they get their hair cut and let their director dye it blue in his own bathroom? Would they willingly spend a year living with him just to let him get to know them? These were only a few of the many sacrifices Lea Seydoux made in order to play the alluring and passionate Emma. “The process of the film is very, uh…very unique in a way.” She hesitantly begins. “(Abdel) asked me to spend one year with him. For example, if I wanted to go somewhere I had to ask him before. I had to tell him everything about my life and it was interesting.” The actresses put themselves at the mercy of their director in order to help him achieve his vision for the film. The filming was originally supposed to last two months but was extended to five and they said that the overall process was physically and emotionally draining. Adele stated that they could sometimes spend a week shooting one scene, and hour yelling and fighting for another, and ten days for the love scene. Though the actresses say they don’t regret doing the film because of its successful outcome, they both agree the process was debilitating and there is still tension between the two of them and Kechiche to this day. “It was just emotionally hard because you were just pushing (yourself) to the biggest emotions.” Exarchopolous states. “Sometimes it's hard, when you are a young woman, to give all of yourself.”Hollywood is known for its smoke and mirrors. Directors won’t hesitate to drop hundreds of thousands of dollars for CGI to spice up a scene or cover a flaw. Makeup artists are always at the ready and are at the beck and call of their superiors. This always turned me off of mainstream cinema; no one talks dramatically, no one looks perfect and pristine at all times, and everything doesn’t work out perfectly. Whether a piece of hair seems to fall on our actresses face perfectly or James Bond goes on his countless missions without so much as a wrinkle in his suit, it seems too perfect. Another factor of La Vie D’Adele that drew me in was its realism. There were no makeup artists on set and the clothes the actresses wore were some of their own. Some people state that this is very cheap and low budget but I feel it brings a degree of reality to the film. I remember watching it and smiling about how “awkward” Adele seemed. She stuttered when she talked, ate nonstop, and always said what she felt. “That’s me,” I thought. Many other factors kept the realism fresh. For example, there was no real use of a script in this film. The actresses glanced at the script a handful of times and would mostly just improvise the scenes. This sort of “on the spot” acting keeps the actors present in their situations. La Vie D’Adele was also shot chronologically, unlike most movies. Directors tend to shoot out of order because it can fit into the budget and scheduling easier. Shooting in order goes hand-in-hand with the improvisation and helps the actors stay current in the story and it feels like they’re living it as it happens. The character’s lives begin to feel like their own and sometimes they can become intertwined. Art requires passion and passion requires sacrifice. “There is something that naturally comes true in the pain.” Exarchopolous confides. “Sometimes when you're exploiting your morals, there are dark things you realize.”La Vie D’Adele (known in English speaking countries as Blue is the Warmest Color) is a film that has not only broken hearts but boundaries as well and all of the sacrifice paid off, as it was conceded to be a landmark film. Out of the many movies at the Cannes Film Festival, it was awarded the Palme d’Or, the highest prize that a film is able to win. The jury was headed by Spielberg and in a rare turn of events, he awarded the Palme to not only Kechiche but Adele and Lea as well as they started to reap the successes of their commitment. The award is reserved for directors so the fact that it was also awarded to actresses is considered monumental. On a more social scale, some also consider the film to be political since the award was won on May 18, 2013; the day same-sex marriage was legalized in France. This coincidence gave the film even more popularity and the actresses were commended for their bravery in telling such a controversial love story. Exarchopolous says, “We were so proud and in a way we deserve this because we gave a lot but I (couldn’t) imagine we’d win for (our) work. It’s like a dream.” As of recently, Seydoux has also been considered for a Best Actress Oscar nomination in 2014.Seeing films like this affect so many people inspired me even more. Being so turned off by Hollywood’s mentality and methods, this film gave me hope that there is success outside of that realm. I’ve fallen in love with French culture and cinema and I am planning on pursuing some sort of French education along with studying Film and Television. As a start, I’ve decided to study the language next semester. I’ve also been notified of an opportunity to intern at the Cannes Film Festival in the near future and I’m hoping all of this preparation I have been doing over the past few years will finally tie together soon.I’m starting to see the effects of studying in my everyday life. My favorite thing to do is to point out random movie trivia. First, in The Godfather, there are always oranges present in the film right before someone dies. Secondly, the famous line from Jaws, “We’re going to need a bigger boat” was improvised and thirdly, Sir Anthony Hopkins won his Academy Award for his role as Hannibal Lector in The Silence of the Lambs with only sixteen minutes of screen time; I love telling these because I love to provoke and see people’s reactions as I stir their thoughts.I am also going to visit NYU in December in hopes that the school appeals to my family enough for them to let me go. Though the process has been long and tedious, I can finally see a sort of light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like I am finally coming into my own and I’m proud of myself for not getting discouraged and giving up like I wanted to. Despite that, I’m convinced that learning my Discourse in film will never be mastered. I honestly feel like any field in the arts can never be completely learned because there is always room for improvement and growth. “In the end, everything is found to be wanting.”Frank LentricchiaWorks Cited“Adele Exarchopolous in the Charlie Rose Show on PBS on 12.11.2013”. . November 14, 2013. (12/10/13). <;. “Lea and Adele Talk Blue is the Warmest Color at Telluride Film Festival.” . September 9, 2013. (12/10/13). <;.“Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopolous for Interview Magazine and in Miu Miu’s Resort 2014 Campaign.” ohnotheydidn’t.. October 31, 2013. (12/10/13). <;.“Lynn Hirschberg’s Screen Tests: Lea Seydoux | W Magazine.” . October 3, 2013. (12/10/13). <;.“Quotes About Film.” . 2013. (12/10/13). <;.“Quotes About Frank Lentricchia.” . 2013. (12/10/13). <;.“What Each Rating Means.” . 2013. (12/10/13). <;. ................
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