Throughout Film History, there have been numerous sightings of the director who is making the film within the film.  In some cases the director’s role may be that of the leading role, a minor role, or in many cases just seen walking in the background.  A director does specific actions and features in a film on purpose.  There is a reasoning for everything.  Nothing is random.  In the film, Chinatown, a major scene disfiguring the main character of Jake occurs and the person doing it is none other than Director, Roman Polanski.  In the scene, Jack Nicholson’s character, Jake, is trespassing during his investigating of the water output.  Jake’s job as a private investigator is to not be seen or be noticeable.  During his investigation, he is cornered by Roman Polanski’s character and has a switchblade in his nose.  Jake’s character loses all his charisma and becomes feeble.  Polanski’s character begins to toy with Jake, intimidating him until the point where he slices Jake’s nose and tells him to get lost.  This form of inserting a director into their own film can be viewed in many different ways.  It may have to do with Polanski’s personality and showing his authority, or it may have to do with the fact that over time if the film gained a large amount of success, which it did, then the audience would be anticipating the moment.  Knowing that someone’s nose is about to be cut is a hard thing to watch because everyone knows that that would hurt so much.  After the moment Jake gets his nose cut, he wears a large bandage over his nose for the majority of the film.  Based on his job, this makes him stick out like a sore thumb and who did it? The guy who made the film.

I just had to come on and say that the title track for Chinatown by Jerry Goldsmith is a brilliant piece of work to match a brilliant movie. I can safely add that its one of my newest favorite themes, up there with Star Wars. It perfectly matches the mood of the film, especially when it plays during the heartbreaking ending.

Just listen to it; how haunted and somber it leaves you.

There’s not much I can say, It speaks for itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEaGu7_J3oY

The movie Brazil was an adaptation of the novel 1984 by George Orwell. It is about a man named Sam Lowry who works as a low level government employee that constantly refuses to move up since his mother always gets him promotions since she practiacally knows everybody. As the movie progresses he goes to the house of Buttle to tell them and explain it was a mistake since they were looking for Tuttle. When he is there he catches a glimpse of a lady upstairs who looks just like the girl he always day dreams about. Her name is Jill Layton and she is very wild and cautious around Sam. He then comes to grips with the fact that if he wants to see her again he has to accept the promotion to which he does. By working for the “Information Retrieval” he finds and tracks her down. Finally after an intense couple scenes of him evading police and being at the funeral he wakes up and we find out it is all a dream he had while being tortured.

The Set Up is a short film noir about a boxer and his wife along with his career at an all time low. The society in this movie are all about violence and very animalistic. The main focus of the film is that boxer named Stoker who is reaching the end of his prime chasing the ‘prize” of that one final big victory. Throughout the film his lady Julie tries to convince him that it is all over and he should just end it. But he decides to go fight a very skillful boxer who has ties with Little Boy who bets big money on matches. One important scene is where Julie rips the ticket and decides not to go but every where she goes she is always reminded of boxing. Finally he wins the fight but ends up being harshly beat in a back ally, where julie finds him and the movie ends.

This short film shows a great example of the film noir and of human characteristics. You see people reacting likesavages once the match starts yelling kill him ! or other violent remarks. ANd the setting is in a busy city centered around the ring, so busy to the point no one saw or heard Stoker as he was getting beat up.

The story of 1984 is an interesting piece of writing circling around the idea of a totalitarian government. A totalitarian government is a when they want to control everyone’s thoughts, feelings, and control every aspect of your life. The setting of the story is in London a depressed, broken down and dirty version of London, where the government “Big Brother” is constantly watching the citizens and ensuring power over everyone. One form is of this is the “Thought Police” who is one form of surveillance in the book and have hidden cameras and microphones all over to over hear everyone’s conversations in case some one said something against Big Brother. Our protagonist is Winston Smith who is a character who slowly develops a rebellion against Big Brother, the rebellion starts slow, but grow to out of control manners. First with a constant watch over them by Big Brother and the Thought Police, it was a difficult mission and ends up finding out a worker named Julia is the same as him, when she slips him a note saying, “I LOVE YOU.” Winston decides to make a movie and they end up being in a love affair and rent a hidden space in a secret location with no telescreen, no microphones, nothing, but a space of their own. Eventually this trues leading to a horrible end where, he visits O’Brain and believe he to be a member of the rebellion against the party as well, but is proven wrong and take to the Ministry of Love and is tortured to horrible extends. Winton is broken by the government and betrays Julia’s love but sending his torture to her. The governments ends up winning at the end of the book, and i find it was a interesting end where the antoganist wins over the protagonist and this totalitarian government stays as the world’s past, present and future. WAR IS PEACE…FREEDOM IS SLAVERY….IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Connections between Chinatown and other film noirs we’ve read/seen
— connect The Maltese Falcon – simple job that starts off small, becomes bigger, more complicated. More and more at stake. Conspiracy. Job becomes bigger. While Sam Spade neatly ties things up at the end, Jack Nicholson’s character fumbles.
what is resolved and what is unresolved at the end of each film?

conventional narrative ideas in 40s vs. wild 70s

nuclear family cf. 70s

how does Chinatown reflect the social and political realities of 1970s America?

How does the film relate earlier film noir

How does the protagonist of Chinatown, Jake Gittes, compare to other film noir protagonists we’ve seen
— could push him back into gumshoe era
still had his own set of mores – had moments of anger, but heart in the right place. wanted to save the girl — fumbled

Gittes – nose cut by Polanski
— human, not infallible
— underdog
— why the nose – because he’s nosey — job is to put his nose into places – what will happen is that it will get hurt
— cf. Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe in Maltese Falcon, Murder My Sweet
humbling

no hope at end of film
deeply cynical – people in power corrupt, the rich bending the rules, murdering morally corrupt

Brazil is a movie based on the book 1984; however, it would be more appropriate to say that it is a parody of the book. Brazil takes a lighthearted approach to the grim subjects that are dealt with in 1984. In “Brazil” the country is governed by the Ministry of Information which seems to be unkempt and disorganized in every aspect except in the case of distributing punishment. Every detail is controlled with paperwork, which is easily misplaced or contains flawed information. Technology looks broken down and dilapidated, however, this does not deter the use of mobile telescreens to monitor the activities of everyone. In 1984 the state of Oceania is run by a totalitarian government headed by the figure called Big Brother. The governing body includes four ministries, the scariest of which is the Ministry of Truth, similar to the Ministry of Information in Brazil. The difference is that the Ministry of Truth is enforced by the thought police who could be anyone, even family and telescreens, which are everywhere, even in everyone’s homes. The government in 1984 is organized with one intended goal, to keep the people oppressed and in constant fear of even thinking the wrong thought. In Brazil, the enforcers were not as invasive, they were more interested in action or inaction but they were just as brutal in their punishment.

There is a major class gap in Brazil, the poor live in cramped, dumpy apartments, in which nothing worked. While he rich lived lavishly and spent money carelessly. The affluent women in Brazil are perpetrated as being obsessed with youth. They would do whatever it took to achieve this, whether through life threatening surgeries or sleeping with men many years their junior. In 1984 three classes were described, however there weren’t any major differences among them except access to things like real sugar, rather than synthetic saccharine.

Sam Lowry, the main character in Brazil is a smart man who finds himself in a menial job within the Ministry. Due to his spinelessness and lack of initiative he is constantly being manipulated by his mother and his boss. However, he finds courage and the true object of his desire when he meets Jill Leighton, the woman, literally of his dreams. Winston Smith in 1984 bares similarities, his pursuit of the truth amidst a maze of lies and cover-ups by the government, some perpetrated by himself, was kicked into high gear once he discovered that Julia was interested in him. The two ended with the protagonist dreaming of their escape from capture Sam dreaming of being physically rescued by the resistance and Winston dreaming of being killed released from mental domination.

Brazil is a film based on the story of 1984. There is a vast difference in the separate monetary classes. In the story we have a character Sam who’s mother tries to get him into the upper class with her. He doesnt want this help as he is content with where he is. He dreams of a woman and when sees her in real life he then wants to take up the offer his mother had put in place for him to move up in his company so he can find her.