Whether as a visual element or as an indispensable prop, cigarettes could be seen in almost every classical noir film, helps to depict and reflect character’s emotion, power, or desire. The erratic, mysterious smoke wreathing in a dark scene, hovering between man and woman, reflecting by dramatic lighting, all made a well-known symbol of film noir. It has almost become a signature of “noir style”.
Ghost in The Shell vs. The Matrix, besides the similar concept or design in two movies, did they serve the same purpose? What makes them different? Is there any new meaning generated? How the similar visual design working under different contexts and serve different functions?
As one of Sonmi-451’s lines in the film, “separation is an illusion … I believe death is only a door, when it closed, another opens.” Such a manifesto is the best way to summarize the understanding and adaptation of reincarnation from the creators of Cloud Atlas.
In the film Orlando, although reincarnation hasn’t been depicted explicitly, it actually throughout the entire plot in a metaphor way.
Although it has not been a well-examined explanation, use the idea of reincarnation to analysis the plot of film "Last year in Marienbad" makes perfect sense.
I am currently working on my essay about a Chinese ink-wash animation film The feeling of mountains and streams. In the film, it comes to a point that the elder man gives his long-treasured guqin to his student/friend, a young fishing man. Since I am trying to analysis the film and put it into the... Continue Reading →
During the reading of George Griffin's ‘Take the B Train: Reconstructing the Proto-Cinematic Apparatus’, I've learned about three artists and their concrete animation works. Before this, I have seen this kind of apparatus quite a lot, but Eric Dyer, one of the artists in the reading, his work 'The Bellows March' shocked me completely. Using intricate... Continue Reading →
In the chapter The World is a Cartoon, author Steve Reinke examined several stray notes, depicted and discussed a serial of topics such as the relationship of cinema to the photographic image; the complicated controversy on cinema, digital film and animation; and especially, the relationship between cinema and different types of animation. As far as... Continue Reading →
Ran Into Art 