Fifth Essay: ET 20

 

Having a ball...wish you were here

Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, Anji Xtravaganza, Willi Ninja...

Before watching Paris Is Burning, if I saw these names i might think of: are those really names? After watching it, i thought: these were just a group of people who gathered and shared the same interests. They were Drag Queens.

 

I had never heard of ball cultures, drag queens, voguing, or even black-gay-culture? I'm still a freshman in this area. I never really met a gay guy in my lifetime, maybe i will in the future; but till now, gay men were just a term for me. These black-gay-men were a marginalized culture somewhere in America, best known were in New York City. They gathered, having balls, voguing, houses that actually meant something to them; semiotically speaking, those things were just signifiers, they actually signified the identities, genders, families of these gay people.

In this film, most of the gay guys were transvestites, meaning a guy who enjoyed wearing women clothes, and they even want to be prettier than women. Women clothes were signifiers, when they put on those women outfits, it signified their gender, women. This was what they want, they want to be a woman, at least be like a woman, and loved by men, marry with men. One of the gay man named Venus in the movie, i found he had an interesting idea: he didn't think of himself as a guy, he was just a girl with a penis. That was very true for him, he looked more feminine than most girls. Moreover, they talked a lot about sex change in the movie. Sex changing was a sign of being a REAL women for them, some of them thought it doesn't worth it; whereas some of them would die for it. Those who had their breast implanted or had their sex changed, they were so satisfied and happy and rejoiced for it; those who thought sex change weren't their thing at first, and time goes on they were still gratified by their decision that not having a sex change. Like Pepper Labeija said: what for? Things didn't seem getting well, women still got beaten up, robbed and mugged. These unfortunate things were a sign of being a transgender woman for him.

Moving on, these people gathered weren't doing nothing, they vogued, having competitions, having balls. Balls signified identities for them in a way, they were the ball-goers. In the balls, they had competition, they could be whoever and whatever they want. In those competition, they won trophies. Trophy was a signifier of status for them. They got status, they got fame. Besides, competitions were separated into categories, like realness, voguing, high fashion coats, outfits for different occupations, etc. They even have trends too, like in earlier days they tended to dress like exotic Las Vegas showgirls with those beats and feathers; then they wanted to look like those gorgeous movie stars; later they thought of being trim and elegant supermodels.

from to then

Looking like these beautiful women signified fulfillments for them, and being one of these supermodels was some of the drag queens ultimate dream. So they invented Voguing, a kind of dance which using the poses inside the magazine, Vogue. Dancing with those poses made them feel like one of the Vogue models, an accomplishment for them, to show off their perfect body line. Voguing signified their attitude, style, theatricalism, and talents.

On the other hand, a lot of them got kicked out of the family because of being gays, drag queens. Some of them just ran away from home because they didn't want to embarrass their family. Some normal families just disowned their son when they found out they were gay. Houses like Labeija, Xtravaganza, Pendavis, Saint Laurent signified home for those homeless black gay guys. And every home has a mother as the leader, these leaders have great responsible for the children in their house. The Mother did every real mother does, when the 'children' were to perform, mother helped them in choosing their shoes and outfits. In addition, they shared their problems, 'children' looked up to their mothers. The houses were signifiers for home, it gave you warmth, shelters, helps, it represented the lost homes of those 'children'.

As the situation of Mohd Ashraf, he was having a much tougher circumstances. First he is a malay muslim, malays are considered more religious, his parent's decision to disown him is unavoidable. Even the laws of country couldn't bear with it, causing him to have difficulties in changing his name. It was just changing a name, why make it a big fuss? We can't blame Mohd Ashraf for wanting to change his name, names are printed in MYKAD; MYKAD signifies our identities, all information related to us can be found in MYKAD, if the data in it isn't right, then it doesn't mean anything to us. I think Mohd Ashraf thought this way too.

To conclude, Mohd Ashraf was having the same issues with those 'children' in New York City, no matter what race, or what nationality you are, transgender people shared the common problems. Paris is Burning made me realized that there was something like this happened around us, around the world, and we have to admit that. Paris is Burning now.

 

 

Fourth Essay: ET 19

 

Some Like It HOT!!

Some Like It Hot was a film far beyond your wildest imagination. What can you expect from a screwball comedy? Funny characters, hilarious events, humorous chases, interesting dialogues, glamorous costumes, etc. You can find them all in this film. Indeed, this film were rich with semiotic meaning. Look at the ‘three’ bombshells in the movie poster, what would you think of? It must be an amusing, sexy, and comical film. In the film, Sugar Kane(Marilyn Monroe) was a vocalist and a ukulele player in an all-girl musical band. Joe(Tony Curtis) and Jerry(Jack Lemmon) the saxophone and the bass player witnessed a gangster’s massacre, in order to run away from the mafias, they dressed as women, named themselves Josephine and Daphne, and playing in an all-girl band headed to Florida, which they met Sugar.

 

There was a sequence that Marilyn Monroe’s sang ‘I Wanna Be Loved By You’; Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Osgood, and a bellhop were appearing in this sequence as well. In the opening of this sequence showed an establishing shot of the sumptuous round-ceiling ballroom, with a huge sparkling chandelier hanging in the middle of it. The grand decoration of the ballroom signified a social class, the upper class, men and women wearing tuxedos and dresses, drinking cocktails and champagne, which was Sugar's dream about being one of them.

When singing ‘I wanna be loved by you’, Sugar signified a performer, an entertainer, she tended to be flirty and seductive. Every gaze, every smile, every dances, every little movements like pointing her small finger, the way she sang, it associated with seduction and she made your heart pumped. The lyrics of the song gave you a pleasure of hearing, like she was whispering beside your ear, and the sound ‘Boo boo bee doo!’ was like blowing airs into your ear, naughty and tickling. From a feminist point of view, she embodied the visual pleasure of the audience. Look at that dress, how could you not aware of her wonderful figure with that dress on. This fulfilled the male gaze theory according to Laura Mulvey, ‘that women role are simultaneously looked at and displayed with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.’ (Mulvey, 1975). As we know, Marilyn Monroe was one of the famous sex symbols in the 50s, so she was absolutely up to the role.

Moving on, Josephine realized Osgood was waving at Daphne. ‘She’ encouraged Daphne to react nicely and be with Osgood that night.

And we look at Daphne, Jack Lemmon had well-portrayed Daphne with his movements in their musical performance, Daphne was standing real straight like a girl, and the way ‘she’ gazed, just like any other confident girl who played bass in a music band. Daphne waved back, with an awkward straight-palm gesture. It was like a ‘stop’ sign, asking him to stop showing affection for ‘her’ because at that moment Daphne really doesn’t like Osgood. Josephine was the encourager, ‘she’ encouraged Daphne to spend the night with Osgood and keep him ashore, so ‘she’ could sort of steal Osgood yacht and be with Sugar. Josephine was like a conspiracist here, making her own plans and forced Daphne to collaborate, no matter how unwilling Daphne was. ‘She’ even asked Daphne to wave nicer, this showed how eager Josephine was to date with Sugar. Daphne signified the ‘victim’, being controlled by Josephine. Although Daphne ended up happily engaged to Osgood, which was hilarious.

Josephine was quite a pretty ‘lady’ after disguised, ‘she’ caught a bellhop’s attention, the bellhop kept seducing ‘her’ after they first met. Look at the way he leaned towards Josephine, that bellhop actually acted as a dominant male in a feminist point of view, he was being arbitrary that he won’t stop chasing Josephine until ‘she’ says yes.

The bellhop was sending a basket of flowers to Daphne from Osgood, later he picked one of the flowers and gave it to Josephine and ‘threaten’ her, then Josephine put a card on the flowers and gave it to Sugar as it was a gift from him to her. Flowers are a sign of courtship-romances, normally a guy would send flowers to a girl he adores. Like this whole flower-sending scene, Osgood gave them to Daphne; the bellhop gave one to Josephine; and Josephine(Joe) gave them to Sugar. One basket of flowers had been sent to three ‘girls’ from three ‘guys’ within minutes. What a lovely scene.

Back to Marilyn Monroe, she played Sugar, Sugar was a ukulele player. As we know, ukulele was a small guitar-violin-like instrument, it seemed quite easy to play. It was like a symbol for Sugar that she was an easy and vulnerable blonde. For instance, she was so easily believed in Joe who acted like one of the millionaires, Junior. Joe was acting quite illogically but still Sugar buy it. However, Marilyn Monroe usually signifies dumb blonde in most of her movies, they were all so beautiful, fragile, naive, sweet, blond hair, etc. Daphne and Josephine were quite alike from a feminist point of view, they were a couple of nice sweet girls with nice ‘sweet’ voices; Joe and Jerry tended to disguised themselves as one of those blondes like Sugar/Marilyn Monroe, and they named themselves Daphne and Josephine, some very girlish names. These were how men thought of women.

This was an amazing sequence, there were still a lot of other sequences with semiotics and feminist theory, but this was the most significant and representative one in the movie. Well, some like it Hot!

 

Final Comparison Essay

 

Tootsie, Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman

When I decided to write about Dustin Hoffman, I was a little shocked by myself for making such decision. I never specifically liked him, just that i have watched a couple of movies of him, and I thought he was great for taking a wide range of different personas, like The Graduate, Rain Man, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Tootsie, Meet the Fockers, etc. Well it wasn’t much but it’s quite a lot for watching the same actor. Actually, it was the trailer of Tootsie that confirmed me in writing Dustin Hoffman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For someone like me that hadn’t heard of Tootsie, looking at the woman in red dress and Dustin Hoffman was top billing in the posters, I was confused, thinking of who was that old woman? and where was Dustin Hoffman? How did he look like in the movie? So I looked up the trailer of the movie. No. Way. That woman was Dustin Hoffman?! I was so shocked. It surprised me, like I said in one of my earlier ETs, I love surprises in movies. So Tootsie definitely got picked.

The next movie, I watched it a year ago, another Dustin Hoffman’s significant movie, Rain Man, immediately popped into my mind. No more women, no more red dresses, but an autistic savant. Dustin Hoffman was famed for his multiple personas in acting; in Rain Man, he was autistic; in Tootsie, he was a woman. You can never imagine the flexibilities of his acting.

First of all, in Tootsie, there was three aspects in his persona, the Michael Dorsey-before being Dorothy, Dorothy Michaels, and Michael Dorsey-after being Dorothy. All three has different personalities, all well-played by Dustin Hoffman. At first in the movie, Michael Dorsey was an unemployed, he’s been a jobbing actor for 20 years, and there was a reason for it. While he was auditioning, or shooting a commercial, he argued with everybody. He tries to be reasonable, but his ‘reasonable’ seemed very unreasonable to others. I could tell how desperate he was for money, but still insisted his own way of working. Besides, he was a tutor, acting tutor, always sharing and teaching others about his philosophical thoughts in acting. And here’s an important question, how did he become Dorothy Michaels? It was a role his friend, Sandy (Teri Garr) wanted, so as a friend and a tutor, Michael Dorsey coached her for the audition. That was the first time Michael Dorsey in touch with the character of Emily Kimberly. After hearing the provoking assumption from his agent (Sydney Pollack) that he could never earn a dime, he made up his mind…

Then, Dorothy appeared. I have to say, Dustin Hoffman once became a real woman in this movie. Did you see the way ‘she’ walked, stared, it was exactly how a woman walk on a busy street: walk fast, eyes were looking around, kept tidying up her hair, a bouncing feel of walking - most feminine thing ever happened to guy. Next, i LOVE the way she revealed to Sydney Pollack that she’s Michael Dorsey, talking with a sweet voice and suddenly a deep nasal voice came out, I laughed so hard at that part. I think that was an amazing way to reveal yourself to someone you knew when you are in disguise.

Before, Michael Dorsey was a person who would fight for himself under any circumstances, but as Dorothy Michaels, when the director Ron blamed Dorothy for not discussing with him first for changing the plot of her first kissing scene, she just apologized. Well I think Michael Dorsey would never ever do that, he will just throw the script and walk away. But look at ‘her’ now, ‘she’ just apologize gently, without any attitude. Was Michael changing into a better man? Yes, i think, from then onwards, and the following made the famous line of Michael Dorsey in the end of the movie, ‘I was a better man with you, as a woman than I ever was with a woman, as a man.’

The Michael Dorsey–after being Dorothy, he started to think like a woman, he wanted to buy Dorothy jewels, he started to think from a woman’s point of view, which hadn’t happen to him before, and Michael was so care about how others thought of Dorothy, when Sandy says Dorothy was fat, he seemed so upset about it; Sandy says again that Dorothy wasn’t acting tough enough for the character of Emily Kimberly, he later on work even harder and even changed more of her lines in order to make Dorothy look more tough and better.

Dorothy Michaels was the America’s hottest new actress, so Michael Dorsey seemed like having a trouble getting rid of the whole Dorothy thing. Michael Dorsey grabbed the chance to spill the beans in front of the nationwide audiences, how so? By faking a ridiculous story that he was Emily Kimberly’s twin brother, took off his wig in front of everyone, talk with his deep nasal voice and immediately became Michael Dorsey, a feminine woman to a jerky middle-aged guy within seconds, I laughed so hard at the moment he took off his wig and I have to remind myself to inhale. That part, a moment ago Dustin Hoffman still playing a feminine administrator, and the next second the wig’s off and she turned into a guy, showed how desperately he wanted to get rid of this character, Dorothy. Because he was so madly in love with Julie (Jessica Lange) and doesn’t want to hurt her anymore. In this scene, before the wig’s off, Dustin Hoffman was like playing Dorothy more delicate and sensitive, in order to make a contrast with the masculine Edward Kimberly, that surprised us.

Overall, Tootsie was a film about Dustin Hoffman playing Michael Dorsey playing Dorothy Michaels playing Emily Kimberly but turned out to be Edward Kimberly, and became Michael Dorsey again. I think no one in this universe could play such a role except for Dustin Hoffman. Bravo.

Now, we are leaving Dorothy Michaels, moving on to Raymond Babbitt, the rain man. Raymond Babbitt was an autistic, Charlie Babbitt was played by Tom Cruise as Raymond’s younger brother. I've separated the performance of Dustin Hoffman into two aspects, the autistic savant, and the brother of Charlie Babbitt. At the beginning of the movie, Raymond and Charlie were just strangers, but because Ray knew very well of his father’s car, Charlie felt strange and he was told by Dr. Bruner that Raymond was his brother.

Raymond Babbitt, as an autistic person with photographic memory. Meaning that you can memorize things and never easily forget about them. Like statistics, stories, time schedules. And rituals, routines are the ways he protects himself, anything emergency will freak him out. Raymond had this stern look and a fragile heart.

Here is a fact that Dustin Hoffman had been working a year with autistics men in order to understand the feelings and relationships of them, which made him successfully portrayed autistics, and this movie won him an Oscar too.

When people forced Raymond to do something he’s unwilling to, he would begin to scream hysterically, and hit himself on the head. The airport scene, Raymond’s screaming and hitting did leave a deep impression on me, when I'm watching i thought: wow, that was some kind of madness, was he having a mental problem or what? When Raymond doesn’t want to do something, no one could forced him to do it. Raymond did use a lot of body languages to represent his emotional and thoughts. When he doesn’t want to hear, he closed his ears, he reacted the same either to Charlie or to strangers. Raymond never sees people in their eyes when having a conversation with them. He was always looking somewhere else.

On the other hand, as Charlie’s big brother, Raymond never told Charlie that he was the rain man, he just recalled from single little things, like in the Big 8 Motel, Raymond’s brushing teeth, he remembered Charlie once called him ‘funny teeth, funny rain man’, and when Charlie open the hot water, Raymond became hysterical again, kept yelling ‘hot water’s hurting the baby!’. Charlie finally recognized Raymond was his childhood imaginary friend, Rain Man. Raymond didn’t do that on purpose, he was just showing us how he used to be with his little brother, Charlie in the most natural way. At the moment, audiences would feel the emotional coming out from a brother who loved his little brother so much, but they just couldn’t be with each other, which made people feel sad for them. That scene was really touching, it was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. And the amazing part was, they just took 1 shot on that scene. The right feelings lead to the right moments.

The best way for me to describe the performances of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man was, when you watch Charlie Babbitt, you will see Tom Cruise; but when you watch Raymond Babbitt, you will see Raymond Babbitt, you’ll never see Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman became the character in the movie, which made his movies so mesmerizing.

There were similarities of the acting of Dustin Hoffman in these two movies. Dustin Hoffman was playing a role that utterly different from himself either in Tootsie or in Rain Man. He was neither unemployed nor a woman, and he’s never autistic in reality, but he played it so well, so real, and so touching. And the second thing was, his body movement in each film was so coordinated to each persona. In Tootsie, he moved with the most feminine way; whereas in Rain Man, he moved with those uncoordinated movements, which matches with the persona so perfectly.

The differences between them were the genres, Tootsie was a comedy, Rain Man was a drama. The first time i watch Tootsie i thought it was an amusing comedy, so hilarious and humorous. But the second time i watched it on the TV, i suddenly felt Tootsie wasn’t a comedy anymore, it was a biographical film about the life of an actor named Michael Dorsey. I could feel the message brought out by Dustin Hoffman’s performance, feeling lost, unemployment made him realized how cruel the reality is, at the end he still need to dressed as a woman to finally found a job, in 20 years. In one of the Dustin Hoffman’s interview, he said ‘Tootsie’s never a comedy for me’.

Moreover, Rain Man showed me how the connection of brothers can make a difference, Raymond had changed the whole life perspective of Charlie, he showed Charlie that there’s still something else in this world besides money. To conclude, although Dustin Hoffman is no longer young now, but i believe his following work/movies will still be inspiring. Great actor.

Third Essay: ET 13

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers | Gene Kelly & Debbie Reynolds

Normally musical comedy comes with romances. For romantic scenes in musical, unlike the others, singing and dancing of the characters took place. Through those singing and dancing scenes, we have enjoyed so many breathtaking love stories, and they have became classics. Top Hat and Singin' in the Rain are two of the examples.

First of all, in Top Hat, Isn't This A Lovely Day is a delightful and playful song. Fred Astaire interpreted it amusingly. Before they start dancing, Fred Astaire (as Jerry Travers) told Ginger Rogers (as Dale Tremont) a story about thunders and clouds. It was like Astaire courting Rogers by telling her a cute story with the singing of the song Isn't This a Lovely Day (to be caught in the rain). Astaire led Rogers into the mood of dancing. For me, their dancing scene was like a process of a girl and a boy getting to know each other, their connection getting closer. The dance forms was very interesting, because it was like the combination of tap dancing, jive and waltz. Their dance steps were lively and briskly, and flawlessly performed. The lyrics of the song somehow was like convincing or persuading the girl to accept the boy's love. Astaire did pleases Rogers with his singing, because we can see the way Rogers acted was from disliking him to befriended him. We can also see this through Rogers started mimicking Astaire's dance steps at the beginning of the dance, and the hand-shaking with him at the end of the dance. So the whole dancing represented the communication of two of them. Lovely.

Moving on to the costumes, although both of them were wearing suits, but I have to admit that Rogers' horse riding pants really grasped my attention. I could never forget those cute pants of hers.

I believe these pants were popular at that time. Rogers looked so charming with it.

Compared to Astaire's baggy pants, Rogers' was wearing a narrow-legged pants, i think this contrast made their dance even more hilarious and entertaining. We audience can easily differentiate them in the dance.

Another interesting thing was I noticed their dancing shoes were in black, both of them, and the dance floor was paled. I think in black and white movies, color contrast is a very important issue, the reason they wore black instead of nicely colored shoes was giving the audience a clearer vision of the whole dance scene, like the dance-steps.

In order to show the whole dancing scene, the camera movements was panning, full shots, zoom-in and zoom-out. It doesn't really use many movements. The setting was in the woods, but i believe it actually took place in a wood-setting studio with artificial thunder and rain. To conclude this, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers has performed it in a very cute way, well for me, it was a really cute number.

Secondly, in Singin' in the Rain, the performing of You Were Meant For Me by Gene Kelly (as Don Lockwood) and Debbie Reynolds (as Kathy Selden) was way more romantic. At first, Kelly was praising how beautiful Reynolds was, as the scene goes on, Kelly started singing softly to Reynolds. The music was very soothing and soft, it was like a man whispers to a woman he loved, telling her how she meant for him through the lyrics. Kelly looked at her fondly throughout the whole singing, watching the way Reynolds acted, I believe every woman would have melted before Kelly's gaze.

Once they started dancing, the chemistry between them were amazing. The dance forms was spinning, tap dancing, and waltzing. Kelly/Reynolds dance was more romantic compared to Astaire/Rogers lively dance. They fell deeper for each other as the dance goes on. Through their dancing, I could feel they were really happy to be together, like they were so right for each other.

Unlike Astaire and Rogers both wearing masculine suits, Reynolds was wearing an elegant purple dress, and Kelly was wearing a v-collar sleeveless cardigan outside, and a white shirt inside, with white pants, he looked smart and gorgeous. Besides those nice clothing, the setting was romantic too, it was a purplish sunset. With all those filming tools and instruments, the whole setting seemed a little different from Isn't This a Lovely Day's setting's cleanliness, it seemed a bit messy, in my opinion. But I must say, the atmosphere of this number was better, maybe it was a color movie, made the frames looked better indeed. I love color movies.

Next, the camera movements of this number were more, there was close-ups, high angle shots, low angle shots, full shots, zooming. There was a close-up of Reynolds which was my favorite scene. It was shown above, the way they shot, the way she gazed, it was so wonderful by just looking at her lovely eyes.

Last but not least, the similarities between the two dances was the singing and dancing style. Both songs were sang by the male lead, and both dances contained tap dancing. The major difference between them was the feelings and emotional changes among the characters. The situation of Astaire and Rogers was like in the very beginning of a relationship, the courtship, meaning the girl still doesn't like the boy very much yet, at first; after dancing with each other, the girl changed her attitude towards the boy, she somewhat liked him in the end. In the contrary, Kelly and Reynolds was two lovebirds, they had already fall for each other, the dance was just stronger their relationship. However, no matter how are they alike or different, each number represented different state of relationships, we can watch them and still think of our own experiences, still touched by those marvelous acting and dances.

Second Essay: ET 3

 

Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton

Black bowler hat, curly hair, toothbrush moustache, tight coat with rumpled shirt, baggy trousers, floppy shoes, a bamboo cane……this combination will only lead you to one person—Charlie Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin was one of the greatest comic artist of the silent era, many comedians in modern day worship him, influenced by his acting, or everything; not to mention us, the audiences. I believe Charlie Chaplin’s movies basically raised a lot of people, for generations. So, what was this ‘great and mighty’ man so special about that made him so fascinating? First of all, in his comic persona, he had a lot of facial expressions, i meant A LOT. I think he had an expression for every single emotional changes, with the notable moving eyebrows and rolling eyes. Moreover, he had a funny and significant way to show the audience that he was hearing, by placing his hand beside his ear, very quickly. He did that in his movie—The tramp. And another interesting thing was, in Chaplin’s movie, he never smile, he grinned. Maybe in black and white film, plus in silent mode, you will have to exaggerate everything to make things or expressions clear enough for the audience. Chaplin did it so successfully. Moving on, the way he dressed was epic, as you can see the picture above, how could someone NOT attracted to him? I find those hats he wore was so interesting. He wasn’t always wearing hat in all of his movie, but in most of them. Most of the time he wore bowler hat, or derby hat, sometimes he wore pork pie hat, too, like in the movie The Cure. 

         

Chaplin wearing bowler hat       Chaplin in ‘The Cure’

Next, he actually walked like a clown, funny right? And with those baggy pants, big shoes, he tended to dress like a clown too. In fact, clowns normally perform in circus; comedy is created to gain laughter, and so is circus. Chaplin was performing circus in his comedy, that was why his movies was so captivating. His clown-like walking included hopping, he sometimes hopped and skipped, which made him more effeminate, which made people laughed. He was comedy. One more thing i love the most was his spinning. He spun when he had got high, panicked, or dizzied. That was hilarious! (The link below shows how Chaplin spun when he was drugged accidentally.)

Look the way he spins –clip from ‘Modern Time’

When he was in challenging situation, he would run away most of the time. For instance, in The Cure, the masseur wanted him to get in place to massage, but since Chaplin saw the abusive way of his massaging, he just slipping around the massage table flexibly like a gymnast. I was so impressed by his skills of flexibility, it was like swimming on the massage table! And finally he slipped out of the masseur. Next, Chaplin was like never showed his disappointment to the audience, because he would solved the problem immediately with revenging. Like in The Cure, when Chaplin got bullied by the big fat man, he would kick that fat man’s injured leg on purpose as a revenge, or pull away that fat man’s chair behind his back and made him fell terribly. By the way, when facing the woman he liked, he would take the initiative to introduce himself to the woman. Chaplin was very good at gaining attention, comparing to making fun of people and avenging himself, he would be a true gentleman in front of the woman he liked. A two-faced Chaplin.

Now, I will be moving on to Buster Keaton, another great comedian of all time. The comic persona of Buster Keaton was unique. Unlike Chaplin’s rich facial expression, Keaton was like NO facial expression at all! I mean he would just frown a bit, showed a bit of anger, kept blinking eyes if got confused, that was it.  He was like wearing a mask all the time, he had a simple and honest, straight, dull, and moody face, on screen.  ‘Extremely serious’ was the word to describe him. And that was the fancy thing about him.

deadpan expression and pork pie hat

Keaton wore a pork pie hat in almost every movie of him. Interesting. He even made a film about him, buying hats!

Seriously..

Besides, Keaton was a passive person. For example, in The General, first it was the girl who asked him to enlist, then only he run to the place and craving to be enlisted. When the officer refused to enlist him, he said something made me feel that he was so naive. ‘If you lose this war don’t blame me.’ Wasn’t that funny, the way he dealt with disappointment? It was like a warning, and he meant it, with his serious-looking face. See, deadpan humour could have killed someone.

Another deadpan expression was at the ending part of The General. When Keaton got his lieutenant uniform, that was supposed to be a happy moment, for what he did all the way from saving the girl to informing his soldiers about the attack, but I didn’t notice any smile on his face, it was still an emotionless face, I can only tell his excitement through his trembling hands and body while he was putting on his ‘glorious’ lieutenant uniform. Keaton might not have rich facial expression, but he had powerful, flexible and highly understandable body movements to represent his facial expression.

In conclusion, it maybe sounds like this two characters had no similarities at all, but in fact, they were pretty much alike. They both were short, and slim. They wore baggy pants as well. They both had flexible and skilful movements in their movies. Both of them were having black hair. The main difference between them was the facial expression. Charlie Chaplin was full of facial expression, Buster Keaton wasn’t. Finally, I have to say, Buster Keaton appeals to me more. Because i believe no one does stoic expression better than him. He looked serious, but he made you laughed. That is the core of comedy.

First Essay: ET 2

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

When the film began with showing a wild woods, I kept wondering where the place was. I frowned a lot, I stayed still and calm. There’s a lot of questions in my head, honestly (since i had never heard of this film before), like what was this film all about, what would happen next these sort of questions. After that i saw some soldiers walking around and preparing. I was a little confused. When there was a man showed up, I thought he was just a small character, irrelevant, I was still focussing on the captain, or soldiers. But suddenly one of the soldier place him on the long board, and put a rope around his neck. At that moment, I was frighten, I thought i just shivered in my mind. I still concentrate on the movie, realizing the whole thing was an execution of that man, that poor man. I really felt sorry for him, I was thinking how sad for a person to die so young.

When the soldier tighten the rope on that man’s neck, i assumed that the man was a tough guy, since i didn’t see any facial expression on the man’s face, but when his body and legs were being tied up, obviously the man closed his eyes miserably and showed a crying expression on his face, till then i knew the man was afraid, scared, he wasn’t the tough guy I first thought he was. My mind wandered, was anyone rescuing him? Because most of the movies i watched previously there must be some rescuer appears in this situation. But there wasn’t. The man stood there lonely, waiting for his time. There was a moment the film was showing what the man saw around him before being hanged, the sunrise. That was a lovely sunrise, even it was in black and white, i could still feel the message brought out by it. That man gazed at the sunrise, like this would be the last sunrise in his life, that scene was sad and sorrow. I couldn’t imagine how it feels if I were him earlier, but through this scene, i felt it. He thought of his wife, his two sons, I felt even sadder when I saw his sons, they were too young to lose their father. What that man could have possibly done to deserve this, the separation with his family, the despairing look. This question came into my mind, i felt life was unfair, for the first time in my life, through this movie.

It was the time, the soldier left the board where he was standing to keep it balance, opposite was the man to be hang. The man fell in the river, watching him struggled untying the rope around his legs and arms, i urged to know if he got out of it. But at the same time, i was questioning myself that would it be that easy to survived from an execution. The man finally untied all the ropes and came to the surface of the river, gasping crazily for air. When the film showed the beauty of nature through the man’s eyes, we could tell how the man felt when he knew he was alive, feeling happy and incredible.I know at that moment i was supposed to be thrilled because the man was saved, but I seriously doubted that. Those ropes were too easy to untied, why weren’t those soldiers shooting at him once he stretched his head out of the river, I wondered. But the coming scene answered my question, there was a bunch of soldiers started shooting at him, fortunately, the man escaped.

He reached the river bank, he was so happy that he got a second chance of being alive. He played with the sands, rolling himself over the river bank. I were so anxious for him, I was thinking was he out of his mind? If I were him i wouldn’t do that, I would run as fast as I can away from the soldiers and find a place to hide, immediately, instead of playing. Later he ran and ran and ran, I couldn’t even breath when watching him ran for his life, it was so exciting and joyful and sunny. I felt like more appreciate my life! Life is good. But this joyful moment just lasted about 3 minutes, because after happily hugging his wife and rejoicing for their reunion, all of a sudden the man struggled vigorously, his eyes were wide opened, I almost jumped up from my chair when I saw this. Then he was showed hanging in the middle of the river, cold, dead, and I was TOTALLY shocked! What happened? Don’t tell me that the whole escaping was just an imagination of the man, an illusion of the audience. Yes it was. The great escape was just a delusion of the man before the soldier stepped out of the board in the beginning of the film, and the man finally hanged when he had a vision of reunion with his wife. That was really really sad. I felt like my heart just broken. A man’s life just ended, within a blink of an eye. I sincerely believed he got escaped, I was about ready to accept the happy ending, but in reality, the man just dead. In the meantime, what a AMAZING twist ending. I’m not happy for the man’s death, but it did surprise me. That was exactly what we need in films, surprises. While shocking for the lead’s death, I was more amazed by the talent of the author for writing it, and the making of the film. Epic.

Youtube Vid

This was the first video i ever uploaded to youtube

I didn't make this video, i found it.

Coolest vid ever.. i swear!

Prenatal Development^^