• I’m contending that the Western Genre is at its best when critiquing/subverting/not abiding by  its own genre conventions. Showing the reality and cruelty that is the Western frontier

Joel’s Story

Its opens with 3-4 establishing shots of the area, of the pylons, trees, metal. These will be all images of desolation.

In time with the music my lead character, Joel, hits a nail into some wood that he is attaching against a tree, we see a shot of his hands doing this. For one bar he hits the nail, then for a bar he stops, then in the next bar he hits the nail against the tree. There is dirt on his hands. I cover this by shooting a closeup of his hands and a longish shot from behind of him doing this (so we can’t see his face). We then cut up and see Joel’s face, he is angry and tired, he looks at the tree and the sign it says nothing. The music stops on this cut. There is a pile of sticks nearby, on the sticks he has on it what he owns, there is a backpack, hammers, nails and tin of paint. After picking these things up he walks back to the tree and writes ‘Forever’ on it. He looks at what he wrote and puts his hands on his hips. He walks back to where his stuff is and picks up a pencil and a notebook, he begins to write. He writes this.

To whomever may read this, There is nothing for me in this life anymore, no food, no water, no emotion.

Goodbye,

He then looks up and around his environment he sees barren land, he sees trees. He is thinking about what to sign his note. He then decides.

He signs it as ‘anonymous’.

Brydan’s Story

Brydan is chopping a piece of wood. He looks at his stuff by the tree and navigates the landscape, he decides to sit by the tree. He looks upset and forlorn. Brydan is sitting near a tree, he has a mug of water in his hands and he delivers this directly to camera.

Well, when I wake up I feel like I’ve woken up on a boat, or in a plane but not on solid ground. I take a step out of my bed and I feel like I’m falling, that at any time, in any moment my life could just evaporate into nothingness and I could be erased and I wouldn’t have changed the world, I would just be another person that lived and faded and (cut out on this line) no one really knew them. After this we cut back in and see Brydan drink some tea. He then says to the camera ‘Not a bad cup of tea’.

We hear gunfire in the distance. Brydan is sort of startled he turns and looks to where he has seen the shot. Here was cut on Brydans turn to another angle so we see his face properly. The camera cuts to a point of view shot (which looks up to where Joel was) the camera cuts back and we see Brydans reaction. He is initially sceptical, he stands up and puts his hands in the air and shouts ‘Don’t Shoot’ ‘Whose there’. Eventually he puts them down and begins to run up the hill. Here we cut from a conservative medium close up to a long shot behind Brydan, we see him run up the hill. At the top of the hill he looks at Joel lying face down in the dirt (or slumped against a tree). Its a long shot of Joel, under the sign that says ‘Forever’. We cut back to a sad Brydan (who now understands the importance of forever)

• On Friday I saw Once Upon a Time in the West for the first time-and it was amazing!
• Once upon a time in the West is ironically titled, it isn’t a traditional Western that abides by (and promotes) genre conventions, it is grounded in realism and uses the mythology of the old west against itself. Instead of contending that these myths are something to be celebrated it, the film instead highlights the immorality of the Western. The film accentuates its bad features-lack of fertility (symbolised by draught and lack of women), Violence- Violence punctuates the slow moving scenes, through his pacing Leone shows the life before death, in real time, this pacing really draws the audience into the scene and gives them time to identify with and speculate the characters motives  on the screen, so when Leone kills off this people the pathos of death really hits home-initially we see everyday people, fighting boredom, the next thing we know they are dead.
• Ford is against type, normally Fords Westerns focus on the American Dream, where peaceful families and communities exist and the fighting is to help protect there way of life. In Once Upon a Time it is dog eat dog. There are no connections, alliances are made and broken, even the presence of gunman Cheyenne is an odd one, he really doesn’t have that much invested in the land or the major conflicts, yet he plays such a major role in the film, at times he is a comforter (to Jill McBain) and at other times he comes across as an untrustworthy murderer, what he really is, is just another man fighting for money and survival against the cruel, arid conditions of the wild west. As a character he is really just caught up in the narrative. This lack of connection between character (Harmonica not repaying the love of Jill, Frank betraying essentially everyone, Jills stoicism and lack of warmth, the only family depicted in the film (Brett Mccains) being killed) is what Once Upon a Time is about. It showing the reality behind the myth-in reality the frontier isn’t romantic or moral-it is cruel and unjust.
• Another subversion is having a woman and a strong independent character-who doesn’t really need other character to fight on behalf of her. The reason Jill ends up successful and living is because she doesn’t chase money like the other characters. When selling her property she states ‘Its not about the money’. Once Upon a time is an anti-capitalist tale, where money hungry tyrants die and people like Jill, who don’t get caught up in money, live.
• There are No heroes. On Wikipedia Henry Fonda is the villain and Charles Bronson is his nemesis. Bronson, the avenger, the person the audience is supposed to root for, is not labelled a hero. Every action, every motive, is self-serving (he doesn’t let someone else kill Frank because he wants to do it himself, he strikes Jill McBain, he doesn’t show warmth).
• The railroad being built is a symbol of Industrialisation-as Harmonica leaves the township at the end because he doesn’t belong in that society, he is a cowboy at heart, he understands the frontier is changing.
• Violence punctuates mundanity (the mundanity creates an element of realism, which makes it all the more shocking when violence interrupts it).
• The long shots of the workers are filled with melancholy. It is tragic to see these people killing themselves in order to dig holes in the ground.In the final show they flock to water like animals, like thirsty sheep would a muddy puddle. This is Leone showing the land defeating the people- the citizens are literally floundering in the dirt. All four leads want to control the land, they want to master it, to own it. But in all its monetary worth the land can’t be controlled, its can’t be conquered by man because the frontier is unpredictable, there are too many self-centred, individualistic people who operate at random to serve themselves (an example of this would be Harmonica not killing Frank). Leone is critiquing the capitalist ideas embedded in a traditional Western, he shows the selfishness that ultimately kills everyone (including the ranger at the start, though he was clever, it was also Self-Serving). Jill is the least greedy of all and leads the most meaningful existence. Leone critiques capitalism and individualistic society, he believes that the traditional Western conventions promote these things (tradition, greedy, money, violence), instead of romanticising these things (like in a John Wayne film) he critiques the Western for what it is-immoral.
• Everyone is driven by the appeal of money, land or revenge.
• Modernity will come via train.
• Unflinching Violence, Unforgiving Land.
• Frank is an industrialist.
• Harmonica is destined not to settle, but to die out as the railroad and civilisation encroach on the frontier. As he leaves the era is ending.
• In traditional films heroes tame the wild west, in non-traditional ones they fail.
• Water is significant because it is life giving, it is pure. It is everything the wild west isn’t, yet characters such as Morton (the tycoon) love it, is this because its everything the wild west isn’t? And everyone has a subconscious desire to get out, to leave?
• Brett McBain was killed in limbo while waiting for his money and his wife. Is Leone suggesting that like his story everything else in the wild west is in vain? Reward simply doesn’t come, it is one big melting pot of revenge, death and futility.

Here are some sources I looked at after watching the film.

http://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/onceuponatimeinthewest.asp

https://www.loc.gov/programs/static/national-film-preservation-board/documents/once_time_west.pdf

http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/stable/pdf/41690264.pdf

A reflection on Joseph H Cuphers chapter titled Seductive and Subversive Meta-Narrative in Unforgiven. Published in the Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 60, No. 3/4 (FALL/WINTER 2008), pp. 103-114

• Unforgiven has a self-reflexive narrative designed to demythologise the traditional Western. Firstly, the violence in the film isn’t glorified. The most brutal depiction of violence is of Quick Mike slashing a prostitute in the face with his knife. This is scene is horrific, the viewers hears her screams and sees the knife cut her face. This is Eastwood commenting on the reality of violence. Many of his films in the past romanticise it, when a ‘bad guy’ gets shot a bucketful of red paint spawns from him, in a gory, unrealistic fashion. Unforgiven is Eastwood’s statement on the Western. Eastwood through Unforgiven contends that the audience must appreciate/celebrate the Western for its mythology, but not reality. Because the reality of violence is nothing to celebrate, which is why he begins his most honest film in a very honest, brutal fashion.
• The film criticises similar stories for their disturbing glamorisation of violence. Beauchamp is a significant character because he quite literally fills in the gap between truth and lies. Essentially he is the person who hyperbolises the truth until it becomes fiction. He represents the writers and filmmakers who give enduring, yet false substance to Oral history. For example, In the film Little Bill witnesses English Bob kill a man. Beauchamp’s writing of the event only told part of the truth-most of it was hyperbole or a straight out lie. This is Unforgiven critiquing the Western genre for its inability to tell the truth, it is a genre entirely based on false mythology. This false mythology has been a framework used to rationalise violence. The idea of good conquering bad through violence fulfils the viewer. What the viewer doesn’t know is that they’re tricked, they’re tricked into believing the good is justified in killing the bad. What Unforgiven and (and Sergio Leone) does is blur these boundaries. They don’t justify death in any scenario they contend it is innately cruel and undignified. This what The Schofield Kid learns. At the beginning of the story (like the viewer) he is fascinated and enthralled with the ways of the west, he actively self-mythologises, he wants to turn himself into a legend ‘I’ve killed five men’. After he kills Quick Mike the reality of death hits him, he begins to understand that he took absolutely everything away from that man forever-the significance and permanence of his actions hit him like a train and he begins to weep. This is The Kids redeeming moment, he is ignorant and insensitive at the beginning of the film and is swept off his feet when the reality of death hits him. Instead of coming of age as a superstar cowboy gunslinger (something the traditional western would promote) he instead matures in a more real sense. He has the realisation that guns and violence aren’t really all there cracked up to be. Again, this is Eastwoods statement on the Western and it goes back to the same old contention that the mythology embedded in the Western is best left a myth, it should never be celebrated or brought into reality. In many ways he wants the audience to learn the same thing as The Schofield Kid-that the reality of violence and death is nothing to be celebrated. Unforgiven is a cautionary tale. The idea of the western is good, but the western itself is innately flawed.
• It critiques the pathological connection too Manhood and violence: Quick Mike attacks the woman because she insults the size of his genitals. Corcoran (who was killed by English Bob) is called ‘Two Gun’ because he has a large penis. These two occurrences associate masculinity and violence. In ‘Once upon a time in the West’ we see Henry Fonda’s greater (the most violent man in the film) has sex with Jill McBain. There seems to be an innate link between masculinity and violence that these two revisionist Westerns critique. The men in Unforgiven appear as unintelligent brutes (except Morgan Freemans Ned) whereas the women get revenge on the violent cowboys in a subtle, non-violent method. They also show care and love for each other, that the men in the film do not show. Strawberry Alice (the leader of the prostitutes) is the most articulate character on the film, she has a strong understanding of justice.
• Clint Eastwood, by portraying the old and deeply flawed Will, symbolises the Western within contemporary society-it is old and out of touch. The morals celebrated in traditional westerns are no longer celebrated-Eastwood contends this is a good thing.
• By Fulfilling our expectations at the end of the film, it reinserts itself back into tradition.
• The film teaches the audience, not to believe everything it hears. There is a huge disparity between truth and myth.
• There is racism in Unforgiven and Once Upon a time in the West. English Bob bounty hunts Chinese People and Henry Fonda’s character in ‘Once Upon a Time’ seemed to be hanging a Chinese Man and his Son out of pure cruelty. These revisionist Westerns are showing blatantly and all to significantly the evil within racism (that has plagued the Western genre from its conception).
• Yes Clint Eastwoods Will is an anti-hero. But did he kill women and children as the story suggests? Because truth is the first fatality the audience cannot and should not believe what the characters in the film are saying in regards to Wills past-what they are repeating would be second or third hand information that through time would have become bloated and twisted.
• Many revisionist Westerns believe that true law must replace conflict with guns. However to make this possible, to implement the law-they need guns.
• Unlike a traditional Western (such as High Noon). Will, Ned and the Schofield Kid are the outsiders looking to restore balance. This is subverting the convention of the Sheriff protecting the town from outsiders who are looking to overthrow the balance of thing. In almost all cases the Sheriff doesn’t want change.

• Clint Eastwood told the Las Angelas Times that Unforgiven “summarises everything I feel about the Western”. So What does Clint Eastwood feel about the Western? Here are some notes I made whilst watching Unforgiven.
• Sally, the American Indian character in Unforgiven gave Eastwood, as his character later in the film puts it, ‘the evil eye’. She is only in the film for about 2 minutes and during her screen time she is silent and looks at Eastwood with hatred- with no forgiveness at all. Eastwood’s Will symbolises protagonists in quintessential, old school Westerns (where American Indians were treated as cruel and immoral animals) and Sally looks at him with the evil eye because she knows it. In the film Will is old and past his days of race fuelled violence (just like the genre). However, Will seems to have forgotten those days, he has the ability to put it behind him, whereas Sally and the rest of the Native Americans haven’t-this brings an extra layer of pathos to the film. This meta-ness is what makes revisionist Westerns so interesting, in this scene ‘Unforgiven’ is a genre film apologising for its past. I find it interesting that Sally doesn’t speak, its almost as if she’s a ghost.
• In standard, ‘old school’ American Westerns the female is merely an object in the film, often She is the damsel in distress or merely a sex object. In Unforgiven this is not the case. The first time Men are depicted is in the tavern, they are dirty, unrefined, they behave in quite a physical, animalistic way. The lighting in the tavern is dim, and often the actors have shadows across there faces so the audience only has a limited view of there expression-this is designed to make the audience feel threatened by the characters, to not really trust them. Not being able to see the actors full expressions means that the audience doesn’t have any cues that can lead them to understanding each characters motivations-this ambiguity means that the audience can’t identify (or empathise) with the characters.  Women are depicted differently too men at the beginning of the film. They have an interesting, well balanced discussion in there well-lit bedroom. In this scene the conversation flows naturally and the characters show genuine care for one another. Eastwood covers this scene with nothing but close-ups and medium close-ups that allow the audience to see the pain and tiredness on the lady’s faces. By being able to see the emotion and humanity in the characters faces, the audience feels sympathy for them and in turn empathises with them. Because we see an intimate moment between the ladies (who are in there own private room away from the rest of the tavern) we are positioned to trust them as characters.
• In the ‘Classic’ Western its an un-written rule that violence is the answer, however in a revisionist Western Violence isn’t put on the same pedestal. I found it interesting that the ladies, instead of taking violence into there own hands, put up a secret bounty to allow for others to do the killing. They got there revenge passively-without lifting a finger. This is quite intelligent and is far cry from the classic Western where women are nothing but objects. I also found it interesting that towards the end of the film The Schofield kid began to weep after he killed the man on the toilet seat, this is quite subversive because death is such a common occurrence in many Westerns. Its so common that many characters within them don’t deem it as a heavy, significant thing-its just a common occurrence. So when The Schofield Kid began to weep and empathise with the individual he killed (who would never exist again) I was rather shocked. It was interesting seeing so much emotion come to the surface, everyone else seemed hard and desensitised throughout the whole film yet when the Schofield Kid mourned and began to understand the significance of death it was a reminder to me that (even as an audience member) I shouldn’t be desensitised to death.
• Animals and property are placed at a higher value than women. When Delilah the prostitute gets slashed in the face the culprits give 5 horses to the local Sheriff ‘Little Bill Dagget’. ‘Maybe we aint nothing but whores but by golly where not horses’.
• The weather plays a significant role (the rain that comes in the latter part of the film foreshadows the impending violence). Wind also played a prominent role in the soundtrack-it was designed too unsettle the viewer.
• Will (a symbol of the old Western) can’t jump on a horse anymore. This is either because the Western has changed as a genre to a point where many of the values that were deemed worthwhile are no longer so. And that the old Western and many of the conventions its so values are changing to a point where people set in there old ways (like Eastwood) can’t keep up. Its showing the new triumphing over the old.
• The film had all the usual genre tropes. Steam Trains, Mountains that bring a sense of isolation, lonely individuals, a bounty, long shots mixed with close-ups, scraggly cowboys, violence.

My idea so far is to film two, 90 second long Westerns scenes. The first being a Western in a traditional sense. The second being a revisionist Western, I could argue that revisionist Westerns allow for greater empathy and identification because they have characters that are more realistic and less morally narrow-they are more rounded, more relatable and thought through individuals.

In this I could look at covering my scenes in two seperate ways. The first being un-empathetic, so quicker cuts, more obtrusive soundtrack, less dialogue, broken down communication. The second could be slower, more interesting, more of a verbal exchange, more minimalistic.

I want to look at conventions of the genre and sub-genre and see what influences they have on the viewer-what techniques do what.

So I’ve decided the genre I shall explore with this project brief is the Western, in my current exploration I want to look at empathy within the western genre and write my exegesis based on how it is best evoked. Currently I am looking at articles on academia.com

• Westerns often depict a societal change. The town is often obsolete, a symbol of the past and it is threatened by industry and modernity.
• Unwritten social order as opposed to actual law.
• The heroes of Westerns are similar to how Knights were in old England.
• Simple tales of morality.
• The saloon holds the immorality within the wild west. Sex, alcohol and violence is drawn to the Saloon.
• The landscape/backdrop plays a part. It isolates the characters, it dwarves them and makes them come across as feeling lonely and isolated.
• Often its about a conflict between settles townspeople (civilisation) and an outsider (nature). This idea reminds me of No Country for Old Men where Anton Chigurh is described as an unpredictable force of nature, he flips the coin because like nature he operates by chance. I used to think of this character as a subversive character, an outsider more dangerous than the usual ineffective western villain, this is not the case, he quite literally epitomises the Western Villain.
• Revisionist Westerns: In Revisionist Westerns filmmakers began to depict subvert traditional Western tropes, they questioned the morality of using violence to test ones character and to prove someone as being right. They also began positively depicting Native Americans (as opposed to the traditional Western where they are depicted as villains).
• Allegorical
• Standard Western is often derided by its simplistic morality.
• Shorthand communication (villains where white etc)
• An individual bound by his own private code of honour. In No Country for Old Men Tommy Lee Jones’s character gives away being the sheriff because he can’t keep up with the times, there are simply too many evil doers. The sadness behind his final monologue is that he can’t even begin to abide by his own moral code, the world is too cruel.
• Richard Geres Bob Dylan in I’m Not There takes part in a quintessential Western Story. He is a townsman and has been a farmer in an old town for years, one day he leaves his house to go to town and see that the government is going to build a highway through the town. This is an example of the standard Westerns fear of modernity, of civilisation destroying its towns, its cultures way of life.
• Often in the Western the backdrop is a symbol for the protagonist. The vast, isolated desert reflects the individualistic, lonely protagonist.
• Often long shots begin the film, showing the open space that the protagonist will have to survive in, in order to live.
• Masculinity is often depicted in traditional westerns.
• A mixture of closeups, point of view shots and wide panoramic shots create an uneasy, lonely feel.

My Sources

• http://resources.desmet.org/bergman/a%20ink%20to%20screen/Western.pdf

Critique of the Western Genre in Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man

This week in preparation for my next project brief I explored Berys Gauts article, Empathy and Identification in cinema.

• Gauts suggested there are two kinds of emotions in cinema, artificial emotions (that are reactions to film technique, such as a beautiful shot, fantastic editing) and representational emotions represented at story events or characters (and there situations) that are represented in film. For example at the beginning of Richard Linklater’s new film ‘Everybody wants some’ he starts with a pretty car driving down the street to The Knacks ‘My Sharona’, its beautifully shots and makes me quite excited. Its through film technique that he draws feeling (excitement). However at the end of Sleepless in Seattle where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan finally get together my emotions are drawn more from the characters and there stories than any specific film technique.
• Gauts then talked of story directed emotions-feeling suspense and curiosity towards a story (like a murder mystery) and character directed emotions when the viewer fears for them, admires them etc. Its essentially when the viewer starts seeing the story from a particular characters perspective.
• Theorists maintain that the audiences ability to identify and empathise with character is a key ingredient and a major factor in there emotional engagement with the characters. A minority of theorists believe identification is impossible, that the viewer is always at a distance and what occurs isn’t identification, but absorption, assimilation.
• Affective identification is imagining feeling what the character feels. The audience (irregardless of the characters emotion) imagines feeling that emotion (because we have felt it before) it allows us to identify with that character. Its essentially imagined empathy, we have a conception of the state the protagonists in and we allow this conception to guide our imaginings.
• Empathy is genuine feeling, the feelings are raw and honest. For example a 12 year old me crying at the end of Titanic-I actually feel/weep for the characters.
• Identification is imagining from the outside, whereas empathy is imagining from the inside, both require imagination in order too connect with the characters feelings, it also requires our own preconceptions (and how we perceive the events, hurdles, the character is attempting to overcome).

My Current Idea 

• Juxtaposing (artificial emotions and Identification) with (representational emotions and empathy). I could potentially construct aa quintessential western in one way and through various techniques create artificial emotions and identification and then re-write and film the scene a different way that explores genuine empathy and taps less into film technique and more into character.
• I’d imagine the artificial one would have more shots, bigger soundtrack whereas the representational one with be less filmic, slower paced and the emphasis will be on the character rather than the event.

Thoughts on whether Ripley a feminist icon in the film Aliens? 

• Often in pseudo-feminist films the female protagonist will change her identity, her attributes, in order to succeed. An example of this is in the Garry Marshall film Pretty Woman where Vivian (Julie Roberts) is only treated with respect from Men when she acts ‘ladylike’. She adopts attributes that don’t come naturally to her in order to impress men. In Aliens this isn’t the case, Ellen (Sigourney Weaver) doesn’t alter who she is in order to succeed-she simply succeeds. She is independent, courageous, cool under pressure and resourceful, unlike her male subordinates who are inept and at times cowardly (Burke is an example of this). Ripley’s identity at the end of the film is the same as it was at the start.
• Aliens doesn’t abide by the ‘Final Girl’ horror trope: It is a convention of Horror and Slasher films for the surviving character to be the least sexually promiscuous female. The character is often a virgin. Ripley isn’t innocent, she is very much grounded in reality and doesn’t shy away from sexual activity-the film depicts a blossoming relationship between her and Hicks.
• Ripley saves Newt in order to reconcile her feelings of loss. It was a maternal drive that led to her risking her life several times for Newt; She was making up for lost time because she had slept through her daughters entire life.
• The Alien Queen also has a maternal drive-it fights to protect its eggs.
• Some classmates believe that the film isn’t feminist because Ripley dons male attributes instead of embracing her own female identity. It was as if the writers (I think this is actually true) wrote a male character and simply casted a female in the role. It may have been a stronger feminist text if Ripley had displayed more traditional feminine traits, instead of only succeeding because she behaved like a man.
• A similar thing can be said about Vasquez (Jeanette Goldstein). She was the best fighter and the second most competent person on the mission second to Ripley yet she displayed quintessentially male attributes-she even had the build of a male.
• However, it can be said that the males in the film certainly learnt from Ripley. Before the attack they dismissed her, they believed what she was saying was a load of hyperbole. They quickly realised this wasn’t the case and began depending on her for their survival. This is a subversion of traditional Hollywood gender roles.

Julian Hanich outlines in his book ‘In cinematic emotion in horror films and thrillers’ the idea that Horror Film, unlike other genres, can connect you to the rest of the audience due to the communal physiological responses the genre derives (from the audience). Though shock and fear is subjective (no one comes to a film as a blank slate, we all have expectations and opinions based on publicity and the films genre) it is often the same moment in horror films that draw specific physiological reactions from the viewer (such as an accelerated heart beat and jumping). This reminds of old footage of 1950’s teenagers watching B Grade science fiction films-they are scream, jump and laugh simultaneously-making the passive viewing of the film more of a communal event. When George Melies first screened footage of a train to an audience, some people left the theatre in fear of being ran over by a train-it seems as though fear, which Hanich believes to be mans strongest, most primal emotion creates a sense of connection within the audience.

Hanich fails to recognise other genres that do the same thing. The first that comes to mind is comedy, often comedy creates a sense of connection through an audience, films are made for the viewers to be continually laughing together. One screening that comes to mind is of Hail Caesar, a recent Coen brothers film, throughout that screening people were laughing at the gags that were meant to be laughed, so when something funny occurred in the film the whole cinema broke out into laughter and then stopped-this created a sense of community. In a very superficial way (and for a very brief time) the film united a group of strangers. Horror (unlike comedy) you can build an immunity too. Horror buffs are less likely to be scared at a viewing of Scream  than I would, simply because I don’t watch much horror. This isn’t the case with comedy, it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen a comedy film, if something is funny you will laugh.

Notes on Berberian Sound Studio

• The film sets up many horror conventions such as: contrasting silence with loud, gruesome noises, violence (stabbing cabbages, when I was viewing the film I believed it to be a foreshadowing of what was to come), morally ambiguous characters (the Italian film producers certainly didn’t seem like nice people, they were presented as the type of people who had a mystery behind them). Anyway, the film sets up all of these conventions but none of them are actualised- no one dies and no one is tortured. It was horror in a sense of what the film was trying to achieve, it was trying to unsettle the audience, build up a sense of anticipation- there were certainly allusions to death, but none of these eventuated which is why the film is so interesting (and also why it made a loss at the box office).

Barry Keith Grant in his introduction to ‘In the Hollywood Film Musical’ states that actors in the film musical continually break an implied 4th wall. In other words it is evident in a film musical that the actor portraying the onscreen character is performing for an audience beyond a diegetic one. A quintessential example of this is in Tom Hoopers Les Miserables where Anne Hathaway sings I Dreamed a Dream (as a soliloquy) directly to the audience, it is obvious that Anne Hathaway is very much conscious of the broader audience and knows excactly who she is singing too. This breaking of the fourth is linked back to Brecht’s alienation effect, it reminds the audience they are engaging with a piece of fiction. One Night the Moon contrasts its realism with this convention of musical theatre. When a song isn’t being sung directly to camera the characters and the story is grounded in realism-Jim and Rose react to the death of there daughter in a grounded, raw and depressingly honest fashion. This realism comes across as being more profound when contrasted with the songs. The songs serve the purpose of taking the audience out of the story and making them focus on themes and issues such as: land and belonging, Isolation, racial discrimination…..

Notes I made on the film.

• I found it interesting how in one particular song the white man sings ‘the land is mine’ whereas the Indigenous Man sings ‘I am the land’. It shows the two different relationships too the land, Paul Kelly’s Jim wants to posses some of it, own it, box it in and map it out whereas Kelton Pells Albert Yang understands how the land works and that it is something far more dangerous and far more complexed than anything that can be mapped. The contrasting lines in the song demonstrates Jim’s superficial relationship with the land and the spiritual connection of Alberts (relationship with the land).
•  The significance of place: Grant in his writings said that musicals take place beyond reality, in a space charmed by the magic of performance, he then quoted the wizard of oz by saying all musicals are ‘not in Kansas anymore’. Grant was outlining the idea that a musical space transcends reality and once the audience accepts this different reality-things far out of the ordinary, like spontaneous singing and dancing, even actors performing with there own physical limitations (e.g Pierce Brosnan who couldn’t sing in Mamma Mia) become understood and welcomed. Its as if the genres conventions allow for a space of spontaneity, risk and failure-that other genres don’t have.
• Emotion: The music can position the audience to like/not like a certain character and/or feel a specific thing for a certain character such as like pity or pride.
• Plot: A musical can inform the viewer quickly, it can save the film time. For example in Hairspray Edna changes from a recluse too a lady about town in the matter of one song. It is the use of song that facilitates this massive change without the audience questioning it. This is an example of the way a musical can easily speed up character development in a way few other genres can. ‘Song’ can also spoon feed the audience about certain characters emotions, ploys, plots and thoughts. In Les Miserables ‘Stars’ essentially hand feeds the audience Javerts opinions on laws, human rights and justice, which makes the song such an interesting character study. It’s his one chance in the film to communicate his thoughts and (potentially) redeem his actions.