Film-o-mania!!!

Once Upon a Time in the West: Style. Style. Style.

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Kunal Aneja

Year of release: 1968

Director: Sergio Leone

Screenplay: Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone

Cinematography: Tonino Delli Coli

Editing: Nino Baragli

MUSIC : ENNIO MORRICONE

One word that aptly describes the film ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ is STYLE. The film’s pace, cinematography, characters lend a unique taste to the film which only Sergio Leone can prepare and present. The films story/screenplay is hardly the distinctive feature the film stands for, so we will discuss the aspects which set the film apart and lends it that Leonish flavour.

The very first shot of the film: a door creaking and three men entering to a queer soundscape, is a cult opening which is synonymous with the genre of westerns. For eleven long minutes, we stay with these three men who kill time while waiting for something/someone. Leone does it purposely so that we get acquainted with these hit men and the mental connotation of their indomitable character gets embellished in our minds. And like a true storyteller, he plays it against us. He introduces the main character ‘Harmonica’ who in an instant, kills all the three men with cinch. This establishes him almost immediately as a deadly, ruthless man who; in half a minute; killed the hit men we spent eleven minutes with. This way of meddling with audience’s psyche to suck them into the film is one of cinema’s finest techniques.

Another technique, which I believe has been used to its zenith in the film, is positioning of elements withing the frame to convey a meaning and expression by the visual itself. Have a look at some of them:

The three-on-one to establish the challenge Harmonica faces

The five men, led by Frank, against a kid. This image, coupled with Morricone’s music, tells us who the antagonist is almost immediately without saying a word!

This shows Harmonica cornered by Frank’s men and tells us the power equation

This image, of the final showdown, tells us that now Frank and Harmonica are equals

The circle of people, to show joy and celebration

These are the various positionings used to evoke different emotions. The use of geometry is also startling, i.e., using lines and angularity to show negative feelings and the use of circle to show the positive.

The use of close-ups is unprecedented and unparalleled. Much like great filmmakers, Sergio Leone too believes in telling his story in images rather than words. Whenever he wants to focus on a character’s intent or the character’s state of mind, he takes us close to their face where we can easily read whats going on. More importantly, his use of long shots followed by close-ups is a visual style like no other.

This clearly depicts the mood of the scene, what the scene is about and more importantly, who’s it about.

He even builds tension in a scene by cut-away close-ups which basically tells us what other people in a scene feel about what’s going on. For example, in the scene where Chayenne first meets Harmonica, Leone uses these to prepare us:

These characters are basically witnessing a scene unfold, much like us, i.e., the audience. So with this, Leone establishes a road map for our mind as he wants us to feel exactly what these people are feeling when they are in that situation.

The character arcs are worth mentioning, especially Frank’s and Jill’s.

Frank tries to be a businessman like Mr. Morton but ends up realizing that he’s okay with “just a man”, as he puts it. He tries to get all practical and business-like but his crude self gets the best of him and he sets everything aside just to know who exactly Harmonica is, which Mr. Morton would’ve forgotten after fulfilling his purpose.

Jill, who was a whore in New Orleans, gets stronger throughout the narrative. She confronts the two bandits and even challenges one of them to rape her as she’s not scared of “just another filthy memory”. She sleeps with Frank to keep herself awake and at the end, she gets to working with a hundred men to build the ‘Sweetwater’ town. Such a strong female character adds value to the bandit world run by men, rugged men.

The music credit in the beginning is not in caps by chance, its by choice. The background score by the great Ennio Morricone doesn’t only accentuates the mood of the film, its one of the most important character of the film. It leads the visual in a way that every sequence feels complete. Also, the soundscape, i.e., the ambient sounds in every scene, conveys and heightens conflict of the characters and the situations.

The only thing that takes the backseat amidst all this is the story itself. This film is an exemplar of technique over substance. Leone doesn’t focuses much on what is happening in the story but focuses a lot on how the story is moving forward and how things are being conveyed. Nonetheless, it’s a great watch!

If you have any comments or peculiar observations, do tell in the comments section. 🙂

The Grandmaster: Not just a Kung-fu flick!

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Kunal Aneja

Year of release: 2013

Country of origin: Hong Kong

Director: Wong Kar Wai

Cinematographer: Philippe Le Sourd

Screenplay: Wong Kar Wai, Haofeng Xu, Jingzhi Zou

The Grandmaster, a kung-fu biographical drama by the director Wong Kar Wai, is one of the most beautifully composed films of contemporary times. The stunning cinematic techniques employed render the viewer dumbfounded for a 130 minutes straight!

Screenplay Structure

The film opens with Ip Man expressing his views on kung fu to an invisible friend. He says that kung-fu is just two words: horizontal; you make a mistake, you lose; and vertical; you stay standing, you win. The entire film follows this one sentence and sets on an endeavor to prove or disprove this statement. After this, we see a beautiful fight where we are acquainted with Ip Man’s skills but this fight is totally unrelated to the story or the plot that follows. It’s purpose is just to set the tone of the film.

Ip Man; the protagonist; starts narrating his own story from childhood and establishes the significance of martial arts in his life. He belongs to a small town named Foshan in southern China. He says “I’ve lived through dynastic times, the early republic, warlords, Japanese invasion and civil war. What kept me going is the martial arts code of honour.” As his narration progresses, we are drawn into his perfect life with his family and his fellow martial artist who socialize at the most famous brothel of Foshan; Golden Pavillion.

Inciting Incident: Ip man’s perfect life takes a toll when Gong Yutian comes to Golden Pavillion in search of an heir in southern China, someone who could advance his legacy in this region. He plans to do so by challenging a southerner for a match and everyone unanimously chooses Ip Man for the job.

We are introduced to a series of characters in this part of the film. We meet the second most important person in the film: Gond-Er; the daughter of Gong Yutian; who highly disapproves of the match as this Ip doesn’t deserve the honour to fight with the great Gong Yutian. The father condemns her actions and states that his final wish for her is to get married, settle down and stay away from this world. Ma-san; Gong’s successor in the north; who mocks the southerners at their inferiority, is asked to leave Foshan.

The masters in the south make Ip man go through a series of tests to prepare him for the grand fight. At the judgement day, Gong offers him a fight of wits rather than skill which is a very unusual and an interesting turn. The director didn’t over-exploit the tool of fighting which added yet another flavor.

Lock in or Break into two: Ip man outwits Gong Yutian. He is asked by the master to carry forward his legacy, stand with his head held high after a series of storms that will come his way and pass the torch.

Embarrassed at a Gong family’s loss, Gong-Er challenges Ip Man for a match at the Golden Pavillion to get her chance at redemption. Ip man declares that if anything breaks, she wins. After a controlled and yet another stunning fight, Ip man; in an effort to save her from falling; himself falls on the wooden stairs and it breaks. He experiences the Gong family martial art form ’64 hands’ for the first time and is instantly enamored by it.

B-story: Ip man and Gong-Er are drawn towards each other, they fall in love while fighting. Ip man and Gong-Er exchange letters, seeking a moment to meet each other yet again.

Japan invades Foshan! Suddenly everything changes in Ip man’s life for the worse: people from his town started collaborating with the Japs, they took over the Golden Pavillion, there was hardly any food for his family and the worse of them all, he lost his two daughters in the battle.

Midpoint: Ip man refuses to trade his honour for a better life. He agrees to feed his family with the leftovers but vociferously contests the alternative of collaborating with the Japs.

The beauty of the screenplay comes into play here. The director and the writers give our protagonist Ip man a back seat here and switch him with Gong-Er. Both have the three-act structures of there own stories which intertwine to tell a complete tale. However, Gong-Er’s story is a subset of Ip man’s story. For a brief period, a nationalist named Razor is also given screen space though it seems extremely unnecessary. Now let’s go through Gong-Er’s story.

Inciting Incident: Ma-san, Gong Yutian’s successor, surrenders to the Japs and willingly becomes their puppet. Irked by his disciple’s actions, Gong Yutian confronts him and as the disagreement escalates, they enter into a fight which results in Gong-Yutian’s death.

Lock in or Break into two: Gong-Er is left with two choices: 1) Get married and live a peaceful life her father wished for her or 2) Exact revenge and maintain family’s honour. She chooses the self-destructive path of revenge.

Gong-Er challenges Ma-san for a fight right outside Gong-family’s house in the northern territory. He dismisses her request proclaiming that she’s not a true heir, the legacy doesn’t belong to her as she will get married and leave after a while.

Midpoint: Gong-Er takes the warrior vows, i.e, she is not allowed to get married or have children or teach throughout her life. She breaks up with her fiancee and prepares for her final battle with Ma-san.

Just like Ip man’s story, this one too is left at the midpoint. We are then given small peeps into the lives of Ip man and Razor’s life.

Main culmination or Act two climax: Ip Man moves to Hong Kong and decides to teach Kung-fu.

When questioned about the style of Kung-fu he practices, he asserts its simplicity and says that martial arts isn’t for sideshow, it isn’t to impress someone, its something very holy and pure in its essence. The owner of the place says that there are wall to wall kung fu schools which compete regularly with each other, which hints at the commercialization of the art of fighting. Ip man displays his skill by kicking some asses and is accepted as the master.

Ip Man meets Gong-Er and expresses his willingness to learn the 64 hands technique of the Gong family which Gong-Er resolutely refuses; because of her vow, but Ip man doesn’t know this. He tells her that before the Japanese invasion, he was planning to visit her and had bought a warm coat too. But after the invasion, to feed his family, he had to sell the coat. He takes out a button from his jacket and gives it to Gong-Er as a memento of what they had between them.

Razor’s story’s middle act is also shown through a visually beautiful fight he goes through with the authority after the war is over and opens a barber shop in Hong Kong.

We then return to Gong-Er’s story.

Main culmination or Act 2 climax: Gong-Er decides to fight Ma-san on the Chinese new year. After a tough show put up by the two, Gong-Er emerges victorious and wins the family legacy from Ma-san.

Even after getting what she stood for and defeating the great Ma-san, she is not contented with life and she resorts to opium. She stops practicing and lives a solitary life in recluse.

Third Act climax: Gong-Er and Ip man meet at a place in Hong Kong similar to the Golden Pavillion. There she expresses her love for him and sadly accepts that it has to be left at that only. She also somewhere hints towards the fact that she could’ve had a better life had she pursued opera singing or something else. She says with a forlorn expression about the opera of life : “This opera of mine, applauded or not, will go on to the end.” She even goes on to say that she couldn’t see the destination and carry the torch forward, but Ip should.

Resolution: Under intoxication of opium, she imagines herself at the time she was the happiest: in her north eastern Chinese snow clad region practicing the 64 hands technique. After her death, she leaves the ashes of her burnt hair for Ip Man stating that now he might understand her.

Razor’s story too approaches a closure! He too decides to teach his style of kung fu in Hong Kong.

Back to the main story and our main protagonist, we see that Ip Man is in a coat suit;he has finally adapted to the life of Hong Kong; and he gets the citizenship too.

Third act climax: Ip Man had left his wife behind in Foshan and had promised her that his heart will bring him back to her before he left for Hong Kong. But now that the doors are finally closed, he can never go back to Foshan, to his lovely wife.

Resolution: Ip Man’s wife dies without meeting him. He continues to teach with same alacrity and gets extremely famous for his style of kung fu. In the end, he again enunciates the basic principle of kung fu: horizontal and vertical, and we see him standing vertical.

Opinion:

The screenplay is taut at places and loose at some.
The jump from one story to another in the second half is not only a little weird but incoherent too
Razor’s part in the film is not justified. His two fight scenes visually please the audience but it adds no substance to the story
The second half could’ve been tighter

Direction and Cinematography

The opening image of the film is that of a gate. The gate seems malevolent with the lighting and shadows. This gate occurs throughout the film to give a sense of boundaries and separation which is one of the main themes of the film. Characters are thrown out of their natural households due to wars and they struggle to explore their new identity and go back to the previous one. Therefore the use of the dreadful gate with a violent rainfall adds a visual depth to the film.

The opening fight scene is THE THING! Its the most impressive visual fight scene ever conceived and implemented in the world. The de-saturated color, use of macro close-ups and slow motion with the high paced fighting adds such beauty and style to the scene that its unprecedented and unparalleled. Such a visually marvelous start sucks the audience into the film in the very start.

The first part of the film, before Japanese invasion, is the ‘spring period’ in the film. Cinematography employs the use of the colour golden and yellow to denote the ‘golden era’ phase in the film. This part is very vivid and detailed as compared to other segments in the film, denoting richness in the lives of the characters.

Wong Kar Wai’s visual literacy is to die for! His use of frames and music to tell what’s going on in character’s mind or to expound the exact feeling of the scene is phenomenal. The short transitions where there’s just music playing and scenes changing invokes in viewer the precise feeling required to feel the next scene to its maximum capacity, especially before Ma-san and Gong-Er’s showdown. The fight scenes in the film are most uniquely choreographed and staged lending the film a stylized beautiful language of its own. The fight scenes are not ugly or bloody as expected, but a visual buffet to anyone who aspires to create beauty or appreciates it.

Also, the director never over-exploited the tool of a martial arts fight in the movie. It was used only when necessary! He somehow managed to create a perfect blend of drama and martial arts in the film to make us go through the emotional journey of a biographical character. This interplay of genres in one piece could’ve been a lot more profound if the transitions from one story to another had been a little better and the coherence could’ve brought the film together as one single piece, not a concoction of stories.

Philosophically, the director has presented martial arts not as an asset or as a skill, but as something as pious and profound as religion because its a way of life, not just an acquired trait via practice. Gong-Er’s dialogue at the sight of kung fu schools: “Is this street of schools all the martial world has come to be?”, signals towards the commodification of martial arts.

The closing image of the film settles the debate the film starts. Let’s go back to the opening image; a gate’s dreadful shadow in rain. The gate in the film symbolizes the boundaries we have created and in the film, characters get displaced from their habitats. The closing image is of Ip man standing, symbolizing the vertical aspect of kung fu. This transition in itself is so beautiful and dumbfounding that it tells the entire story in just two images. It’s not a story about kung fu fighters or about revenge, its a story about a man who goes through great odds with his kung fu code of honour keeping him going and he finally shines in the end.