CINEMA ELEMENTS : Film Setting

Elements are those aspects of Cinema's visual field which exist independent and prior to camera activity, it contains all attributes related to Film settings, Costumes, Props, Lighting, Acting and Narration style. All these elements existed even when camera was not there. Theater, opera and other stage performance arts had already mastered the impact of all these elements even before the discovery of camera and motion picture. Thus all such elements even though central to cinematography are not exclusive to its domain. Even though pioneered before the advent of camera, such elements reached the zenith of their importance when they reached the audience infused with tight cinematography. for example the unique camera angles and effects that master filmmakers provided to their scenes accentuated them and educated audience about their real importance and impact value. Think of the scene in "The Godfather" where Marlon Brando is sitting in the dark room. Now ponder over importance of all the elements in that scene, the uniqueness which alternate close and distance shots brought to it and you will understand the importance of both the camera work and elements. 
Cinematography and camera work i will focus in second essay on cinema, this essay is devoted to the Cinema Elements.

Film Settings: 
Settings depend upon time period of events, scale and desired effect. Settings are cloths of a scene just like costumes and dresses are for actors. Think of a period film set in Roman age and a science fiction set 50 years in future. You will see a marked difference even in similar scene, that's precisely because of totally different settings all  together necessitated by the such a drastic time difference between happening of both the events. Consider a scene where protagonist is going out with friends to have some fun. In a period film he will most probably ride on his chariot with friends and go for hunting in forests. whereby in any contemporary film protagonist is more likely to go to any bar or restaurant. whereby science fiction will provide bit more independence regarding choosing recreation spot and activity. Now where some difference in scenes would be because of cultural differences between ages of the period of events. Some difference is because of change in technology of time periods. That difference is the necessary difference, whereby rest depends upon creativity of director. 

Rain in Akira Kurosawa cinema

Whether expansive or small budget, large scale or narrow scale, realistic or stylish, film settings are pivotal to film making. they are not just wallpaper or wall paint to the room of events, but part of events themselves. Heavy rains in Akira Kurosawa Films always created a gloomy and heavy setting, which created backdrop for most dramatic scenes of his Cinematic masterpieces.
At the most trivial level, locations always served to reinforce the plausibility of certain type of narrative in most of the stories. A typical crime based narrative will seem totally out of order without its streets, smoke filled bars, neighborhood diners, Whereby a horror film will look out of place without large houses, attics, castles , forests, shadow effect etc. 
That's how particular spaces have become synonym with particular genres, thanks to repetitive use of similar settings and techniques employed by film makers to get the desired effect. 

The Good The Bad The Ugly

Similarly locations are sometimes used to justify particular aspect of character of film rather than just the necessity. For example "The Good The Bad The Ugly", being a crime story was so different in narrative and style. The desert settings were used not only to show a particular region of america only, but also to show tough life of characters in the film and justify their barbarous nature to some extent. So that violence in the film can be justified and protagonist will get some positive light to his character despite being only a thug. Such symbolic use of space is especially vivid in European Cinema, for example in post first world war German expressionist cinema, where even in a vampire film "Nosferatu" conditions of post war German life was shot in detail to reflect the impact of war on Germany. Thus settings have always been employed by filmmakers to accentuate and reinforce the narrative, be it Three colors triology by krzysztof kieslowski or "La Dolce Vita" by Federico Fellini.

Lagaan

“Cricket,” wrote cultural theorist Ashis Nandy, “is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the English.” In his only-partly-whimsical 1989 book, The Tao of Cricket, Nandy develops this insightful if contra-historical sutra into a lengthy analysis of what he sees as the three great public-arena obsessions of contemporary India: cricket, politics, and the Bombay cinema—further arguing that all three adhere, in significant ways, to the same basic grammar of performance. 

Whether or not he ever read Nandy, director Ashutosh Gowariker had the genius to combine all three in one allegorical package, and to sell the idea to Aamir Khan, who then produced and starred in the resulting screenplay. The rest is cinematic history, and also one of the most successful Indian efforts at historical cinema: an epic-length (nearly four hour, yet surprisingly well-paced and gripping) parable in which the indigenization of cricket becomes a metaphor for the entire Indian Independence struggle, as well as for the larger and still-ongoing project of (to quote another book by Nandy) the “loss and recovery of self under colonialism.” It serves as a ideal metaphor for adoption of democratic ideas from british and their so well adoption in India. 

This Resourceful essay is taken from University of Iowa professor  Philip Lutgendorf notes on Indian cinema. Source URL is provided at the bottom of the essay.

LAGAAN

“The Tax,” Hindi, 2001, (225 minutes)

Director: Ashutosh Gowariker

Producer: Aamir Khan

Story: Ashutosh Gowariker;

Screenplay: Ashutosh Gowariker, Kumar Dave, Sanjay Dayma; Dialogues: K. P. Saxena, Ashutosh Gowariker; 

Music: A. R. Rahman; 

Lyrics: Javed Akhtar; 

Production design: Nitin Desai;

Cinematography: Anil Mehta

Rating : 4/5

A prologue intoned by a Godlike narrator (Amitabh Bachchan, naturally), sets the scene in 1893, in “Champaner, a small village in the heart of India.” The location is deliberately vague (never mentioned in the film as well)—though shot in the Kutch region of Gujarat, the film projects a Potpourri of north and central Indian architecture, dress, and dialects, with the obvious intent of establishing an archetypal 19th century indian village. The villagers are depicted groaning under the weight of the exhorbitant lagaan or crop tax, paid to their local Raja but then largely appropriated by the rapacious British, personified in the sadistic and capricious Captain Andrew Russell (Paul Blackthorne), who reigns over both ruler and ruled from a palatial cantonment. Russell is fond of dares and wagers, always with the object of humiliating Indians and forcing them to adopt British habits, as when he challenges the vegetarian Raja Puran Singh of Champaner (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) to eat meat in order to obtain tax relief for his suffering subjects; though the Raja’s heart bleeds for the wretched prajaa, he steadfastly refuses to violate his dharma, and earns the sympathy of Russell’s newly-arrived sister, the lovely Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley). This episode, only a few minutes into the film, typifies its manner of distilling two centuries of colonial encounter into a few broad gestures, necessitating a somewhat free hand with history and politics. So does another early scene in which the hero Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) attempts to save forest animals from the relentless sport shooting of cruel Captain Russell. The representation of the Raja as a benevolent and paternalistic dharma-king elides the fact that most princely rulers were no less exploitative than their colonial overlords, with whom they worked comfortably and closely. Most were meat-eaters as well, and much addicted to hunting, for which many kept their own well-stocked reserves, strictly off-limits to their subjects (and which, in some parts of the country, were later plundered in an orgy of post-Independence animal-slaughter and tree cutting by real-life Bhuvans). The film is not interested in such factual subtleties, however, and in suggesting that feudal landlords were pious nationalists and natural allies of peasants in the battle against a demonized foreign foe, it slips into the jingoistic terrain of popular historiography.

Source Code

After reading the reviews for "Source Code," I was expecting a compelling storyline, great acting, and an "Inception"-like surprise ending. The most I can say about the movie is that it was just okay. The storyline, while repetitive, seemed to work very well. Though not everyone wants to go into a movie and see the same eight minutes repeated over and over and over, but I didn't have a problem with it. The scenes seemed to change just enough to still create a gripping story without spoiling the ending too soon.

Source Code
Language: English,  Country: USA

Release Date: 1 May 2011 

Box Office
Budget: $32,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $14,812,094 (USA), Gross: $53,850,556 (USA) (5 June 2011)
Technical Details
Runtime: 93 min, Sound Mix: DTS  |Dolby Digital
Color: Color, Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

2 years after his previous film, Moon, Duncan Jones' new film, Source Code, hit the theaters. After showing potential through his previous film, Duncan has now proved himself to be on the front of new directors, with the promise of becoming a great 'new-generation' director, possibly even reaching the acclaim that directors like Christopher Nolan and David Fincher have received.

The Fighter (2010)

It's the story of a real-life boxer whose career was revived in the late '90's, Mickey Ward, in a physically hard-hitting but emotionally subtle take by Mark Wahlberg.

The Fighter
Language: English,  Country: USA

Release Date: 17 December 2010 

Box Office
Budget: $25,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend: $300,010 (USA), Gross: $93,571,803 (USA) (27 March 2011)
Technical Details
Runtime: 116 min, Sound Mix: DTS  |Dolby Digital
Color: Color, Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Starring: Mark Wahlberg,         Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, Amy Adams


Rating - 4.5/5
Review
The movie comprises the time before that renaissance, as he strains to choose whether or not to keep his family engaged in his career, chiefly his manager mother, played in another of Melissa Leo's powerfully indomitable, matter-of-fact performances, and his fellow boxer and trainer half-brother Dicky, played by a bizarrely compelling Christian Bale, and his astonishingly intolerant, self-absorbed sisters, whose presence gives Mickey that extra boost of respect from us, as it must've been hell's seventh circle growing up in an isolated household with them.

Introduction to Best of Japanese Cinema - Part 1 (Kurosawa & Mifune)

The Magnum Opus Of Japanese Cinema : Seven Samurai 

Cinema in Japan has lot in common to Indian Cinema. Like India they have big industry producing third highest number of films annually after India and USA. But like India best work is mostly outside that factory type Studios turning out products each year, as a result true Cinema and great directors and actors you can count on fingers. My focus is on artistic beauty so i will cover later Category of heavy weights.

once again like India, Japan also had it's golden age of cinema in 50's. In india it was time of greats directors like
Bimal Roy,  Guru Dutt, Satyajeet ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Chetan Anand and Buddhadeb Dasgupta 
Similarly Japan also had it's most influential Directors working together in 50's
Akira Kurosawa (Greatest)
, Yasujirō Ozu, Kenji Mizoguchi, Ishirō Honda, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Hiroshi Inagaki, Masaki Kobayashi
Since movies are like poetry Which requires efforts at three stages for final accomplishment. these are
having an idea about what to show putting together the ideas into rough narrative  finding the best expressions for narrative. Thus without doubt director is central figure to movie like a poet to poem
but here actors are to movie, what language is to poem and just like best of poets are incomplete without language, it is not possible to have masterpieces with efforts of directors alone. so indeed 50's were also the time of greatest japanese actors

Legendry Toshirō Mifune, Great Takashi Shimura, Other notable additions -  Yoshio Tsuchiya,
Tatsuya Nakadai, ken watanbe (later period)

GUIDE

 This essay i am citing from Philip Lutgendorf. GUIDE is considered as one of the best Hindi film of all times and it's my personal favorite too. Citing this essay, i am also providing the preview to my favorite webpage on Indian cinema.

                        GUIDE (1965), Hindi, color, 170 minutes.
                                    Directed by Vijay Anand. Music by S. D. Burman.
The Anand brothers ambitious adaptation of R. K. Narayan's novel is a lush allegory comprising paradoxically-paired themes of, on the one hand, nation-building, modernization, and social reform, and, on the other, world-renunciation and spiritual self-realization -- all enduring preoccupations of contemporary Indian culture. 

Dev Anand stars as the effervescent Raju, a fast-talking, self-promoting tourist guide in the Rajasthani city of Udaipur, who in time becomes the successful promoter of his dancing-girl mistress, and ultimately (through his accidental transformation into a "mahatma" worshiped by illiterate villagers) of himself -- or rather (in deference to the filmmakers' neo-Vedantic ideology) of the unitary, absolute Self.

Pather Panchali

Although this the latest movie i watched recently, but it left me amazed with it's sheer depth and beauty of narrative. It was as if you sketch verses of Rabindra Nath Tagore over canvas of Premchand's prose and then add the colors from Jean Paul Sartre existentialism. 

Rating - 5/5


Review :


Pather Panchali feels as real as life itself.It is a narrative of life par excellence as the protagonist of movie is no character but rather life itself which i wonder "what cinema, at its best, is capable of achieving".
It's a quiet, simple tale, centering on the life of a small family living in a rural village in Bengal. The father, Harihar (Kanu Bannerjee), is a priest and poet who cares more about his writing and spiritual welfare than obtaining wages he is owed. The mother, Sarbojaya (Karuna Bannerjee), worries that her husband's financial laxity will leave her without enough food for her two children, daughter Durga (Uma Das Gupta) and son Apu (Subir Bannerjee). 

Satyajit Ray

Harihar's family often lives on the edge of poverty, coping with the unkind taunts of their neighbors, the burden of caring for an aging aunt (Chunibala Devi), and the terrible aftermath of a natural catastrophe.