The Player

In our last film class we watched The Player starring Tim Robbins. I really liked this film. It was really cool to me how the celeberties in the film played themselves. It made the story much more real and believable. The movie definately qualified as a film noir genre due to it's wide spread twistedness. I somehow found myself hating every character for one reason or another. First, I hated the writer for sending threatening postcards to the movie executive, then I hated the movie executive for being an ass hole to everyone, then I hated the movie executive's girlfriend for being sickly turned on by evil. However, through all of this hate, I loved the movie.

As far as the cinematography goes, there were tons of techniques that caught my attention. My favorite trait of this movie was the use of sound. There were many scenes in which the sound between many subjects were cluttered with each other. Also, many times the sound shifted from one conversation to another without changing the shot of the camera, like in the Burt Reynolds scene. The sound in the movie did an overall amazing job of making me incredibly uncomfortable, especially in the sex scene. There was an odd and very busy drum beat increasing in volume and clutter which mirrored the twistedness of the derranged lust taking place on the camera. This was one of the many parts of the film that made me giggle a bit, but only in an attempt to relieve myself of the awkward bubble it created around me. Awesome.

The shot at the beginning of the movie was just cool. Nonstop observation of the scene by the camera, even into windows and through bushes really highlighted the hustle and bustle of a studio lot. It made it seem like so much was going on, yet everyone was so caught up in their individual ventures. A few other shots that caught my attention were the murder scene in which the lighting was coated with a reddish tint to capture the evil of the movie executive, and the last shot in which he comes home and the garden is filled with beautiful flowers to juxtapose the disgustingness of the entire situation. These shots act as examples of what my group needs to be going for in our horror film.

Overall I thought the movie was simply entertaining. I have liked the movies we have watched in class more and more as they get more modern. Blow Out and The Player had interesting plots that kept me interested, unlike the oldies that seemed more like a play with a predictable plot. It seems as though twists have become more abundant and necessary to movies as time has gone on. Audiences want more and the more they get, the more unique films must get. In the future, films will have to push new limits and mutate structure to keep the flavor fresh. As I watch the new movie in theatres it feels like some kind of repeating deja vu because I have seen it all before. I think The Player was an innovation of its time, which explains its success. It really toyed with the audience in so many ways. It made fun of them by identiying the cheesiness which audiences so frequently desire, and confused them by meshing fiction with real icons and celeberties. I enjoyed it very much and hope that the movies keep getting better.