Week 11 Reading Questions

While Die Hard is considered the ultimate “whammo” movie, how much of it is actually taken up by “whammos”? What takes up the rest of the movie?

 

Before reading this I believed that Die Hard was all action and no story but I am wrong.  Bordwell shows from his research that only 53 minutes of the movie shows intense physical action.  This leaves 73 minutes for the movie to build a story.  As Bordwell sees it of male bonding, suspense, inventive insult, fumbling cops, fatally arrogant FBI agents, meddling TV reporters, puzzlers about the gang’s aims, parallels between business and crime, the fate of his watch, redemption, and the mending of a battered marriage.  Bordwell states that there are not any explosions or incredible action for the first 17 minutes.  Combat comes at intervals of 2 to 10 minutes.  I am really surprised by this study because I usually just watch the Die Hard movies for the whammos but I guess there is more.

 

What does Bordwell mean by “genre ecology,” and how does he characterize the current range of genres in Hollywood.

 

Bordwell means that many new B-film genres were being made into A-films by ambitious directors.  The genres were developing from being unappreciated to the new way in for young directors.  The A-list directors were making popular period pieces and literature movies like David Lean’s Dr. Zhivago.  Genre movies like crime films (film noirs), space westerns like star wars, action movies, and horror films like the exorcist were becoming popular with young directors like Brian De Palma, Spielberg, and Bordwell argues even Scorsese.

 

What does Bordwell mean by “worldmaking,” and how does it affect the narrative design of individual films?

 

I believe that Bordwell is terming the obsession of a lot of the post-classical directors like George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and Stanley Kubrick.  Their obsession was creating worlds within the movie.  What I mean by that is the directors new obsession with creating sets that were well thought out in every detail.  Bordwell discusses Lucas’ decision to create all the clothes and sets from scratch to add layers to Stars Wars.  He knew that Star Wars had the potential to be great but need to be extremely detailed to create a full world or it would be seen as a B-film.  I believe it was a way for new directors to show their intelligence when it came to making films.  They wanted their films and their careers to be taken very seriously.

 

What specific reasons does Bordwell propose for the rise and fall of contemporary genres?

 

Bordwell believes that the viewers across the entire world became more interested in complex stories.  They wanted movies that were more multi-dimensional and intricate.  This allowed movies with interweaving stories and worldmaking films to flourish.  Bordwell discusses movies such as Lord of the Rings and Pulp Fiction.

 

What do Bordwell and Thompson mean by the claim that some films are “maximally classical”? What films do they have in mind?

 

Bordwell discusses how some films in Hollywood are more classical then they have to be in terms of motifs and structure.  He believes that the Hollywood system has inexhaustible potential.  Motifs in the movie Groundhog Day make keep the viewers attention and help carry the movie.

 

Respond to this quote from a screenwriter in relation to ideas and concepts we have been discussing in this course: “It really is not necessary for everything in the movie to be understandable my every member in the audience. It’s only necessary to make sure that everything in the movie can be understood.”

 

I have no idea what this means but if you asked me outside of class so I wasn’t on the spot I would probably say that it is important for the world of the movie to have enough clues to make hints in the movie make sense to the average viewer.  I think that whatever you get out of the movie the first time is what is supposed to be conveyed and whatever I find later is kind of like gravy for me.  They are the personal touches of directors.  In the classical Hollywood system, it isn’t necessarily important everyone understands the movie but that the majority do and will be able to explain it, making the viewer that didn’t understand want to go back and watch for the clues they missed.