Show scenes both in its own lens and in the lens of the true camera, Living in Oblivion uses color to reveal its unreality. In the first third of the film, the production scenes are black and white, while the filmed ones are in color. In the second third, it’s flipped, with the film being black and white while production is in color. As both of these are dream sequences, the lack of full color, compared to the final third (which is in full color, from production to filming), makes them feel less real than the final one, where even the short dream sequences are in color, as the film does not end with us stepping out of reality once again. It’s also a bit ironic that both the production sequences and the filming ones are filmed in color during the final third, as the scene being filmed is a dream sequence.
The acting was more than well done, as the film showed numerous sides of its actors. In particular we saw the real actress Catherine Keener playing fake actress Nicole playing the character of Ellen. During most of the first scene, we have her performing normally: good, but not great. In between filming, however, a flashback triggers Nicole to up her performance of Ellen, which Catherine Keener nails flawlessly. Also for a bit of trivia, not only was this Peter Dinklage’s debut role, he’s gone on record stating that he never wanted to stoop to playing an elf or leprechaun character, though he is himself a dwarf, so watching him lampoon the idea of a character whose only defining trait is that they are small through his own role here was satisfying.
While some of the camera work was deliberately repetitive, it work in the film’s favor. We get repeat performances of the same scenes being filmed, something almost always going wrong. This repetition is frustrating, but it’s being felt by both the audience and the characters in the film alike.
The screenwriting conveys the theme of violence. The screenwriting shows how people are affected by war and the violence that war causes. The protagonist is disturbed by war. Also, the main protagonist is mentally scarred by violence. The whole movie is about how violence affects people. The lasting effects of war on people is shown through the main character and the people he interviews.
The cinematography conveys the violence theme as well. For example, the last sequence of the movie. The medium shots of the women in the refugee camp and then the close up shot of the main protagonist. The close up shot of the main protagonist cuts to the actual documentary footage of the women in the refugee camp. There’s a switch from the animation to the real documentary footage of the refugee camp. In the real documentary footage of the war there’s a medium shot of a woman crying, close up shots of dead men, women and children. The cinematography shows how war kills innocent people and how war damages the people who were left behind. The last shots of the real documentary footage ties the whole movie together.
The sound conveys the theme of violence. The sound in Waltz with Bashir shows how people are affected by war. For example, in the last sequence of the movie, when the women are walking back into the refugee camp. After the narrator stops talking, all I can hear is the women crying and screaming. The women are mourning the deaths of their loved ones. From the sound of the women crying and screaming, the sound cuts to the real documentary footage of a war. The sound doesn’t change. I continue to hear women crying and screaming. I continue to see women mourning the deaths of their loved ones. Then after these scenes of deceased men, women and children. There isn’t any sound, there is only complete silence. The scene fades to black and the movie is over. The sound of the last sequence shows how wars negatively affect people. I could hear the pain in all of the women’s voices. Even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I don’t have to understand their words in order to know that these women and many others are deeply hurt.
Living in Oblivion creatively showed the behind the scenes of movie making, within making a movie. This funny behind the scene film gives us a look at the hard work that goes into film making, for this movie in particular it shows the movie making with a small budget and terrible help. The screenwriting of the play shows the tedious and difficult work that producers, actors, directors and cinematographers all go through to create films. With the repetitive shots and scenes, we see just how annoying or exhausting it can be when trying to perfect a certain scene or shot.
I found the decision to have the “filmed scenes” in color and the rest of the movie in black and white very interesting. This decision did make the movie flow more coherently and created different moods as well. It showed the sudden change in actors mood or “acting” when switching from off camera to when the camera was rolling. We are able to see the characters off screen and the difference from how they act when shooting the film. We see things that may influence the characters acting, enhance it or sometimes make it worse, causing to team to reshoot the scene over and over.
I also like the acting in the movie, and I think the characters did a good job at showing differences in their behavior and attitude. Depending on whether the character was acting or off screen the actors did very well at showing the separation of the two. The characters would play their role on screen effectively and would step away from their camera and go back to their normal life and problems. Another part of the acting that I liked was the team such as the director, cinematography and sound people who helped create the feel of a behind the scenes look. These actors showed frustration when things went wrong, confusion when things were unclear, and happiness when a scene was successfully shot. All of these things made the film more believable as to how accurate it was to real film-making.
Waltz With Bashir was a really interesting animation film. I’ve never seen a film that has so much emotional turmoil and depth but is also animated. The style of the animation with regards to all the low-key lighting and very colorful imagery really helped present us with the mise-en-scene of the film. The choices with surreal imagery like when our protagonist dreams of himself riding along the water on the giant naked woman really help reinforce the theme of war and isolation on his part. I also noticed a lot of imagery involving water and the ocean which could signify life and death or just simply give his dreams more relativity.
I also really enjoyed the editing in the film. It helped us follow everything easily. All the flashbacks in the film could’ve been a little disorienting had they not done it the way they did with steady continuity and character dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, the characters are all very emotionally flat. This is probably due to the fact that they have been through war and seen things no one should ever have to.
I like that they chose to make this film an animated documentary. Had it been just a normal documentary I don’t feel as though the director would have had such a vast medium to play around with and express things as freely. I really enjoyed this film, as heart-wrenching as it was.
Decided to cop and paste my essay’s blurb on Waltz With Bashir here.
The third war film that we will be looking at is the 2008 Israeli animated-documentary Waltz With Bashir. The setting of the film is contemporary times, but the bulk of the scenes are set during the first Lebanon War of the early 1980’s. The main character, Ari Folman himself, is trying to uncover the reason for his amnesia during the Sabra and Shatila Massacres. He knows he was there, he can recall seeing other people there, but as to what he was doing he has no clue. The film that follows is a strange blend of witness accounts, dream sequences and animation as we dive deeper into the memories each former soldier has of the war. If Casablanca had a black-and-white view of War morality and Hero had a white-and-grey view, then Waltz with Bashir has a grey and grey view of warfare. It is a definite anti-war piece, showing the confusion and trauma that is rarely scene with any accuracy on film. With the exception of Frenkel and reporter Ron Ben-Yishai none of the characters really know what they’re doing in the war. Ronny Dayag recounts how his tank crew started out excited and eager to fight, only to have their tank blown out from under them and the surviving crewmen gunned down. Ronny describes the survivor’s guilt he felt, as he had managed to escape by swimming along the coastline until he reached allied lines. At the start of the film, we are shown a beautifully animated sequence of roughly 26 dogs tearing through a city in search of Boaz Rein-Buskila, a former IDF soldier who, during the war, was ordered to shoot those very same dogs during a raid on a Palestinian village. He had previously told his superiors that he couldn’t shoot a human being, and was told to shoot the dogs instead. Now those same dogs haunt his nightmares. In my opinion, there is no other way for this film to have been made but with animation. While at times the figures onscreen dip ever-so-slightly into the uncanny valley, the use of animation gives Folman a type of freedom that regular film-making could not. The film takes a fairly negative view on Israel’s involvement in the war, with most commanding officers being either incompetent, apathetic or some combination of the two. Folman himself, while not directly involved with the massacres, did indirectly aid the Christian Phalangists commit the slaughters by firing flares from a mortar into the night sky. The light from these flares helped the massacre occur, and the largely apathetic, anemic response by the IDF only helped the Phalangists commit their gruesome butchery. At the end of the film, as we re-witness Folman’s dream where he watches the surviving Palestinians file past him, we transition abruptly from animation to actual footage taken in the aftermath of the raids. Even the animation in the preceding sequence differs from the other times that Folman recounted his dream. At the start the Palestinian women were largely black-and-white cutouts, like something out of the animated biography Persepolis. By the end of the film, however, they are much more vividly animated, wailing, crying and wandering all over the place as they search for their loved ones. In another scene Frenkel recounts how a patrol he was on ended with a child soldier being shot. The sequence makes heavy use of ballroom music to create an almost surreal visage that only ends once Frenkel has finished his story. The film Waltz with Bashir is considered by some to be the Israeli Apocalypse Now, and for good reason. The animation, use of surreal dream sequences and the lack of an actual enemy on screen drive home the sheer brutality of war, and how for every Audie Murphey there’s at least five scared-shitless little kids.
“Living in Oblivion” is one of the unique movies we have seen this semester. Not one of the best, but not one of the worst either. Maybe one of the worst, either way, strange movie.
It’s mise-en-scene is quite unique. During the first part of the movie, it is in black & white, except for the scene that was being shot in the movie that the characters were filming. Every time the camera started rolling, we take the view of the camera and see it in color.
The editing is quite interesting too. One piece of the editing is when Nick is getting a bit annoyed. We can tell this through how the camera starts to zoom in on his face during certain shots, until he snaps.
The sound is a third aspect of it. It is filled with just normal noises, and not much of music.
The film “Living in Oblivion” is a interesting film, because I never thought about what goes behind the camera. The work that actors and directors have to deal with when creating a film. I thought the acting in this film was very conveying it. It was almost as if I was watching a documentary than a film. The way Steve Buscemi preformed as a director was really interesting as he has directed many TV shows made him a perfect actor for this film. Even though he hasn’t directed anything when this film was filmed, he’s acting made it seem he had experience. The sound in the film was also interesting as we hear many random street noises during the part of the film we watched. It felt natural and smooth during the scene as it was unexpected and caught me off guard. It really bring the tension as their is this sad atmosphere in the air then suddenly a siren comes our of no were and everything than becomes loud. Lastly the use of color was interesting as we see black and white except when we see the camera point-of-view as if the the director is telling us that the movie that is being film is more real than the act of filming a movie.
Waltz with Bashir was actually the first animated documentary film that I’ve ever watched because most of the documentaries that I know are live action. What caught my attention was the cinematography. Even though it’s an animated documentary, it shows a close up shot of Ari Folman’s face back when he was in the war. It was to show that he had been scarred by the massacre during the Lebanon War. In the present, there is a close up of Folman’s face just to show he was trying to remember what happened during the war.
The mise-en-scene was another important aspect of the film. Throughout the movie, it shows different parts of the war. For instance, it shows Folman and his friends bathing at the beach when he suddenly saw the flares descending over the city of Beirut. This indicates the war was still going on at that time.
What I liked the most is the screenwriting. I like how it tells the story of a man who doesn’t remember anything that happened during the Lebanon war. So, he asks some friends and other soldiers just to remember what exactly happened and where were they during the war. Additionally, some of the soldiers even told him from their point of view where they were during the time of the massacre. As a result, Folman slowly begins to regain some of his memories back after his friends told him what happened. He also starts to remember about the time when he was among the soldiers firing flares into the sky to illuminate the refugee camp.
Waltz with Bashir was one of the better movies I’ve seen this semester. The animation was unlike any I had ever seen before, with almost a different fluidity than usual. Doing the documentary as anything but an animation would take away from the crazy imagery in the dream/trance sequences. For instance, when he is laying on top of the woman in the ocean and he watches the ship explode. Another thing I think they did well is the portrayal of soldiers deployed. The song about Lebanon very much made me think of my own brother who is deployed overseas, because while conditions are not the best in Afghanistan, they always try to make the best of it. The use of color in Waltz with Bashir is also very impactful, where the dream scenes were heavy in blues and yellows to get a certain effect across. without the use of animation the ability to change the lighting to something so surreal would be not only harder but unrealistic.
Living in Oblivion is an unusual, funny, and interesting movie. example of the movie-about-movies genre, focusing on the low budget, independent movie making scene.
The lead performances by Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener are first-rate, and the supporting cast is excellent as well. Steve Buscemi is right at home in this film, his influence rubs off on the support actors, and his stress is convincing. The film veers from satire to realism to surrealism in depicting the problems and tensions involved in an Hollywood filmmaking. One problem with its structure, though, is the repeated “dream trick.” Its first use creates shock and interest, but its second use creates a serious distraction in the third act since the viewer keeps wondering whose dream he or she may be in this time.
The screenplay timing is superb and taunts the audience to an almost stressful level.
Firstly, I have never seen the movie, Waltz with Bashir before. This was my first time watching this movie. I thought the movie was a little bit confusing at the starting, later it started to make sense a little. I thought the movie overall was good.
One of things that I liked about the movie was cinematography. For example, toward the end of the movie, in the scene where the women are walking down the street and crying by looking at the state of the streets and the people (in animation). Then, the movie switches from animation to real women actually crying. I thought this is good example of cinematography because at that point, the movie told the audience this event actually took place in reality. This scene was giving the true feelings of what people actually felt and making the audience face the reality that it was not just a animation movie. The shift from animation to reality, gave the final touch of success to this documentary animation film.
Another thing that I liked from the movie was acting. For example, in the starting of the movie, in scene where Ari Folman meets his friend and they talk about the memories of Lebanon War. To Ari Folman’s surprise, he does not remember any of those memories and he wishes to confirm whether those memories were real or not. I thought Ari Folman’s acting was great. Even though, it was an animation documentary, Ari Folman’s expressions of surprise, shock, of uncertainty, etc. were portrayed as well as clearly been shown in that scene. I thought with able to show expressions and facial appearance changing, it gave the animation documentary more of a realism look, even though, humans were portrayed as animated figures.
Lastly, I liked the sound used in the movie. For example, in the beginning of the movie, in the scene where the dogs are running out in the street. With outlines of human figures on the the street being crushed by the dogs running over them. The pounding sound of the dogs’s feet as they were running is something that represented or foreshadowed that something really bad is going to happen. As the dogs’ run over human figures, it foreshadowed that the documentary is about something related to violence, fight, war, deaths of people, etc. It also gave us the hint that it is going to be something painful, sad, hurtful, and not really happy to go type of story.
Living in Oblivion is a great movie but it had been some time since the first time I saw it. It was funny that Professor played that clip because it is one of my favorites.
The meta film starts in black and white and switches to color only when they were filming the people on set. I think the reason it was done this way was to show that this is a movie inside a movie (meta). I liked the acting in this scene and the director was my favorite. He started off all calm cool and collected but after many failed attempts to get the shot they need he loses his mind. Starts trashing the set. I liked this scene because it was one of those moments of heightened tension between the actors, the director, and the camera men.
Its at this time you figure out that this film is a low budget film with little to know money involved, and everything that can go wrong for this movie will go wrong.
I enjoyed the acting the most because I thought that in particular Steve Buscemi is brilliant. He plays the role of a quirky director that might lose it at any time, and he succesfully does lose it numerous times.
I thought Waltz with Bashir was an interesting film. I thought the idea of a documentary filmed as an animation was brilliant. I liked how in the beginning it started off with the dogs running which made us as the audience wonder what was going on. As we find out it was a dream we end up discovering why the main character has dreams about the dogs as he had killed dogs while at war. I liked the colors in the film, i think the colors in the film changed the mood of each scene. Towards the ending we end up seeing real life footage of women and men walking through the city as they see a lot of dead citizens and the women begin to cry. I think the director chose to do this because at first we were getting just the documentary which was in colors and the to end it we got real life footage as to show the true disaster and tragedy.
90 % (9 out of 10)
Wrong Answer is highlighted in Red.
Correct Answer is highlighted in green.
1. In the shooting stage, a film strip is exposed to light, allowing radiant energy to burn a negative image onto each frame.
Topic: n/a
a. True
b. False
Feedback/Reference: This statement describes the shooting stage, which relies on photographic technology (p. 486).
3. What are the picture elements that make up a video image called?
Topic: n/a
a. data
b. bits
c. pixels
d. binaries
Feedback/Reference: The video image is composed of pixels—the tiny dots that make up the image on a video screen (p. 489).
4. The digital image is just a series of numbers reconstructed into an image that has no physical relationship to the original.
Topic: n/a
a. True
b. False
Feedback/Reference: This is a defining characteristic of the digital image (p. 489)
5. What is the film-stock speed?
Topic: n/a
a. the degree to which the film-stock is light sensitive
b. the number of feet or the number of reels used in a film
c. the rate at which a film is projected that creates the illusion of movement
d. the length of time the film-stock is exposed to light
Feedback/Reference: This is the basic definition of film-stock speed (p. 488).
6. Which aspect of the movies has become virtually 100 percent digital?
Topic: n/a
a. shooting
b. projecting
c. editing
d. distributing
Feedback/Reference: Although other areas of film production, exhibition, and distribution have shifted towards digital, only editing comes close to being 100 percent digital as most all filmmakers are convinced of the efficiency and flexibility of digital editing (p. 490).
8. During the Golden Age of Hollywood the five major studios were
Topic: n/a
a. horizontally integrated.
b. vertically integrated.
c. independent.
d. foreign-owned.
Feedback/Reference: This is a significant characteristic of the major studios in this period (p. 498).
10. The independent system of production during the 1930s and 1940s was called the ___________ and was run by a producer who ______________.
Topic: n/a
a. producer-unit system; owned a minor studio
b. producer-unit system; worked for a “B” studio
c. package-unit system; worked for a major studio
d. package-unit system; was unaffiliated with a studio
Feedback/Reference: See p. 501.
11. In today’s independent system producers can create responsibilities for themselves that match their strengths and experiences.
Topic: n/a
a. True
b. False
Feedback/Reference: See p. 502.
12. The costs of the preproduction stage, the producer, director, cast, and screenwriter are called ___________costs, while the costs of production, postproduction, and the crew are called ____________ costs.
Topic: n/a
a. producing; production
b. production; producing
c. above-the-line; below-the-line
d. below-the-line; above-the-line
Feedback/Reference: See p. 507.
13. The Motion Picture Association of America administers
Topic: n/a
a. questionnaires to focus groups.
b. promotional and marketing materials to theater owners.
c. a voluntary movie-rating system.
d. a mandatory movie-rating system.
The movie Walt and Bashir is about a man that went to movie and forgot what he did in the war. He goes to a psychologist to have him remember what he did in the war. He talks to the psychologist the event that happen during the war. He also talks about that he shot and kill a little boy who was trying to kill his friends during the war. He also witnessed the sabra and Shatila massacre while he was in the war. This movie had lots of good scene some of it was emotionally that the director shows due out the movie. Some scene was good and others was not so good. The movie was great I like have the director shows lots of good scene in this movie.
Quiz name: Looking at Movies, 4e
Chapter Number: 11
Student’s name: sebastian faaeteete
Student’s email: faaeteetesebastian@gmail.com
Number of questions: 10
Percent correct: 100%
Question: In today’s independent system producers can create responsibilities for themselves that match their strengths and experiences.
Student answered: a) True
Correct answer is: a) True
Question: The independent system of production during the 1930s and 1940s was called the ___________ and was run by a producer who ______________.
Student answered: d) package-unit system; was unaffiliated with a studio
Correct answer is: d) package-unit system; was unaffiliated with a studio
Question: In order to provide the illusion of movement, at what speed (frames per second) is a sound film usually projected?
Student answered: b) 24 fps
Correct answer is: b) 24 fps
Question: The costs of the preproduction stage, the producer, director, cast, and screenwriter are called ___________costs, while the costs of production, postproduction, and the crew are called ____________ costs.
Student answered: d) below-the-line; above-the-line
Correct answer is: d) below-the-line; above-the-line
Question: Which aspect of the movies has become virtually 100 percent digital?
Student answered: c) editing
Correct answer is: c) editing
Question: Which of the following is one of the factors that led to the decline of the studio system?
Student answered: c) The reorganization of management into the producer-unit system paved the way for independent producers.
Correct answer is: c) The reorganization of management into the producer-unit system paved the way for independent producers.
Question: What is the film-stock speed?
Student answered: a) the degree to which the film-stock is light sensitive
Correct answer is: a) the degree to which the film-stock is light sensitive
Question: During the Golden Age of Hollywood the five major studios were
Student answered: b) vertically integrated.
Correct answer is: b) vertically integrated.
Question: What are the picture elements that make up a video image called?
Student answered: c) pixels
Correct answer is: c) pixels
Question: The digital image is just a series of numbers reconstructed into an image that has no physical relationship to the original.
Student answered: a) True
Correct answer is: a) True
Living in Oblivion was especially interesting to me because it was a film about making a film. I thought the movie was extremely funny and gave a good example of what the set of filming a movie is like. The acting in Living in Oblivion was great. Since some of the scenes were dreams about filming, each scene was hilarious. The director of the film in the movie played his role really well especially when he freaked out in his own dream. This shows how hard it is and frustrating filming a film can be when things don’t go right. His freak out moment was perfect for the scene.
Another aspect of the film that was really great was the sound/music. For example, in the beginning when 2 of the film workers were outside eating, and discussing wether the milk was bad, there was a lot of background street noise that enhanced the overall scene. It gave a setting of where the low budget film was being filmed and went well with the conversation that was going on.
Lastly, the cinematography was great too. For example, in Nick’s dream when they are filming the scene between the mother and daughter, the shots are not only close up in the film being filmed, but also in the actual film of Living in Oblivion. This puts intensity on the scene being filmed, especially because something always goes wrong at this part!
Waltz with Bashir
Quite a different form of animation than I have been used to seeing and understanding toward animation is. Despite the intense shown violence I grew fond of this movie, mainly because it was the first documentary I’ve ever seen done in animation and secondly because of the use of animation visuals and actions aren’t limited to reality. Here the film is able to convey the characters memories, dreams and hallucinations in a surreal way where the bounds are endless toward the imagination of what could be done in the film.
On that note we can see through the mise-en-scene how the mood is greatly changed in each situation by the change in color. I found that touch to be very cleverly done and did not take any attention off of what was going on in the picture. Such examples include the water scene where the lighting is all blue, a moment when Folman is dancing where the lighting turns red and another is when we see soldiers walking out from the water the lighting is yellow. Each color helped covey the meaning behind each scene and help emphasis on the characters moods.
In regards to that the acting through the entire film was well done and perfectly conveyed in emotions even being an animation. For this reason I found it more amusing how well the characters brought themselves to live and not be but simple animated characters. Another key point in addition is the camera. There is scenes in which the camera is shaky or moving in a way that seems as though it is an actual camera within the scenes. A well point to have added to the documentary as it only strengthened the creativity to the making of the entire film.
As a final point the music was perfect. By way of example we can see the scene where Folman is holding the gun and shooting as he is almost as if performing a waltz right in the middle of the battleground. The camera is focused on him as he gracefully moves around with low piano music playing in the background. Then as the beat picks up in pace and we begin to see more and more fires being shot the music turns toward a very chaotic song to accompany the now very chaotic battle. The song was very uplifting and emphasized the empowering mood that was depicted in the characters. Such a well done movie to watch a second time.
Thank you for such a great and fun semester. Loved the class
Living in oblivion was very different than movies I watch main reason it’s because it’s a movie about making a movie
The screenwriting of this movie is made for independent film makers just starting. it shows you what you can expect in a sense while being funny and keeping a serious style of acting. Also the movie goes back and forth from a dream to the actual reality.
Acting in this movie from Nick to me was great. He did a good job playing the role of a walking time bomb director who wants and needs everything to go smoothly but won’t. The acting from Nicole for me was to bland I get the role she was playing but I did not like her character.
I like the scene where it’s still in nicks dream sequence and he ask’s for more smoke and the guy says ok and starts fanning the smoke with his hat to make it appear as more smoke. This scene was great for me helped potray a low budget film with adding humor to it.
introductiontocinema 
Show scenes both in its own lens and in the lens of the true camera, Living in Oblivion uses color to reveal its unreality. In the first third of the film, the production scenes are black and white, while the filmed ones are in color. In the second third, it’s flipped, with the film being black and white while production is in color. As both of these are dream sequences, the lack of full color, compared to the final third (which is in full color, from production to filming), makes them feel less real than the final one, where even the short dream sequences are in color, as the film does not end with us stepping out of reality once again. It’s also a bit ironic that both the production sequences and the filming ones are filmed in color during the final third, as the scene being filmed is a dream sequence.
The acting was more than well done, as the film showed numerous sides of its actors. In particular we saw the real actress Catherine Keener playing fake actress Nicole playing the character of Ellen. During most of the first scene, we have her performing normally: good, but not great. In between filming, however, a flashback triggers Nicole to up her performance of Ellen, which Catherine Keener nails flawlessly. Also for a bit of trivia, not only was this Peter Dinklage’s debut role, he’s gone on record stating that he never wanted to stoop to playing an elf or leprechaun character, though he is himself a dwarf, so watching him lampoon the idea of a character whose only defining trait is that they are small through his own role here was satisfying.
While some of the camera work was deliberately repetitive, it work in the film’s favor. We get repeat performances of the same scenes being filmed, something almost always going wrong. This repetition is frustrating, but it’s being felt by both the audience and the characters in the film alike.
Thank you for the semester.
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Waltz with Bashir
The screenwriting conveys the theme of violence. The screenwriting shows how people are affected by war and the violence that war causes. The protagonist is disturbed by war. Also, the main protagonist is mentally scarred by violence. The whole movie is about how violence affects people. The lasting effects of war on people is shown through the main character and the people he interviews.
The cinematography conveys the violence theme as well. For example, the last sequence of the movie. The medium shots of the women in the refugee camp and then the close up shot of the main protagonist. The close up shot of the main protagonist cuts to the actual documentary footage of the women in the refugee camp. There’s a switch from the animation to the real documentary footage of the refugee camp. In the real documentary footage of the war there’s a medium shot of a woman crying, close up shots of dead men, women and children. The cinematography shows how war kills innocent people and how war damages the people who were left behind. The last shots of the real documentary footage ties the whole movie together.
The sound conveys the theme of violence. The sound in Waltz with Bashir shows how people are affected by war. For example, in the last sequence of the movie, when the women are walking back into the refugee camp. After the narrator stops talking, all I can hear is the women crying and screaming. The women are mourning the deaths of their loved ones. From the sound of the women crying and screaming, the sound cuts to the real documentary footage of a war. The sound doesn’t change. I continue to hear women crying and screaming. I continue to see women mourning the deaths of their loved ones. Then after these scenes of deceased men, women and children. There isn’t any sound, there is only complete silence. The scene fades to black and the movie is over. The sound of the last sequence shows how wars negatively affect people. I could hear the pain in all of the women’s voices. Even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I don’t have to understand their words in order to know that these women and many others are deeply hurt.
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Living in Oblivion creatively showed the behind the scenes of movie making, within making a movie. This funny behind the scene film gives us a look at the hard work that goes into film making, for this movie in particular it shows the movie making with a small budget and terrible help. The screenwriting of the play shows the tedious and difficult work that producers, actors, directors and cinematographers all go through to create films. With the repetitive shots and scenes, we see just how annoying or exhausting it can be when trying to perfect a certain scene or shot.
I found the decision to have the “filmed scenes” in color and the rest of the movie in black and white very interesting. This decision did make the movie flow more coherently and created different moods as well. It showed the sudden change in actors mood or “acting” when switching from off camera to when the camera was rolling. We are able to see the characters off screen and the difference from how they act when shooting the film. We see things that may influence the characters acting, enhance it or sometimes make it worse, causing to team to reshoot the scene over and over.
I also like the acting in the movie, and I think the characters did a good job at showing differences in their behavior and attitude. Depending on whether the character was acting or off screen the actors did very well at showing the separation of the two. The characters would play their role on screen effectively and would step away from their camera and go back to their normal life and problems. Another part of the acting that I liked was the team such as the director, cinematography and sound people who helped create the feel of a behind the scenes look. These actors showed frustration when things went wrong, confusion when things were unclear, and happiness when a scene was successfully shot. All of these things made the film more believable as to how accurate it was to real film-making.
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Waltz With Bashir was a really interesting animation film. I’ve never seen a film that has so much emotional turmoil and depth but is also animated. The style of the animation with regards to all the low-key lighting and very colorful imagery really helped present us with the mise-en-scene of the film. The choices with surreal imagery like when our protagonist dreams of himself riding along the water on the giant naked woman really help reinforce the theme of war and isolation on his part. I also noticed a lot of imagery involving water and the ocean which could signify life and death or just simply give his dreams more relativity.
I also really enjoyed the editing in the film. It helped us follow everything easily. All the flashbacks in the film could’ve been a little disorienting had they not done it the way they did with steady continuity and character dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, the characters are all very emotionally flat. This is probably due to the fact that they have been through war and seen things no one should ever have to.
I like that they chose to make this film an animated documentary. Had it been just a normal documentary I don’t feel as though the director would have had such a vast medium to play around with and express things as freely. I really enjoyed this film, as heart-wrenching as it was.
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Decided to cop and paste my essay’s blurb on Waltz With Bashir here.
The third war film that we will be looking at is the 2008 Israeli animated-documentary Waltz With Bashir. The setting of the film is contemporary times, but the bulk of the scenes are set during the first Lebanon War of the early 1980’s. The main character, Ari Folman himself, is trying to uncover the reason for his amnesia during the Sabra and Shatila Massacres. He knows he was there, he can recall seeing other people there, but as to what he was doing he has no clue. The film that follows is a strange blend of witness accounts, dream sequences and animation as we dive deeper into the memories each former soldier has of the war. If Casablanca had a black-and-white view of War morality and Hero had a white-and-grey view, then Waltz with Bashir has a grey and grey view of warfare. It is a definite anti-war piece, showing the confusion and trauma that is rarely scene with any accuracy on film. With the exception of Frenkel and reporter Ron Ben-Yishai none of the characters really know what they’re doing in the war. Ronny Dayag recounts how his tank crew started out excited and eager to fight, only to have their tank blown out from under them and the surviving crewmen gunned down. Ronny describes the survivor’s guilt he felt, as he had managed to escape by swimming along the coastline until he reached allied lines. At the start of the film, we are shown a beautifully animated sequence of roughly 26 dogs tearing through a city in search of Boaz Rein-Buskila, a former IDF soldier who, during the war, was ordered to shoot those very same dogs during a raid on a Palestinian village. He had previously told his superiors that he couldn’t shoot a human being, and was told to shoot the dogs instead. Now those same dogs haunt his nightmares. In my opinion, there is no other way for this film to have been made but with animation. While at times the figures onscreen dip ever-so-slightly into the uncanny valley, the use of animation gives Folman a type of freedom that regular film-making could not. The film takes a fairly negative view on Israel’s involvement in the war, with most commanding officers being either incompetent, apathetic or some combination of the two. Folman himself, while not directly involved with the massacres, did indirectly aid the Christian Phalangists commit the slaughters by firing flares from a mortar into the night sky. The light from these flares helped the massacre occur, and the largely apathetic, anemic response by the IDF only helped the Phalangists commit their gruesome butchery. At the end of the film, as we re-witness Folman’s dream where he watches the surviving Palestinians file past him, we transition abruptly from animation to actual footage taken in the aftermath of the raids. Even the animation in the preceding sequence differs from the other times that Folman recounted his dream. At the start the Palestinian women were largely black-and-white cutouts, like something out of the animated biography Persepolis. By the end of the film, however, they are much more vividly animated, wailing, crying and wandering all over the place as they search for their loved ones. In another scene Frenkel recounts how a patrol he was on ended with a child soldier being shot. The sequence makes heavy use of ballroom music to create an almost surreal visage that only ends once Frenkel has finished his story. The film Waltz with Bashir is considered by some to be the Israeli Apocalypse Now, and for good reason. The animation, use of surreal dream sequences and the lack of an actual enemy on screen drive home the sheer brutality of war, and how for every Audie Murphey there’s at least five scared-shitless little kids.
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“Living in Oblivion” is one of the unique movies we have seen this semester. Not one of the best, but not one of the worst either. Maybe one of the worst, either way, strange movie.
It’s mise-en-scene is quite unique. During the first part of the movie, it is in black & white, except for the scene that was being shot in the movie that the characters were filming. Every time the camera started rolling, we take the view of the camera and see it in color.
The editing is quite interesting too. One piece of the editing is when Nick is getting a bit annoyed. We can tell this through how the camera starts to zoom in on his face during certain shots, until he snaps.
The sound is a third aspect of it. It is filled with just normal noises, and not much of music.
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The film “Living in Oblivion” is a interesting film, because I never thought about what goes behind the camera. The work that actors and directors have to deal with when creating a film. I thought the acting in this film was very conveying it. It was almost as if I was watching a documentary than a film. The way Steve Buscemi preformed as a director was really interesting as he has directed many TV shows made him a perfect actor for this film. Even though he hasn’t directed anything when this film was filmed, he’s acting made it seem he had experience. The sound in the film was also interesting as we hear many random street noises during the part of the film we watched. It felt natural and smooth during the scene as it was unexpected and caught me off guard. It really bring the tension as their is this sad atmosphere in the air then suddenly a siren comes our of no were and everything than becomes loud. Lastly the use of color was interesting as we see black and white except when we see the camera point-of-view as if the the director is telling us that the movie that is being film is more real than the act of filming a movie.
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Waltz with Bashir was actually the first animated documentary film that I’ve ever watched because most of the documentaries that I know are live action. What caught my attention was the cinematography. Even though it’s an animated documentary, it shows a close up shot of Ari Folman’s face back when he was in the war. It was to show that he had been scarred by the massacre during the Lebanon War. In the present, there is a close up of Folman’s face just to show he was trying to remember what happened during the war.
The mise-en-scene was another important aspect of the film. Throughout the movie, it shows different parts of the war. For instance, it shows Folman and his friends bathing at the beach when he suddenly saw the flares descending over the city of Beirut. This indicates the war was still going on at that time.
What I liked the most is the screenwriting. I like how it tells the story of a man who doesn’t remember anything that happened during the Lebanon war. So, he asks some friends and other soldiers just to remember what exactly happened and where were they during the war. Additionally, some of the soldiers even told him from their point of view where they were during the time of the massacre. As a result, Folman slowly begins to regain some of his memories back after his friends told him what happened. He also starts to remember about the time when he was among the soldiers firing flares into the sky to illuminate the refugee camp.
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Waltz with Bashir was one of the better movies I’ve seen this semester. The animation was unlike any I had ever seen before, with almost a different fluidity than usual. Doing the documentary as anything but an animation would take away from the crazy imagery in the dream/trance sequences. For instance, when he is laying on top of the woman in the ocean and he watches the ship explode. Another thing I think they did well is the portrayal of soldiers deployed. The song about Lebanon very much made me think of my own brother who is deployed overseas, because while conditions are not the best in Afghanistan, they always try to make the best of it. The use of color in Waltz with Bashir is also very impactful, where the dream scenes were heavy in blues and yellows to get a certain effect across. without the use of animation the ability to change the lighting to something so surreal would be not only harder but unrealistic.
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Living in Oblivion is an unusual, funny, and interesting movie. example of the movie-about-movies genre, focusing on the low budget, independent movie making scene.
The lead performances by Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener are first-rate, and the supporting cast is excellent as well. Steve Buscemi is right at home in this film, his influence rubs off on the support actors, and his stress is convincing. The film veers from satire to realism to surrealism in depicting the problems and tensions involved in an Hollywood filmmaking. One problem with its structure, though, is the repeated “dream trick.” Its first use creates shock and interest, but its second use creates a serious distraction in the third act since the viewer keeps wondering whose dream he or she may be in this time.
The screenplay timing is superb and taunts the audience to an almost stressful level.
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Jotpal Kaur
Blog Post – Waltz with Bashir
Firstly, I have never seen the movie, Waltz with Bashir before. This was my first time watching this movie. I thought the movie was a little bit confusing at the starting, later it started to make sense a little. I thought the movie overall was good.
One of things that I liked about the movie was cinematography. For example, toward the end of the movie, in the scene where the women are walking down the street and crying by looking at the state of the streets and the people (in animation). Then, the movie switches from animation to real women actually crying. I thought this is good example of cinematography because at that point, the movie told the audience this event actually took place in reality. This scene was giving the true feelings of what people actually felt and making the audience face the reality that it was not just a animation movie. The shift from animation to reality, gave the final touch of success to this documentary animation film.
Another thing that I liked from the movie was acting. For example, in the starting of the movie, in scene where Ari Folman meets his friend and they talk about the memories of Lebanon War. To Ari Folman’s surprise, he does not remember any of those memories and he wishes to confirm whether those memories were real or not. I thought Ari Folman’s acting was great. Even though, it was an animation documentary, Ari Folman’s expressions of surprise, shock, of uncertainty, etc. were portrayed as well as clearly been shown in that scene. I thought with able to show expressions and facial appearance changing, it gave the animation documentary more of a realism look, even though, humans were portrayed as animated figures.
Lastly, I liked the sound used in the movie. For example, in the beginning of the movie, in the scene where the dogs are running out in the street. With outlines of human figures on the the street being crushed by the dogs running over them. The pounding sound of the dogs’s feet as they were running is something that represented or foreshadowed that something really bad is going to happen. As the dogs’ run over human figures, it foreshadowed that the documentary is about something related to violence, fight, war, deaths of people, etc. It also gave us the hint that it is going to be something painful, sad, hurtful, and not really happy to go type of story.
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Living in Oblivion is a great movie but it had been some time since the first time I saw it. It was funny that Professor played that clip because it is one of my favorites.
The meta film starts in black and white and switches to color only when they were filming the people on set. I think the reason it was done this way was to show that this is a movie inside a movie (meta). I liked the acting in this scene and the director was my favorite. He started off all calm cool and collected but after many failed attempts to get the shot they need he loses his mind. Starts trashing the set. I liked this scene because it was one of those moments of heightened tension between the actors, the director, and the camera men.
Its at this time you figure out that this film is a low budget film with little to know money involved, and everything that can go wrong for this movie will go wrong.
I enjoyed the acting the most because I thought that in particular Steve Buscemi is brilliant. He plays the role of a quirky director that might lose it at any time, and he succesfully does lose it numerous times.
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I thought Waltz with Bashir was an interesting film. I thought the idea of a documentary filmed as an animation was brilliant. I liked how in the beginning it started off with the dogs running which made us as the audience wonder what was going on. As we find out it was a dream we end up discovering why the main character has dreams about the dogs as he had killed dogs while at war. I liked the colors in the film, i think the colors in the film changed the mood of each scene. Towards the ending we end up seeing real life footage of women and men walking through the city as they see a lot of dead citizens and the women begin to cry. I think the director chose to do this because at first we were getting just the documentary which was in colors and the to end it we got real life footage as to show the true disaster and tragedy.
90 % (9 out of 10)
Wrong Answer is highlighted in Red.
Correct Answer is highlighted in green.
1. In the shooting stage, a film strip is exposed to light, allowing radiant energy to burn a negative image onto each frame.
Topic: n/a
a. True
b. False
Feedback/Reference: This statement describes the shooting stage, which relies on photographic technology (p. 486).
3. What are the picture elements that make up a video image called?
Topic: n/a
a. data
b. bits
c. pixels
d. binaries
Feedback/Reference: The video image is composed of pixels—the tiny dots that make up the image on a video screen (p. 489).
4. The digital image is just a series of numbers reconstructed into an image that has no physical relationship to the original.
Topic: n/a
a. True
b. False
Feedback/Reference: This is a defining characteristic of the digital image (p. 489)
5. What is the film-stock speed?
Topic: n/a
a. the degree to which the film-stock is light sensitive
b. the number of feet or the number of reels used in a film
c. the rate at which a film is projected that creates the illusion of movement
d. the length of time the film-stock is exposed to light
Feedback/Reference: This is the basic definition of film-stock speed (p. 488).
6. Which aspect of the movies has become virtually 100 percent digital?
Topic: n/a
a. shooting
b. projecting
c. editing
d. distributing
Feedback/Reference: Although other areas of film production, exhibition, and distribution have shifted towards digital, only editing comes close to being 100 percent digital as most all filmmakers are convinced of the efficiency and flexibility of digital editing (p. 490).
8. During the Golden Age of Hollywood the five major studios were
Topic: n/a
a. horizontally integrated.
b. vertically integrated.
c. independent.
d. foreign-owned.
Feedback/Reference: This is a significant characteristic of the major studios in this period (p. 498).
10. The independent system of production during the 1930s and 1940s was called the ___________ and was run by a producer who ______________.
Topic: n/a
a. producer-unit system; owned a minor studio
b. producer-unit system; worked for a “B” studio
c. package-unit system; worked for a major studio
d. package-unit system; was unaffiliated with a studio
Feedback/Reference: See p. 501.
11. In today’s independent system producers can create responsibilities for themselves that match their strengths and experiences.
Topic: n/a
a. True
b. False
Feedback/Reference: See p. 502.
12. The costs of the preproduction stage, the producer, director, cast, and screenwriter are called ___________costs, while the costs of production, postproduction, and the crew are called ____________ costs.
Topic: n/a
a. producing; production
b. production; producing
c. above-the-line; below-the-line
d. below-the-line; above-the-line
Feedback/Reference: See p. 507.
13. The Motion Picture Association of America administers
Topic: n/a
a. questionnaires to focus groups.
b. promotional and marketing materials to theater owners.
c. a voluntary movie-rating system.
d. a mandatory movie-rating system.
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The movie Walt and Bashir is about a man that went to movie and forgot what he did in the war. He goes to a psychologist to have him remember what he did in the war. He talks to the psychologist the event that happen during the war. He also talks about that he shot and kill a little boy who was trying to kill his friends during the war. He also witnessed the sabra and Shatila massacre while he was in the war. This movie had lots of good scene some of it was emotionally that the director shows due out the movie. Some scene was good and others was not so good. The movie was great I like have the director shows lots of good scene in this movie.
Quiz name: Looking at Movies, 4e
Chapter Number: 11
Student’s name: sebastian faaeteete
Student’s email: faaeteetesebastian@gmail.com
Number of questions: 10
Percent correct: 100%
Question: In today’s independent system producers can create responsibilities for themselves that match their strengths and experiences.
Student answered: a) True
Correct answer is: a) True
Question: The independent system of production during the 1930s and 1940s was called the ___________ and was run by a producer who ______________.
Student answered: d) package-unit system; was unaffiliated with a studio
Correct answer is: d) package-unit system; was unaffiliated with a studio
Question: In order to provide the illusion of movement, at what speed (frames per second) is a sound film usually projected?
Student answered: b) 24 fps
Correct answer is: b) 24 fps
Question: The costs of the preproduction stage, the producer, director, cast, and screenwriter are called ___________costs, while the costs of production, postproduction, and the crew are called ____________ costs.
Student answered: d) below-the-line; above-the-line
Correct answer is: d) below-the-line; above-the-line
Question: Which aspect of the movies has become virtually 100 percent digital?
Student answered: c) editing
Correct answer is: c) editing
Question: Which of the following is one of the factors that led to the decline of the studio system?
Student answered: c) The reorganization of management into the producer-unit system paved the way for independent producers.
Correct answer is: c) The reorganization of management into the producer-unit system paved the way for independent producers.
Question: What is the film-stock speed?
Student answered: a) the degree to which the film-stock is light sensitive
Correct answer is: a) the degree to which the film-stock is light sensitive
Question: During the Golden Age of Hollywood the five major studios were
Student answered: b) vertically integrated.
Correct answer is: b) vertically integrated.
Question: What are the picture elements that make up a video image called?
Student answered: c) pixels
Correct answer is: c) pixels
Question: The digital image is just a series of numbers reconstructed into an image that has no physical relationship to the original.
Student answered: a) True
Correct answer is: a) True
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Living in Oblivion was especially interesting to me because it was a film about making a film. I thought the movie was extremely funny and gave a good example of what the set of filming a movie is like. The acting in Living in Oblivion was great. Since some of the scenes were dreams about filming, each scene was hilarious. The director of the film in the movie played his role really well especially when he freaked out in his own dream. This shows how hard it is and frustrating filming a film can be when things don’t go right. His freak out moment was perfect for the scene.
Another aspect of the film that was really great was the sound/music. For example, in the beginning when 2 of the film workers were outside eating, and discussing wether the milk was bad, there was a lot of background street noise that enhanced the overall scene. It gave a setting of where the low budget film was being filmed and went well with the conversation that was going on.
Lastly, the cinematography was great too. For example, in Nick’s dream when they are filming the scene between the mother and daughter, the shots are not only close up in the film being filmed, but also in the actual film of Living in Oblivion. This puts intensity on the scene being filmed, especially because something always goes wrong at this part!
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Silvia Serrano
Waltz with Bashir
Quite a different form of animation than I have been used to seeing and understanding toward animation is. Despite the intense shown violence I grew fond of this movie, mainly because it was the first documentary I’ve ever seen done in animation and secondly because of the use of animation visuals and actions aren’t limited to reality. Here the film is able to convey the characters memories, dreams and hallucinations in a surreal way where the bounds are endless toward the imagination of what could be done in the film.
On that note we can see through the mise-en-scene how the mood is greatly changed in each situation by the change in color. I found that touch to be very cleverly done and did not take any attention off of what was going on in the picture. Such examples include the water scene where the lighting is all blue, a moment when Folman is dancing where the lighting turns red and another is when we see soldiers walking out from the water the lighting is yellow. Each color helped covey the meaning behind each scene and help emphasis on the characters moods.
In regards to that the acting through the entire film was well done and perfectly conveyed in emotions even being an animation. For this reason I found it more amusing how well the characters brought themselves to live and not be but simple animated characters. Another key point in addition is the camera. There is scenes in which the camera is shaky or moving in a way that seems as though it is an actual camera within the scenes. A well point to have added to the documentary as it only strengthened the creativity to the making of the entire film.
As a final point the music was perfect. By way of example we can see the scene where Folman is holding the gun and shooting as he is almost as if performing a waltz right in the middle of the battleground. The camera is focused on him as he gracefully moves around with low piano music playing in the background. Then as the beat picks up in pace and we begin to see more and more fires being shot the music turns toward a very chaotic song to accompany the now very chaotic battle. The song was very uplifting and emphasized the empowering mood that was depicted in the characters. Such a well done movie to watch a second time.
Thank you for such a great and fun semester. Loved the class
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Living in oblivion was very different than movies I watch main reason it’s because it’s a movie about making a movie
The screenwriting of this movie is made for independent film makers just starting. it shows you what you can expect in a sense while being funny and keeping a serious style of acting. Also the movie goes back and forth from a dream to the actual reality.
Acting in this movie from Nick to me was great. He did a good job playing the role of a walking time bomb director who wants and needs everything to go smoothly but won’t. The acting from Nicole for me was to bland I get the role she was playing but I did not like her character.
I like the scene where it’s still in nicks dream sequence and he ask’s for more smoke and the guy says ok and starts fanning the smoke with his hat to make it appear as more smoke. This scene was great for me helped potray a low budget film with adding humor to it.
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