Blew My Mind!

Cover of Blow Out

Last week was another movie day! And we watched Blow Out by Brian de Palma. The film itself was great, the story showed aspects of film making and a glimpse of how this world is always trying to cover things up and showed this connection with how films are made today.

After the transition from silent to talkes movies happened, it didn't take long for film-makers to start utilizing sound as an advantage in their films, and manipulating all sorts of sounds and noises that aren't even the real sounds. The entire film had a background story going on, where Jack Terry is the sound editor for a film he's working on with a director who he often works with. he's looking for a particular scream for a scene, in the end he uses the scream of Sally when she is dying. The basic message was to show how America covers things up to present to the world, and how films actually do that also.

I've never been able to see the exact process of how films actually come together when it comes to the technicality, so this movie was almost an eye-opener. I was amazed on how he was able to use simple pictures from a magazine, put them together and make a little flip-book, and then turn that into something that is a motion picture. And plus, be able to obtain the sound and actually do a really good job in synchronizing with motion pictures.

Throughout the movie, I noticed that the sound of the movie was very detailed and sharp. Its something I've noticed in movies, where the director and sound editor can make you hear only what they want you to hear. In this film, I felt like Brian de Palma made us hear all of the little detail sounds that were occurring in the background. I know, after watching this movie, it made my senses of hearing much sharper for a while, because I was listening for little detail sounds which I probably never notice before because I never direct my attention towards them.

Another thing that was superb in this film was the cinematography. I could tell that a lot of thought went into each shot and how to actually present each detail needed. I think through the different kind of shots like the split-screen, Palma almost made us, the audience, realize that this is only a movie, and yet he made the story seem so real. As real as the story was, there were some shots and scenes that I didn't like much, and at a point reminded me of some Bollywood movie that was made off of cheap budget. The scene when Jack is in the ambulance, and he hears Sally's voice on the radio thing that was hooked up to her, he dramatically gets up (although he was just in an accident) and is able to run so fast through a large crowd and starts to search for Sally. This made no sense, and what made it worse was the slow motion scene when Jack realizes where Sally is, so he starts to run to her. It just didn't seem fair to have this in the movie, when before we were able to watch a story that has been told, but in a completely different way. But I really did like how the movie went in a circle and showed how Jack had grown/matured and how the movie ends when the scream is obtained! (which was the problem in the very first scene, where the scream was not working out for the film, so Jack was instructed to find a better scream sound)

I actually liked how diverse the characters were, and how some had importance but necessarily weren't shown that much. I also enjoyed some of the shots that in my perspective looked quite experimental. In fact, the movie as a whole seemed a little experimental, which made me happy, for that is the genre we have for our short film that we have to make. I think the idea of how a camera should just sit there and the actors do everything is what I use to think is a good shot and is a good movie, but after watching this movie I realized that some of the best shots are those that are trying to make the viewer more limited in what they can see, and more involved into the characters of the film by simply doing some camera tricks. I definitely would love to use some of his techniques of shots in our short film.

Over all, it was a great film! And I'm really glad we watched it, and surely was much different from Sunset Boulevard and Singin' in the Rain.