Lecture write up 3

During World War 2 France couldn’t get any British or American films due to

the Nazi occupation.

After World War 2 year’s worth of films were introduced to France which were

made during the war.

A director that can be considered as an auteur will have similar…

Themes

Technical construction

Dialogue

Actors

Auteurs are recognised by their identifiable style for example the way that J.J

Abram’s uses lens flare in all of his movies on shots. For example in super 8

when the train crashes he uses lens flare during the kids filming scenes.

Auteurs:

Michael Scorsese

Alfred Hitchcock

Coen brothers

Stanley Kubrick

Wes Anderson

Steven Spielberg

Director Task

Sylvester Stallone

I have chosen to study Sylvester Stallone as my chosen

director. Not many people realise that Stallone is both

an actor and a director and he has directed many of his

own movies like ‘Rambo’ and ‘The Expendables’ as well

as acting in them as well. He has also directed less

popular films like ‘Over the top’ and ‘Escape to victory.’

For this task I have decided to watch ‘Rocky’, ‘The

Expendables 2’ and ‘Over the top’ to study his directing

skills.

Rocky

Rocky was a film written and directed by Sylvester

Stallone in 1976 and is still popular in the sporting film

industry today. The general story of this film is that

Rocky Balboa is a small-time boxer who seems to be

going nowhere in life, as he works day-in and day-out

as a collector for a loan shark and fights in clubs for

money. Further into the film the heavyweight

champion of the world Apollo Creed chooses Rocky at

random as his opponent in a title fight, Rocky realizes

he now has the chance to prove he is not worthless.

With Adrian as his support and Mickey becoming his

trainer and manager, Rocky fights Creed in a dramatic

well matched fight between them both. At the end of

the fight they both go down at the same time and it’s a

dramatic slow motion rise to get them back up on their

feet.

Rocky ends up getting up first and wins the fight. This then makes him the heavy weight

champion of the world and the start to his fame filled career in boxing history. I have watched

this film time and time again since I was young and I enjoy it every time. This was one of the

first films that Stallone directed and what kick-started his career in film and acting. The film

was a risk as he had never been in or filmed any other films before but was given a break by a

production company which gave him one preview of his film to a small audience in a theatre

and depending on their response would depend on whether they went through with the film

or not. The response was astonishing from the crowd so the film was published. Stallone uses

many different techniques in his films during the fighting scenes to make them appeal to the

audience.

For example he uses first person POV shots during his fight scenes to give the audience a view

of what the fighter would see when he is throwing punches it also makes the audience feel like

they are Rocky or Creed which works really well. He also uses over the shoulder shots to show

the close up view of a punch to the other opponent which works well with the slow motion he

uses. Overall rocky is a well-constructed film with a wide range of techniques and camera

angles making it one of the best films I have watched.

Over the top

Lincoln Hawk is a struggling trucker who arm wrestles on

the side to make extra cash while trying to rebuild his life.

Hawk's estranged wife Christina, who is very ill, asks that

Hawk pick up their son Michael from military school so

that the two of them can get to know each other. At first

Michael wants nothing to do with him as he has left him

for 10 years without any form of contact which later in the

film is not true as his mother had been hiding the letters

from him. Throughout the film hawk and Michael get on

better and start to do some father and son bonding with

morning work outs and teaching him how to drive a truck.

It then gets to the point where Michael’s mother dies and

he blames it on his dad and runs away to his granddad,

who then keeps him away from his dad as he doesn’t trust

him after leaving him for 10 years. Hawk then enters an

arm wrestling competition to earn the prize reward to be

able to buy a house and set us a business to prove to his

son he can be a stable father. son he can be a stable father. He ends up winning the competition as his son turns up to cheer

him on. Overall this film is brilliant in both story line and the way it is filmed. The film was made

in 1987 starring Stallone as hawk and is one of his least popular films he is in but I still think it is

a good film to use as an example as it uses a good range of camera angles and techniques I can

talk about. During the bar scene where the first arm wrestle takes place Stallone uses different

camera angles to show how the character is feeling these include a POV shot as he is walking

up to the table it then switches to his expression on his face which works well as a comparison

shot. There is also a few Arial shots used in the scene showing the crowd surrounding the table

which is similar to the ones used in the match at the end of the film. Stallone also uses lens

flare in the scenes In Vegas when they are arm wrestling to use as a background a little like J.J.

Abrams uses in his movies, this works well as part of the scene as it gives the background of the

shot meaning of tiredness as it is blurred which may be used to show how hawk is feeling

during the match. Overall this film works really well as a whole and is a good example of

Stallone’s directing techniques when it comes to films.

Expendables 2

The Expendables leader Barney Ross, Lee Christmas, Yin

Yang, Hale Caesar, Gunner Jensen, Billy the Kid, the

team's newest recruit are deployed to Nepal to rescue

Dr. Zhou They also rescue the captured mercenary

Trench, Yang leaves the group to escort Zhou back to

China. After returning to New Orleans, Billy tells Ross

that he intends to retire at the end of the month and

live with his girlfriend Sophia. Later, Ross is forced to

accept a mission from CIA operative Mr. Church. They

are then ambushed by international criminal and arms

dealer Jean Vilain, his right-hand man Hector and his

mercenary group who have captured Billy he

roundhouse kicks a knife through Billy's heart and flees

with the Sangs by helicopter. Through the rest of the

film the expendables task is to retrieve the plutonium

and kill villain as revenge for Billy’s death. They finnaly

catch up with villain and fight their way through the

airport with trench and booker.

Christmas decapitates Hector, while Ross and Vilain fight hand-to-hand. Ross defeats Vilain,

stabbing him and avenging Billy. Overall this story works really well as a whole as parts of the

film link with others in the end and the action scenes work really well. Stallone uses a wide

range of techniques when filming the fight scenes and how the camera captures the punches. A

scene I really like in the film is where vilian and barney are having there final showdown fight in

the depths of the airport where each character has there winning sequences for example when

stallone runs at him and grabs him and throws him to the ground with force then goes for

constant body shots. This is really well filmed with convincing angles to make it seem like the

punches are making a brutal connection. Stallone also uses aperture really well in the film to

show importance of characters. Overall this is a great film with both story line and how it is

shown.