MYST POST #2: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a great coming of age movie that shares both the good times and the bad times of high school. This movie has a great cast including Harry Potter’s own Emma Watson. Logan Lerman stars as the awkward freshman, which is perfect for this naturally shy actor. There are so many great things about this movie but I think the editing is done really well.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about a troubled freshman named Charlie who lost his best friend to suicide in May and has to start high school with no friends. Charlie always watches life from the sidelines until he meets a quirky senior from his shop class, Patrick, and his step sister, Sam, who take him under their wing and introduce him to new things like music, love, friendship and more. He also creates a relationship with his English teacher who sparks his interest in becoming a writer. But as his new friends graduate and leave for college, he feels his life start to fall apart again.

The editing in this movie was really well done. There was one scene in particular that really stood out to me though. There are a lot of transitions in this movie from scene to scene or from little Charlie to big Charlie but there is one scene when they have them all. It starts off with little Charlie going to church and then we see high school Charlie sitting at Easter mass with his family and then they go up to get communion. As Charlie goes to put the Eucharist on his tongue, it turns into LSD and he is at New Years Eve party. I thought this was a really good use of editing and really pushes boundaries in terms of religion and how far you can go with that stuff.

I thought this movie was really well made and though it may not have been an accurate portrayal of Hinsdale Central, I think it was a great high school movie. I also liked how this movie was kind of centered around music and how they all find themselves and find common ground through their shared love of music. I also thought it was interesting how throughout the movie Charlie is writing letters to somebody but we never find out who and they are completely one sided since there is never a return address on them. Overall I’d say this was a great movie and I would give it five out of five stars.

Memento

You have to be mentally prepared to watch Memento because it is probably the most confusing movie I have ever seen and to tell you the truth I still don’t fully understand what happened. Although I can say that this film was edited very well. The movie literally starts at the very end and goes back, which you would think would give it away but there is so much going on and the way it was edited keeps you engaged the whole time. Scenes are shown backwards throughout the movie to emphasize the disability Lenny faces and to have the audience experience the confusion and mistrust he goes through on a daily basis. This is also accompanied by integrated black and white scenes where they move in chronological order but are still split up amongst the rest of the film.

The editing is done very well in Memento. For example in one scene we see Lenny burning the belongings of his wife and we don’t really understand why he is doing this. There are close ups on the items and they slowly burn in the flames. Then later in the movie we backtrack and get more information about his wife and see these items of hers before he destroyed them. We find out that he loves her and it is hard for him to let go but he feels like he needs to. The reverse editing of scenes helps to piece together the relationship that they had. Another example is the scene where Natalie walks in the door looking beaten and when Lenny asks her what happened she tells him that Dodd did it to her. Lenny then agrees to help her and find Dodd. Then scene goes back in time a few minutes earlier and Natalie walks in looking fine and then goes on to tell Lenny her plan to use him and take advantage of his memory loss to help her situation, leading Lenny to get upset and punch her but soon forgets that this happens and Natalie then walks in the door again seconds later with a busted lip. This backwards editing really makes you feel bad for Lenny and you also feel the mistrust and deceit he feels.

I didn’t think this kind of editing was super effective when it came to explaining how Lenny first met Natalie at the bar. I thought the jumpy backwards scenes didn’t explain the relationship well enough or explain the message on the coaster he found in his pocket. I get that it was Dodd’s jacket that he found the coaster in, but the order of killing him and meeting her made me so much more confused than I needed to be. I feel like this could have been explained better.

The use of backwards editing helped in this film because it connects the audience with the characters. The audience can see through the character’s eyes and feel the emotions he is feeling when the story is told in first person like this. Having the scenes backwards helps us to sympathize with the with Lenny’s memory problem because with the scenes so scattered, we have a hard time keeping up and feel lost like him. We go through the events as he would see them, gathering new information along the way about people you thought you could trust. The parallel editing in the movie also helps to tie both storylines together in the end and make sense of everything that has happened.

This movie immediately reminded me of the movie Inception. I found out after researching that Nolan also did this film as well. Which I guess is not surprising. He must enjoy playing with peoples’ minds and making them think. Both of these movies have complex plots and use similar editing styles like parallel editing. I think these are both very well made films and Nolan did a great job of putting a creative twist on these movies.

FORMAL FILM STUDY: Wes Anderson - Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson is a director, well known in the film community for his idiosyncratic and distinctive style. His films have become immensely popular in the past twenty years since his debut film, Bottle Rocket. He has been nominated for multiple Academy Awards and received the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2015. Though I should warn you if you aren’t a Bill Murray fan, because he has made an appearance in every one of his films (but who doesn’t love Bill Murray?). Anderson’s way of doing things is either admired or despised by his audiences because of his uniqueness. I can remember the first time I watched one of his films, Moonrise Kingdom. I walked out of the theatre thinking “that was the stupidest movie I had ever seen.” I didn’t understand what was so great about it until I watched it for a second time and realized that it was actually a very well made film, it just has a very quirky plot like most films by this director. Wanting to discover some more of these movies I chose to explore the last three films that Wes Anderson directed: Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Unlike some directors, it is easy to distinguish Anderson’s work from others because of his distinct styles. In most of his movies he uses an anamorphic lens to create the panoramic look. Alex Buono states on his blog that it is “a normal lens with an added front element that squeezes the image 2:1, creating a tall, skinny distorted picture that is later unsqueezed in post, becoming a widescreen image.” I have also noticed among these three movies, the frequent use of tracking shots, flat space camera moves, and snap zooms. For example, in the beginning of Moonrise Kingdom tracking shots are used to show what everyone in the Bishop household is doing from room to room, ending with a snap zoom on Suzy Bishop’s face. There are also a lot of bird’s eye view shots used frequently throughout all three films. In Fantastic Mr. Fox this technique is used to see Mr. Fox making the poisonous blueberries to give to the beagles on their mission. It is also seen in The Grand Budapest Hotel giving us a look at the hotel lobby from above.

There is no overlooking the fact that Wes Anderson likes to use a limited color palette with each film he creates. These colors tend to be repeated throughout his movies and stay on the more neutral side with the exception of the pops of pastels. The Grand Budapest Hotel uses pastels a lot in contrast with the dully-colored backgrounds, making characters and objects stand out. For example, when lobby boy, Zero and his love, Agatha, are in a truck full of brightly colored boxes of pastries, the contrast in color makes them hard to miss. The biggest thing I noticed within all three films was the continuous use of symmetry in every scene. Anderson has a fascination with symmetry and almost always has the character standing directly in the middle of the frame or two or more characters evenly balanced. Most directors wouldn’t be able to pull this technique off but Anderson has not only made it work, it is his signature.

All three of these movies are fast paced witty comedies including more serious events and are centered on the themes of parental abandonment, grief, and adultery. Family is also a key aspect in all of them, seeming the more dysfunctional the better. It also caught my attention that the protagonists in the movies, with the slight exception of The Grand Budapest Hotel, are not the people you would typically root for. Mr. Fox is a criminal who broke a promise to his wife, doesn’t pay attention to his son, and steals from people, yet we still are on his side the entire movie as if he is the good guy. You don’t realize it until you actually think about it because the movie makes you ignore your instincts. When in reality you would probably be against him.

There are still so many techniques and styles I didn’t mention that make Wes Anderson unique and set him apart from the other directors. I can’t even imagine how long it would take to put together a film like one of these, with everything that has to be made perfect for every scene, especially an animated one like Fantastic Mr. Fox. I honestly thought I wasn’t going to like that movie because it is animated and the characters are wild animals, which seems to me like it would be a kids’ movie. I was proven wrong though. It was surprisingly funny and very well done much like the other two films. After researching Wes Anderson and watching his movies I definitely have a whole new respect for him and I’d say he’s up there on my list of favorite directors.