The bottle drama is a genre I never thought existed. As discussed in class, it is still not a solid academically developed genre, since it is common in TV series when the production is running low on cash. However, it does not mean that there are no films that explore the concept of the bottle drama.  I recalled watching a film about a man driving from one place to another, and the duration of the drive nearly took all night for him to reach his destination. While driving he made and received calls regarding his work, family, and his affair with another woman. And the whole film just took place in his car while he was driving. That film is called, Locke (2013), directed by Steven Knight. At that point when I was watching the film, I have just finished serving my national service with the military and, hence had no clue of such a concept or genre. I just thought it was a good film.

Watching the film screened this week, Coherence (2014), directed by James Ward Byrkit, cued some feelings or emotions that reminded me of the time I was watching Locke. And I was able to link the two films together even before the end of the screening. It is the same “claustrophobic, locked in, or trapped” kind of feel that I get while watching both films. Though they may be of different subject matter and in Coherence, the characters do leave the house, but I still get the sense of being trapped in and what are they going to do next to break the situation and tension they are in. 

As mentioned earlier, the bottle drama is developed from television when a production is tight on budget, hence saves money on different locations, props, sets and more. We were shown a bottle episode from Community before Coherence was screened, and we can find other similar bottle episodes from various TV series such as The Fly episode from Breaking Bad, The Chinese Restaurant in Seinfeld, and Connection Lost from Modern Family. Though tight in budget, these episodes tend to stand out from the rest in the series for its strong storyline and emotional rollercoaster the characters face throughout the episode due to strong writing.

As a viewer, I certainly enjoy such episodes and films, and as a genre exploded, I certainly would like to explore this concept and maybe attempt to replicate some tropes in future.

Smoky, black & white, crime, mystery, flashbacks. Put them all together and you might have something in the mood of a film noir. This week we explore the classic black and white film genre, film noir, The Killers (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak was screened. But is film noir really a genre?

“Film Noir is not a genre. It is not defined, as are the western and gangster genres, by conventions of setting and conflict, but rather by the more subtle qualities of tone & mood” -Paul Schrader.  We can’t classify film noir as a film genre like how we can do so for most popular genres such as, action, horror, wester, rom-com… due to it’s complexity of visual style and how it was presented back then. Film noir refers to a specific period in film history and only films made and produced during that period could be classified as a film noir film. There are no identifiable elements such as iconography, characters or setting, unlike the western or horror.

Then what makes a film, film noir? As the readings cover, it focuses mainly on the mood and style, as well as the period that it was made. Take swing music for example, some might argue it is a genre on its own, but others might say it is a kind of style or mechanical term to describe a way of playing a groove. Obviously, swing music is predominantly in big band music, but it could also be found in jazz, blues or even electro. And, like film noir, it marks a certain period of music that belonged in the 30s-40s, but composers and songwriters incorporate the key element of swing into modern music. Film noir belongs to a specific period, but filmmakers have definitely explored using elements from the film noir period into modern day films to recreate the film noir mood and style, hence we get genres such as neo noir, sci-fi noir, or western noir.

It is always hard to define something fluid, but it makes it easy to adapt and apply to other genres. We tend to go push boundaries since there is no definitive line drawn to contain what makes a film noir.

This week’s been quite a crazy week. Since we had our presentations and pitches for Project Briefs 3 and 4, there wasn’t any screening. However during our workshop on Thursday we were given small shots of vampire flicks. There came a little common denominator when it comes to vampire films, as discussed during the workshop, we see a really attractive dominant male that seems to be able to work his way around the ladies. We also see the vampire’s relation to always being wealthy and holds a certain stature in a hierarchical organisation. The shots that were screened during class also portrays most vampires to take on a pale look, mostly white men, and has a very strong sex appeal. Which leads to my next point in vampire films. We tend to see a lot of bare, the traditional fetish for necks, and wrists of a vampire can pointed clearly in most films. A very fine line between romance and bloodshed, pain and pleasure, another common trait of the vampire cravings for blood to survive.

However, the films that were featured during the workshop differed from one another in their own ways too. The respective filmmakers played around with genre tropes, taking hints and ideas from other genres and adding it into the mix of their vampire film. In Twilight (2008) directed by Catherine Hardwicke, we see stereotypical teenage girl falling in love with a good looking dreamy guy, which happens to be a vampire. He goes through an internal conflict with himself on the conventions of being a vampire and the morals of being human. He knows that he can’t pursue a relationship with a mortal due to his vampire urges for blood, but he is struggling to keep his emotions and feelings at bay for the girl he is falling for. Another thing that set Twilight apart from the rest of the other vampire films was that it was set in modern times and the use of American accents (oppose to the Vicotrian English Literature, Shakespeare accent), which, I believe, makes it more relatable for viewers, especially for the demographic the film was targeting (ie. teenage girls).

Filmmakers and writers tap into other genres, borrowing various tropes and conventions to keep things fresh and new while still maintaining  the regular vampire flick. Reason being to make more money in general. Making a film that not only appeals to the whole vampire cult following but other genre following as well. Of course, it is always hard to find a one-size-fits-all model, and there are always bound to have purists and haters, but it still generates a new following or fanbase for hybridity or maybe even just an update to the other older vampire films.

This week we exploded Sci-Fi in class. The screening for this week was Aliens (1986) directed by James Cameron, which to me was more of action than anything else. The only thing that made it Sci-Fi was probably it took place in outer space and the protagonist, Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, was asleep for more than 50 over years. Oh and of course, the existence of Aliens.

The filmed had very strong military themes. The fact that they had the whole hierarchy of military ranks and they address each other by their ranks instead of appointment (which is how it is normally in real life), points in the direction that it is very much a war film. The way the characters prepped for their mission to exterminate the aliens, and not forgetting the weak leader who let the team into their deaths who was soon overshadowed and taken over by a Corporal (the next in command), all just seemed to familiar to that of a war film, with just the twitch of changing the opposing force to extraterrestrial beings.

However, Hollywood being Hollywood, we see various plot lines over arching each other, the story of mum and daughter, man and woman, and of course the final battle between both queen alien and the “robot” Ripley as she maneuvers a hydraulic unit to fight against the queen alien. Personally, I thought that scene was redundant, and it made the film a little draggy.

During the second half of the week with our practical session, we had a in-class debate if Aliens was a Sci-Fi film or not. We had an interesting discussion with different genre tropes tossed into the mixed to show that Aliens is more than just a Sci-Fi film, but it was countered with someone saying that Sci-Fi takes different elements of various genres and putting it into a “futuristic” context with science and technology themes to bring it into a Sci-Fi world. I thought that was quite a strong statement, and it somewhat neutralised the other debate team’s argument in every aspect. In Singapore we have this term, “win liao lor”, and that’s pretty much how the other debate team felt, putting up the white flag, and argued that genre was just created by the studios to sell films as a marketing strategy and it actually doesn’t exist.

The saying about Sci-Fi taking different elements from other genres and putting into a Sci-Fi dimension could basically work for other genres too. Like horror, we could just take a romantic love story, but instead of a man and woman love, we could have ghost and woman relationship and all sorts of creepy stuff in the way to make it a horror film. It is well known that artistes and writers are known to be thieves, “stealing” ideas from one another and making it their own, that’s where art inspires more art and I guess it’s an ever changing form.

Westerns have always intrigued me since my childhood days. Cowboys, red indians, horses, gunfights, the old dusty dessert setting, are just a few of the many tropes that you might see in a Western film. Latest western film I watched would be the remake of The Lone Ranger (2013) directed by Gore Verbinski, starring Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer. It was not very well received by critics, but I thought it was overall a very entertaining film. I have not watch nor listen to any of the franchise that carried The Lone Ranger name prior to the remake, therefore I might not have any basis to judge my viewing experience of the film to compare with other renditions, but as a stand alone, I thought it was pretty well done and it carried majority of the tropes that made a Western film.

Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) directed by Takashi Miike was screened today during our first movie screening of the semester. Just by the name itself, you could tell it was going to be a strange and wacky film, Sukiyaki is known to be a Japanese dish that is usually served in a hot pot style, Western, I assume is where the film was set in, and Django could be the film making some reference to the Spaghetti Western film, Django (1966) directed by Sergio Corbucci.

Before I give my take on the film, I would like to reflect on a talk that I attended some time this week delivered by a professor who came from my home country, Singapore. Associate Professor Stephen Teo, from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) came to RMIT to conduct a lecture on Eastern Western. I found it really really interesting how it took a Chinese man, explaining “Rasa Theory” a ancient classical Indian theory that was formed between 200BC and 200AD, to a bunch of white men and some asian students. It just goes to show how far globalisation has taken us, but that’s a little side note that I took from the lecture. Basically, what I got from the otherwise very complex and highly academically structured talk, was that we can apply a set of readings and theories written in the ancient times to a Western film or any film for that matter and it could fit, with a little in depth analysis. What I have been taught so far through Introduction to Cinema Studies and Popular Cinema, is how we look at films from a academic perspective, however these  teachings and readings have been pretty much highly regarded to western Hollywood film theory and techniques, therefore I thought it was a refreshing experience that we could analyse films not just through the academic standpoint, but also using the eight Rasas in the Natyasatra written from ancient India.

Back to Sukiyaki Western Django, from the get go, I thought the film took on a very similar shape to an anime, in terms of use of colour, cinematography, and performance from the actors. On the other hand, it still carried the tropes of a western film, having set in the dessert, a small town, an outsider coming in to restore order and stability to the town from an opposing force. However, western being western, the film embeds very heavy oriental roots and like props such as lanterns, the tattoos on the back of some characters, the battle between red and white (symbolic to chinese/japanese) and so on. I thought the film wasn’t bad at all, although some might oppose to that. I feel that you can’t label a feel good or bad, just because it doesn’t fit the right template or model in the genre it seems to be classified under. In the film’s own right, I thought it fit very well using genre conventions, but still carrying some Asian flare, just to say it was made by a Japanese.

I wouldn’t classify Western as one of my favourite genres, but I would really like to go more in depth into the genre and exploring even more into it, and maybe employ some of the conventions into my video genre sketches.