Characters

Character notes on the Graduate

Benjamin Braddock:

Benjamin is a college graduate and most importantly he needs to be around the age of 20 to 24. He is a clean-cut and well-bred young man with some confusion on his face. He needs to be dress like a normal everyday guy as his role should shows that he is just like everyone else who had just graduate from the college. He is not out standing with the look, but shouldn’t be too bad either, and his body type should be median size. Ben is always wondering and thinking about his future, he need to give the audients a feel that he is living in a dreamy world where everything doesn’t matter to him. He is not a good talker, and is a shy guy that’s not comfortable about sex and relationship with female. He is bored of his own life as there is nothing he wants to do or can do about his future, and is secretly hoping something exciting is going to happen. Ben is a good kid to his parents, and mostly do whatever his parent told him to do even he doesn’t want to. In the end I think Ben has a normal level of IQ and a just a little bit below average of EQ due to the why he expresses himself.

Mrs. Robinson:

She is a classic foxy woman. Mrs. Robinson should be about her late 30 or early 40 as she was likely marry really young. She is bored about her life and tired of her husband. As her daughter is in college and her husband is always working or with other women, we can see why she is so lonely. She talk like she is better than others, but in her heart she feel she is nothing. Once the relationship between her and Ben started, she sees Ben as low as she is and there for won’t allow Ben to go out with Elaine. She sees Elaine as herself when she was younger, and was hoping that Elaine will end up like her, marring someone that she doesn’t like. Mrs. Robinson is a selfish character, with the ability to seduce any man with her look.

Elaine Robinson:

She is the counter part of her mother, and she is a character that’s not yet polluted by this world. In the eyes of Ben, Elaine is a hope and a fresh new chapter of his life. Elaine is a beautiful young girl around the age of 20 to 22 perhaps just 1 or 2 years younger than Ben, which allow the relationship to grow easier. She is full of hope and is not afraid to express her love and hate. After she find out what is going on with her mother and Ben, her sadness and hate slowly recover when she move to a new area. This shows that she is still a girl that’s full of hope and looking the good side of everything. She is truly in love with Ben, unlike her mother who is only using Ben as a toy. 

Mr. Braddock and Mrs. Braddock

Ben’s parent is a classic good marry couples, however they care more of how they look as a family more than the reality itself. They are not close to Ben and most of the time they become the background character of Ben’s life. In the film we don’t even need to show their faces as the viewers don’t need to make any emotional connection with them as Ben isn’t as well. The Braddock is a wealthy family and the mother is likely someone that will spend most of her time dressing and doing her hair instant of spending time with her son.

Mr. Robinson and the Others:

Try to keep as few characters as possible, and focus on the mains.  Mr. Robinson is someone that is normally not there when his wife or daughter needed him, and so he should feel the same to the viewers the same way. What he does or what he did isn’t important to the story, as he is like a background character that’s there for the story of Mrs. Robinson and the connection of the two families. He isn’t doing anything unique or interesting during the whole story, and so his character should feel the same. Every other character in the story should be there as the contrast to the main characters, and by do so take their personality and interest.

auteur

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Michelangelo Antonioni

Before starting this blog, I am going to say that I am not going to discuss what I think is good or bad about the film, as this blog is about the auteur relationship between those films and their director.

Michelangelo Antonioni was an Italian modernist film director and best known for his use of long shot and open-ended narrative. Personally, I had never watched any of his films before this assignment due to I normally don’t watch old films unless someone told me to. The films I chose from Antonioni’s works are the three first English-language films he made, Blowup, Zabriskie Point and The Passenger.

Antonioni was already well known for his well directed films like La Notte and L’Avventura before Blowup, and it didn’t take much for American audients to accept him. After watching Blowup the first thing that comes to my mind is A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick. They have very similar dreamy quality and open-ended narrative, and I think it’s because Kubrick had been influenced by Antonioni’s style. I think that is what a true auteur should be; an auteur should have his unique style and in the same time influence the other with his style. Maybe Kubrick isn’t the best example here, as he is also a well known director with a unique style of his own, but who isn’t being influence by others? Every good directors and artist all learn from the past best and combine those elements in to a unique mix.

The next film I watched is the Zabriskie Point, and to be honest it feel really different than Blowup. The style of storytelling is totally different; however some iconic Antonioni’s camera works were still there. Blowup had a simple clear story with less than three main characters (the photographer, the woman in the photo, and the others.) Zabriskie Point had a complex storyline with many characters that I don’t really care about, and I totally lost the story half way into the movie. The story of Zabriskie Point is hard to fallow and with all those fast music and slow long take it is hard to pay attention. Antonioni once said that the reason he likes to use long take is because he want to force the viewers to watch the details of the shot, however it is hard to do that while all those explosion and crazy music is going on. In the end both of those films had some similar quality of Antonioni’s work, and perhaps Zabriskie Point was just not a good movie to use the same style as the Blowup.

The next film is the Passenger, and this is the one that I feel the “age” of Antonioni. When he made the Passenger he was about 62…63 years old and perhaps his style of directing aged with him as well. The reason why I am saying this is because the passenger is a really slow film. It has really interesting Hitchcock style of mystery element in it, and as well as the Blowup. The film feel really realistic but in the same time extremely dreamy. In the second final shot of the movie you see every main character in the room with Locke, and that’s like only five people. This remind me of the Blowup, as they both share the mystery element, simple story, open-ended narrative very few characters and they both had a long take in the end of the movie.

 In conclusion, we can easily see the style relation of those three films and we can also see the influence of time and theme that affect on the films. Zabriskie Point is about the counter culture and perhaps long takes and slow narrative didn’t work well with the subject matter. Blowup is a fresh take with very few spoken words and the mystery theme works well with the style, and as well as the passenger. Antonioni definitely had a iconic direction style which influence the others, and all those three films had his signature on it.

The definition of an auteur is a film maker whose individual style and complete control over all elements of production give a film its personal and unique stamp.  Maybe Michelangelo Antonioni didn’t have complete control over all the elements of production as no director can control the acting unless he does the acting himself, and it is hard to have complete control over the story when you have three other writers. However, Antonioni was doing the best he can with the elements that he can control to push the film toward his direction and belief, and I think it is fair to call him an auteur.  

Detective Novel

The Maltese Falcon is a detective novel wrote back in the 1930 by Dashiell Hammett. It is a detective novel, and it is clear of what it is from the beginning of the novel. We had two investigators, and they have a mystery to solve (but one die before he can do anything)...classic detective story which includes detectives in the story. Most of the detective novel at the time used elements like the dark side of the city, a foxy woman, murder, blood, strange European guy, crazy Asian scientist to catch the reader’s eyes. They all including some sort of mystery solving and saving some beautiful lady.


Almost all the detective stories I read had the following elements in them:
           

1.    The reader is giving a mystery to solve in the beginning of the story, and this mystery is seemingly a perfect crime or a twist of story line in the end.

2.     There are always some evidences that point to the wrong suspect, and most of the time is either the main character (detective) or some beautiful woman.

3.    The police, or the “official government” crime saver is always either stupid, don’t care about the crime, didn’t get there in time or something that’s preventing them from solving the crime (so our hero can solve it)

4.    Most of the time the official government is useless

5.    The hero character is always the smartest character, but sometime the female character may out smart him.

6.    Most of these novels give clues to the reader alone the way, so the reader can have the joy to try to find out the true first. (Which is good for radio too) But in the end most of them have a twist that totally change the perspective of the story and all the clues we got are now useless…

7.    The hero (detective) must work hard in order to find the evidences for the mystery.

8.    Including some fighting, gun fight or something that involving the hero doing some action

9.    The detective always have some relationship with one of the victim, either they are related, friends or love interest. (this means the hero didn’t solve the crime just for the money)

10. Most of the time the hero smoke. (this is great for film, the smoke create some cool contrast on the character) 

Lo-Lee-ta

I spent two weeks read Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and watch the movie adaptation by Stanley Kubrick. The novel is a really hard read, as there so many culture references I need to check to make sure, and even after reading it I can only said that I understand about 50% of the book. I am a big fan of Kubrick’s work, but this time I feel the movie and the novel are two completely different stories. The novel is a dark-tragicomedy, but the film feels like a comedy with some controversial ideas. Perhaps we can only truly feel the emotion and pain of Humbert Humbert’s love by reading into every single detail that he had described of her, and the movie simply doesn’t have the power to touch us in the same way. I quote from the book:

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta”

How can any visual images be as specific and powerful this passage? I love the “Lo.Lee.Ta.” part, as it bring some delegacy to the name, and makes it feel like a secret and need to be separated into parts so no one can ever find it. Humbert Humbert looks at Lolita as more of an art work than another human being, and throughout the novel Humbert plays the part of a prisoner to the obsession Loita. All the things that he did are due to his selfishness, but perhaps he is truly powerless to stop his obsession.

“thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita”

Even in the end of the story after losing Lolita, Humbert still hold true to his love and obsession. Humbert still loves her even she is now a little adult with child of her own, which means the obsession of Humbert is not because he like nymphet. In the end he changed from obsession to caring and loving her, as he knows she can never be his again. He once more describes her as a piece of art that’s legionary and their story is going to be remembered by everyone.

 If we change the character of Lolita to an older female then the whole perspective of the story will be totally different. Is the fact that she is underage that makes this whole story so morally wrong and somewhat disgusting to some? Or the ways that Humbert used to control her and have sex with her? I agree that Humbert did some really wrong things like marrying her mother, or trying to drug her but part of me believe that in the end he will still do the right thing for her. We can see that when he gave her the money in the end, as in that point he just want to hurt/kill the person who did hurt her. Humbert also stated that he is only crime to this whole thing is destroying Lolita’s childhood, and this sounds like something a true father will say. What if in the end Humbert didn’t kill Quilty (which I think is worst than Humbert), and somehow Lolita and Humbert got together again and live as two adults…will that be a happy ending to the story? I think while people question about Humbert’s crime, we should also question about our cultures moral believe. I am not saying what Humbert did is right or wrong, I am just saying that all those problems can be solved if she is a little older than she was.