Reading articles on foreign cinema and taking notes

- I had no idea so many films from so many different countries were re made into Hollywood films
- Its disappointing but not unbelievable that Hollywood lacks unoriginality and has to take ideas from other cultures and countries.
- Apparently the long running tradition of Hollywood remaking foreign language films shows no sign of actually ending
- Apparently in France if your movie has been remade into a hollywood film you have really hit success and stardom
- Some believe that the Hollywood version can actually be better than the original
- There are differences between Hollywood and Bollywood
- "almost everything in Hollywood is at least slightly ironic"
- Bollywood is much less ironic "There is very little irony and a good deal of patriarchy"
-  everything in Hollywood is modern or post modern
- "Bollywood is almost entirely about money, much more so than Hollywood. Often Mob Money
- "Bollywood has a poetic quality of song lyrics"
- "Good poetry is a marginal elite taste in hollywood"
- "Bollywood movies often fail artistically because they showcase unprocessed national insecurities and identity formation issues"
- "Hollywood movies often fail artistically because of American complacency, insularity and assumed natural cultural superiority."
- Hollywood seems to be going downhill due to Americas own narcissism
- "Bollywood movies have unstable, shifting genres that reflect the varied and unstable subcultures of a modernizing and fragmenting India."

Articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English-language_films_with_previous_foreign-language_film_versions

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/aug/20/hollywood-dominating-overseas-box-office

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/why-hollywood-remakes-of-foreignlanguage-films-are-not-always-a-great-idea-20150203-12bish.html

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-key-differences-between-Hollywood-and-Bollywood

Differences between a hollywood film and films we have watched in class

• Some of the shots and movements are different, some are messier, there is more movement in foreign films
• Foreign films are more smart they trust the audience to read the film whereas hollywood films are there for entertainment, not to read it
• There was not much music in Hero, some people found it harder to connect to. 
• In Hollywood almost all the music we see is nondiagetic while in hero a lot of it was diagetic. It was a traditional Chinese instrument that tied into the whole idea of hero
• A lot of the musicality came from the Chinese tapping their shields or marching or the drummers with the army
• In Hero when the archers were firing arrows all you heard was the sound of the straining bows and arrows firing It was very intense if this was a hollywood film there would be an epic score or something

The Chinese colour theory

- There are five basic colours in the Chinese colour theory and they relate to the five elements
- Before this, according to taoists there were only two opposing colours: Black and white, yin and yang.
- With the establishment of the five elements theory the spectrum of colours was enlarged
- This created five main colours: Black, white, red, yellow and green.
- In Chinese beliefs: The cosmos mirror the five elements
- Each colour represents or is associated with a specific meaning

Yellow
- According to the five elements theory the colour yellow belongs to the element of Earth
- It is a stabilising energy and a balanced yin and yang
- The associated grain with this colour is rice which ripens in the yellow each and is food which stabalizes mankind.
- It is the colour of imperial China

Black
- This is Heavens colour, which is a bit odd to us Westerners who associate the idea of heaven with white as the colour for us symbolises peace and innocence
- Heaven is meant to be mysterious, and is there really a more mysterious colour than black?

Red
- This corresponds with the element of fire
- It is the colour of passion or anger
- It symbolises joy and good fortune
- It is strictly forbidden at funerals as red is the colour of happiness in China

Green
- Green symbolises health, prosperity and harmony
- Although green can be associated with infidelity

White
- This corresponds with metal
- It represents purity
- It can be the colour of mourning


How white was used in a symbolic way in the film
I noticed towards the end when the main hero was recounting the true event of what occurred with Broken Sword and Snow the characters were all dressed in white. This figures as this is a sad scene filled with death, suicide and heartbreak, so I presume that it is used to represent the colour of mourning. In this scene Snow struggles to understand broken Swords reasoning for killing the king. because of this misunderstanding she challenged him to a duel and ends up fatally wounding him. It is not long before she takes her own life. As well as this, the hero decides not to assassinate the king and is killed by many arrows. He is dead too. I think the misunderstanding, murder, suicide and death are all aspects being mourned in this scene.

How green was used in a symbolic way
Green was used in a symbolic way during the scene where Broken Sword was confiding in the Hero about his past with Snow. The scene shows many happy times of them loving together in the Calligraphy school and studying the art of swordsmanship and calligraphy together. It contains details of their eventual plan to move away from where they are, to a place where no one fights with swords and they can just be together. It tells how they decide that they must kill the king in order to live peacefully. This part, they are dressed in green, I think to convey the harmony between the characters. There is a moment at the end of the scene when Broken Sword refuses to kill the emperor when Snow turns away from him. It is almost a moment of infidelity as if he is really betraying her trust by not going through with the plan, and he is. So the symbol of infidelity could very much be used in a symbolic way here.

How red is used in a symbolic way
Red in this film is associated with a scene riddled with emotional distress. The Hero is conveying to the king the story of Broken Sword and Snows strained relationship while studying with them at the calligraphy school. In the story one of Broken Swords students has sex with him. Snow catches them. Broken sword says he wanted her to see them leading to Snow being so angry that she kills him. There is a lot of strong emotion and many issues involving passion in this scene. The idea of fire and passion and betrayal is very relevant in this scene as it effects many of the characters and ultimately leads to their downfall.

Hero the Chinese film

Today in FTV we started watching Hero. it is quite different to many hollywood films in almost every way. The colours in this film are one contrasting thing, in hollywood film, colour can be used to convey a mood but in Chinese films it is very obvious, colours are bright and obvious and in your face in the scene to create a mood or emotion. As well as this the deaths are not very dramatic or graphic, they are very played down and unemotional or gory. In Hollywood films; deaths tend to be dwelled on for quite a while. The sex scene in this movie is also played down, you barely see anything graphic. You only see colour and a few subtle things. Again in Hollywood films, this does not happen. The music in battle scenes is more gentle sand less intense. It is almost like a dance rather than a battle. It is not at all the same in Hollywood films.

Amelie

For the last two days we have been watching Amelie in FTV. As we are doing World Cinema we are watching a French movie first. Most films nowadays come from Bollywood and ideas are often ripped off or stolen and made into Hollywood films which is mostly what we see. In these films one thing that I've noticed is the stories are often cliche and the characters are larger than life. In Amelie the film was very different to "normal" Hollywood films. The introduction to characters was done in quite a cute way. It was done by listing some things each character liked or disliked. It was quirky. As well as this the story was not some crazy far fetched thing. Sure it was slightly unrealistic, but it didn't focus on these larger than life or stereotypical characters, it focused on normal people living their everyday lives and trying to figure things out.

Audrey Tautou plays Amelie and she has been in 41 other films though she is best known for Amelie, The Davinci code, A Very long engagement and Pretty dirty things.

There are many interesting facts about the film

- The actual film was made in 2001 but the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet started collecting the memories and events that made up the story of Amelie in 1974

- Amelie is included in 101 movies to see before you die

- It was voted number 2 in Australia's favourite movie poll

- The selector at the Cannes film festival dubbed Amelie as uninteresting and it was therefore not shown at the festival

- The film was nominated for five academy awards

- It placed number two in empire magazines top 100 in world cinema