Reading: Week 4 Flashcards
Top Hat response
4 Oscar Noms that year
Astaire’s preferred filming style
He believed every dance number should be filmed, as nearly as possible, in one unbroken take, always showing the full figures of the dancers from head to toes.
Rogers characters
Rogers survived her ludicrous plots by never quite seeming to believe them. She was sad, but not too sad; angry, but as an act, not an emotion.
chemistry b/w Rogers & Astaire
chemistry between Fred and Ginger was not simply erotic, but intellectual and physical:
songs written by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim for the original Broadway production of West Side Story were
retained for the film version (w/ some alterations for censors)
WSS original choreography of
Jerome Robbins
WSS response
West Side Story won an almost-record ten Oscars
It came about because Jerome Robbins, reading the screenplay, asked, “What are they dancing about?”
The writer Laurents agreed: “You couldn’t have a story about murder, violence, prejudice, attempted rape, and do it in a traditional musical style.” So he outlined the prologue, without dialogue, allowing Robbins to establish the street gangs, show their pecking order, celebrate their swagger in the street, demonstrate their physical grace, and establish their hostility
all in a _________________
all in a ballet scored by Bernstein with music, finger-snapping and anger.
main theme of Macbeth—
the destruction wrought when ambition goes unchecked by moral constraints
. Macbeth is a courageous Scottish general who is not naturally inclined to commit evil deeds, yet he deeply desires power and advancement. He kills Duncan against his better judgment and afterward stews in guilt and paranoia
****
plot of macbeth
In each case, ambition—helped, of course, by the malign prophecies of the witches—is what drives the couple to ever more terrible atrocities. The problem, the play suggests, is that once one decides to use violence to further one’s quest for power, it is difficult to stop.
*****
n//a
end of throne of blood
death by multiple arrows, archers fired real arrows at Mifune
weaving woman with flowing white hair portends that
both men will become tremendously successful
___________ draws influences from Japanese art, medieval army culture, and Elizabethan theater
Throne of Blood
The humorous or sympathetic Mifune seen in other Kurosawa films is nowhere to be found here; instead we get a grimacing mad dog, intent on climbing up the feudal ladder with an ever-increasing amount of blood on his hands
*******
n/a
