Topic 5

   In this topic we learned about how the editing of a movie can affect what we see on screen. We also learned about character identity along with the identity of New York City as a character itself. In the three movies that we watched, NYC played a big role in showing how big and different it can appear based on the type of movie you’re watching. 

  In Do the Right Thing, we see New York as a neighborhood separated by race. In Mean Streets we see it as a shady neighborhood where mobsters steal and get into fights and shootouts. In Annie hall we see it as a huge populated city where Everything around Alvy seems normal but he feels out of place. In these movies we also see the lives of people with different ethnic backgrounds and religions. With the characters in the movies, we can see how race or religion is important. 

  Do the right thing was a in your face movie that was showing you the reality that people are living with all over. It’s not a movie that picks sides or makes it easy to pick a side. I think the reason for this is that Spike Lee didn’t want the audience to pick a side but to see that what’s happening in the world shouldn’t be happening at all. I think he was saying that hate is wrong. That hate is what leads to this happening on both sides and that it will never end if we feel any hate towards each other. 

  Each angle and shot that we see on screen is on purpose. Every noise, every instrument or music. When directors shoot movies, the are getting the shot of the movie but the real action comes with the editing where they use more than words to tell the story. If you see a long shot of someone walking down the street with no noise, you are wondering what to feel, so you rely on seeing what happens with your eyes. If you see that same shot but with sad, or uplifting music, you know what your supposed to be feeling in moment. Another example would be a chase scene. In the initial shot, you will see one person running from someone else in silence. If you add fast paced intense music, it will make the final cut more engaging with the viewer. 

  The three movies we watched all differed greatly in genre and feel. They all take place in the same city, yet feel like they are in completely different parts of the country. The editing styles that the directors chose is what made the movies feel the way they did. The color and brightness in Do the right thing is deliberate and it changes through the movie. In Mean streets it looked like a gritty, underground mob movie. This was perfect with what they were going for with basically bottom feeders running through the streets and being low level mob guys with no big goals. In Annie hall you get more shots of NYC as a whole and scenes by the water showing us how huge it the city they live in is. I think this was also done deliberately to emphasize how out of place and alone unhappy Alvy felt in a world of people around him living normally. 

  Something I took away from this topic and the movies is that these directors used the same setting. They showed it in different lights and showed how each of the main characters in the movies were shaped around where they lived and what was going on where they lived.