Ben Ellis Film

Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced stage play 'Everybody Comes to Rick's'. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate who must choose between his love for a woman and helping her and her husband, a Czech Resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis. In films of this period usually the director wouldn't have had much creative responsibility. In Casablanca the director, Michael Curtiz, had a massive amount of creative responsibility and probably would've got his creative vision across to the rest of the crew. Much like in the production of movies now, producers and cinematographers would've held a bit of creative responsibilities durin...

The scene I will be analysing from Casablanca is the last scene in the movie. It contains most of the characters that are in the movie. It has a very classic film noir style to it. It is very dark and set in the fog. This is classic film noir style. There is a clear separation in characters by the use of costume. The so called 'good guys' tend to have lighter costumes such as Lisa and Lazlo. They are the stereotypical heroes. Although rick never does anything wrong or criminal he has a darker ,but in the middle, outfit which shows that he isn't the definite hero and is still a bit dark and mysterious. Another classic film noir trope that this specific scene in Casablanca abides to is the shadows. In film noir rather than finding creative ways to light a scene they find creative ways to cast shadows and darkness. In this scene there is a clear casting of shadows by the characters' hats. The shadows always cover at least half a characters face. This adds a sens...

Bowling for columbine is a political documentary exploring the circumstances of gun law that lead up to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. In his trade mark provocative fashion, Michael Moore accosts Kmart corporate employees and pleads with them to stop selling bullets, investigate why Canada doesn't have the same excessive gun violence and questions actor Charlton Heston on his support of the NRA, national rifle association. Bowling for columbine is an extremely low budget production with usually only consisting of about 5 crew members. Although this documentary isn't supposed to be filmed beautifully, the message the director , Michael Moore, wants to get across does. The point he tries to make throughout the documentary is about how absurd and ridiculous gun laws in America are. You can buy hundreds of bullets for a little over $1 in the USA. He also explores many of the events that lead up to the infamous high school shooting of columbine and h...

Last Thursday we had the honour of going to the BFI Film Festival to watch a private screening of the film 'Breathe', Robin Cavendish , who after being given only three months to live after being paralysed from the neck down by  polio  at age 28, becomes a pioneering advocate for the disabled. He and his devoted wife, Diana, travel the world with the hopes of transforming the lives of others like him .  The film , aside from having a great and inspiring story behind it, was filmed brilliantly and there were many nice shot types. There was great examples of cinematography through out the movie and even in the opening shot.  After we watched the film Jonathon Cavendish, the son of the main protagonist, had a Q&A session in which he answered some questions about his dad and the production of the film. This was a really enjoyable session and it really made me appreciate the film as I now know of how the rest of the family saw Robin.    ...

Soft is a short film directed by Simon Ellis, in which  a father rediscovers his fear of confrontation at the worst possible time. It starts off with his son being bullied and beat up. This then goes on for the father to get home and go out and get beat up by the same people who did it to his son. It deals with the themes of bullying, isolation and negligence. Wasp, directed by  Andrea Arnold  , is about  Zoë  who  is a single mother who lives with her four children in Dartford. She is poor and can't afford to buy food. One day her ex-boyfriend drives by and asks her to go on a date with him. Scared that he doesn't want to go out with her, she lies and tells him that she is just babysitting the kids. Similarly to Soft, Wasp deals with the themes of negligence and isolation but it also deals with themes of poverty and shame.   The opening scene in ‘soft’ appears to be filmed on a phone and shows a group of people chasing down a school kid. Th...