Visual Film Board

FILMS:

American Beauty (1999)- Directed by Sam Mendes
Ballet Mecanique (1923)- Directed by Dudley Murphy and Fernand Leger
Black Narcissus (1946)- Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Blue Velvet (1986)- Directed by David Lyhch
Fantasia (1940)- Walt Disney, Directed by Samuel Armstrong, James Algar, Bill Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Ben Sharpsteen, David D. Hand, Hamilton Luske, Jim Handley, Ford Beebe, T. Hee, Norman Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson
Lost Highway (1997)- Directed by David Lynch
Metropolis (1927)- Directed by Fritz Lang
Mulholland Drive (2001)- Directed by David Lynch
Santa Sangre (1989)- Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Suspiria (1977)- Directed by Dario Argento
The Holy Mountain (1973)- Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky
The Red Shoes (1948)- Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
The Shining (1980)- Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Vertigo (1958)- Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

VERTIGO (1954)- ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Vertigo is the movie that illustrates just how far a man’s love can become an obsession as well as how far a woman can become the mere image of a flame than the actual flame itself. Alfred Hitchcock himself is the master of mystery and suspense and this film plays with your intelligence from beginning to the end. From the very end of the film’s second act, we a Some say Kim Novak plays two characters, the elusive, startling beautiful Madeline Elsner, who by mere displeasurable fate goes mad at 26, and Judy Barstow, the tawdry cheap paramor look-alike who is forced to live in the shadow of the unknown wife. I love to build up mysteries in which are taken to levels of psychological levels we never thought we would experience. Similar to my film, Vertigo plays with the notion of duality and what you can see with the naked eye is not always what is seen subconsciously. To John, he perceived such a perversion of a love that he never felt in his entire life that when he indeed fell for Madeline on the guise of being her husband’s private eye, he fell in love with the illusion of a damsel in distress, not realizing he was being conned into a implausibly imperfect murder. Duality is very important in my film as Patrick also falls in love with the image he creates and forces his wife to adapt and act out. She is a living museum piece out on display. The woman he loves is a conception he came up with in his dreams and only when she dresses up as his fantasies of whoever he wants her to be for that moment. She cannot do it any longer. She cannot be the little toy to his heart. In both films, I am entranced in playing like like symbiotic parasites to each others perversions of who they are.

BALLET MECANIQUE (1924)- FERNAND LEGER, DUDLEY MURPHY

At the height of the Cubist-Dadaist movement during the Roaring 20’s, Leger filmed a geometrically provoking tale that hypnotizing one into a strange and wonderful world unlike any other. It is one of the most harrowing early masterpieces in film and with that, I was inspired by this because I feel like both films have a sense of geometrical deliciousness that cannot be hidden but exposed in a delightfully artful way. It is experimental and visually stimulating and with Obscura, we explore the characters’ world through their eyes. Aggressively constructed through George Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique score, the movie is a dance between the bright optimism of life itself outside the confines of technology and the mechanical emotions that parlay with our delay for humanity and love. This, coupled with the film’s pulsating energetic score, I have been inspired to incorporate the kaleidoscope effect to my film alongside with duality of mechanic and human love in all of us.

METROPOLIS (1927) – FRITZ LANG

I had the honor of watching Metropolis in my film class and I loved every minute of it. I had recently fallen in love with surrealism and this film perfectly exemplified what made surrealism beautiful. I loved the influence of freeing the masses from a dictatorship. Slavery of mankind is a reoccurring theme I am interested in. The iconic visuals and the brilliant acting inspired me to create worlds in my film where the hardships are not personal but grave to a fleet. I have always had an interest in the oppression of mankind. As I got older, I researched the events that led up to the French and American Revolutions. I realized all through mankind we have been plagued with oppression. We all have been bullied and degraded. During the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre, a Jacobian Republican, believed humans were fundamentally good and therefore they must speak their minds in order to advance for the well being of a nation. The Incorruptible, as he was dubbed, believed he and his people were being unjustly oppressed by the bourgeoisie. He led the revolution and ordered the executions of many government officials including the reigning monarchs, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. His tyrannical Reign of Terror led him to his demise. People hate to be fooled and Robespierre’s grasp for power turned his people against him. Robespierre turned the country of France into a Socialist regime. Away with the monarchy, he panned out the country into a state of equilibrium. Everyone was going to be treated as vagabonds while he and his men were going to rule with the proverbial iron fist. His violent revolution ended with his head slice on the guillotine. During the American Revolution, the Americans wanted to disassociate the country from Great Britain. It began as a social and political protest against oligarchies, common in Europe. The fight for freedom ultimately led us to declare ourselves independent. Unlike France in their violent revolution against oppression, America became an empire based of the republican principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Metropolis was a German expressionist film by Fritz Lang. Communism was spreading across Europe. Germany was still reeling over its loss in World War I. America decided Germany’s punishment was to pay all of the war’s debt. Germany crumpled in a national bankruptcy. What influenced me about Metropolis was the way they portrayed the evils of Communism. It described Communism as a crippling villain of humanity. I loved how it portrayed a mad world where its villains convinced its workers they must be under their thumbs. We live in an era where our democracy is being compromised by our government officials. We are a capitalist government collapsing into fascist follies through our system. The heart of this film is the triumph of democracy and the defeat of socialism. I’m influenced by the fight of freedom as I believe that in order for us to overthrow our oppressors, our revolt must have a strategy, swift, and most of all with merit. Our democracy relies on the purity of our ideals. We came to this world wanting to be free just like everybody else and our freedom should not be compromised.

VERTIGO (1958)- ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Vertigo is the movie that illustrates just how far a man’s love can become an obsession as well as how far a woman can become the mere image of a flame than the actual flame itself. Alfred Hitchcock himself is the master of mystery and suspense and this film plays with your intelligence from beginning to the end. From the very end of the film’s second act, we a Some say Kim Novak plays two characters, the elusive, startling beautiful Madeline Elsner, who by mere fate, goes mad at 26, and Judy Barstow, the tawdry cheap paramour look-alike who is forced to live in the shadow of the unknown wife. I love to build up mysteries in which are taken to levels of psychological levels we never thought we would experience. Similar to my film, Vertigo plays with the notion of duality and what you can see with the naked eye is not always what is seen subconsciously. To John, he perceived such a perversion of a love that he never felt in his entire life that when he indeed fell for Madeline on the guise of being her husband’s private eye, he fell in love with the illusion of a damsel in distress, not realizing he was being conned into a implausibly imperfect murder. Duality is very important in my film as Patrick also falls in love with the image he creates and forces his wife to adapt and act out. She is a living museum piece out on display. The woman he loves is a conception he came up with in his dreams and only when she dresses up as his fantasies of whoever he wants her to be for that moment. She cannot do it any longer. She cannot be the little toy to his heart. In both films, I am entranced in playing like like symbiotic parasites to each others perversions of who they are.

REFERENCE MOVIE TRAILERS:

AMERICAN BEAUTY: (1999)

BALLET MECANIQUE: (1923)

BLACK NARCISSUS: (1946)

BLUE VELVET: (1986)

FANTASIA: (1940)

LOST HIGHWAY (1997)

METROPOLIS: (1927)

MULHOLLAND DRIVE: (2001)

SANTA SANGRE: (1986)

SUSPIRIA: (1977)

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN: (1973)

THE RED SHOES: (1948)

THE SHINING: (1980)

VERTIGO: (1955)

MUSIC VIDEO REFERENCES THAT HAVE INSPIRED THE AESTHETIC LOOK, COLOR, AND PERSONALITY OF OBSCURA:

MADONNA- VOGUE (DIRECTED DAVID FINCHER)

When I was a little girl, there was only one person I wanted to emulate. Madonna was that person. She was my inspiration. I was convinced she was the most original, most unique human being in the world. Till this day I still believed she is. When I saw Vogue for the first time, I was easily drawn to the beauty of the old black and white cinema. I loved the Old Hollywood look. Everyone was in vogue in the time. The men were debonair and the women were elegant. Madonna named dropped some of the most alluring stars ever to grace the planet, and some of these people have influenced me in how I write characters and how I write. I love Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth, Marlon Brando, and James Dean. I loved how the classic black and white color gave Vogue a 1940’s raunchy sophistication, the kind that would make Gilda blush. I love the old movie stars. They were charismatic and daring. Their beauty was otherworldly. I was always fascinated by Art Deco. The Great Gatsby, my favorite book, ushered in the Art Deco style with the Jazz Era. Madonna recreated that era when she used Art Deco portraits by the great Tamara de Lempicka. I felt like I was watching Blue Woman with a Guitar come to life. Even in black and white, the vibrant sets popped out. Vogue means fashion and the art of hand motion dance and posture was what elevated this video. My influence behind this video was the dedication to research in this video. Madonna made an authentic piece of art that felt modern in 1990 and refreshingly vintage just like the movie stars of the 1940’s and 50’s. I have always been influenced by Old Hollywood actors. I model my acting towards that era. I learned my craft just from watching Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce, Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Vivian Leigh in Gone With the Wind. I have always been drawn to the body. I feel like the body should be the principal impact of the scene. The scene needs to move an audience not by the way the actor speaks but the way the actor moves his body. Physical actors like Burt Lancaster, Charlie Chaplin, Gene Kelly, and Marlon Brando gave emphasis on their bodies when they were on screen. Whether they were dancing with Cyd Cherisse in Singin in the Rain or sliding down the podium in Elmer Gantry, you felt drawn to the character because of the contours of the actor’s body. If drawings need life to breath and move, then the silent body of actor on film needs to follow the same principal. Vogue introduced use to the beauty of the body. For almost five minutes, the perfect posture and intricate hand gestures where the focus of art; it was like watching an Old Hollywood salute to the art of motion. Vogue needs to return to the art of film making.

MADONNA- FROZEN (DIRECTED BY CHRIS CUNNINGHAM)

If Poe wrote the tale of Lenore, then Madonna’s anecdote was to beguile us like the raven and quote “Nevermore.” Madonna’s Frozen was a depiction of catharsis and spiritual rebirth. I was influenced by the philosophical Eastern themes to the video. I loved the bluish monochromatic coloring of the video. That tone added to the mystery of a bewitching goddess shape shifting through the desert as she puts a spell on us. I went to a private Christian school were my views on religion and God were not popular. I do not believe we should categorize our beliefs in God. I do not believe in a denomination. I love the idea of fulfilling our destinies and living different passages in time to complete our mission. I am influenced by the Eastern philosophies of meditation and nirvana. I am influenced by the complexities of our internal struggles in relationships. You want to know how it feels to belong and not feel ostracized for believing the things you do. I always believed that God created us to think for ourselves, to find our own happiness. He’s the proud Father that you ask for guidance and helps you when you are frozen. In Frozen, I loved the imagery of Madonna beguiling us like a witch transforming herself into a watch dog and a pack of crows. I love the cinematic beauty of a woman living in a desolate desert watching the moon never set. I am influenced by the video’s dark tranquility to unmask its viewers’ inhibitions and vulnerabilities. I love when an audience can be lucid and comfortable in their own skin even if they were frozen at touch.

MADONNA- LIKE A PRAYER (DIRECTED BY MARY LAMBERT)

What influences me about Madonna is her ability to portray powerful women. In modern times, it is rare to see a strong, fearless woman on the television and movie screens. For every Sue Sylvester character, we get a Judy Clever. Women seem to be disposable on film. The roles for a strong female lead are reduced to the girlfriend or wife in a Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese film. Madonna was the first of her kind to prove to the world, she is genetically a woman but she is just as powerful, spiritually and artistically, as a man. As I’ve mentioned in other paragraphs, I am highly influenced by history and principal historical figures such as Marie Antoinette, Maximilian Robespierre, and Adolf Hitler. I love the idea that Like a Prayer feels like a piece on religious persecution and the torment of being attacked for what love and believe in. I love the video depiction of religion. It made realize how we must fight for the things that make us happy. I loved the ingenious idea of having Madonna declare her religious experience of equality in the religious and emotional specter in the background of burning crosses. Now that I’m older, whenever I see the burning crosses in this video, I thinking about the about the persecuted Christians killed by Nero. Nero would burn the crosses the hung the Christians on them. I also thought of Ku Klux Klan. During the Civil Rights movements, they burned Christian symbols to represent White Power. Madonna’s depiction of a black Jesus saving us all from a disembodied society as she stands in front of a sea of burning crosses is a symbol of hope that in a time of prejudices and calamity, we can be strong and claim victory against our unseen enemy. I love to give my characters a fighting chance to succeed. I treat my characters in my films like human beings. To me, all my characters were once real life people. Everyone has a story to tell, their fight to stay alive makes it all worthwhile.

REM- LOSING MY RELIGION (DIRECTED BY TARSEM SINGH)

I wholeheartedly believe that the best form of sweeping epics come from the sublimely simple art pieces. I am influenced by Tarsem Singh use of Eastern mystical icons to portray a man’s downward spiral. I love how the video portrays different views on the pain of unrequited love. Unrequited love in the wrong mind can become a sickening obsession which is what makes us lose our religion. I am inspired by art and paintings. My muses for film making lean towards being mesmerized by Victorian-Impressionistic, Surrealistic, Cubistic, Art Deco, and Expressionistic art. I am influenced by the pathos colored inside the figures. For example, in my favorite painting, Guernica by Pablo Picasso, my favorite subject in that painting was the portrait of a grieving mother as she carries her dead baby. Above her, with an eerie stare, a bull breaks the fourth wall. His painted eyes stare at us. I am easily influenced by the beauty of other people’s works. When I see a piece, my mind creates a moving picture for them. Losing my Religion’s music video did that. Singh was inspired by different Eastern religious figures such as St. Sebastian, a Christian martyr persecuted by Emperor Diocletian, Hindu deities, and Caravaggio paintings. I love moving art and I am influenced by the direction in Losing My Religion as they recreated the paintings in a series of tableaux vivants. I am influenced by space and dim light. I love for the scene to be intimate and intense. When you see my works, I hate for the scene to feel crowded. When I’m making my films, I have claustrophobia. My characters are claustrophobic. They fill up the scene with their bodies. I love to create figurative dancers and as the rhythm of the scene progresses you see them at their primal instincts. Michael Stipe from R.E.M. taught me this lesson when I saw this video as a child. When he sang the lyrics, “That’s me in the corner/That’s me in the spotlight/Losing my religion,” I saw how insanity can become an imprisonment and a freedom chaser. With so much space for yourself and with no there to share it with, you start excusing your misfortunes by displaying vulnerability to anyone who seems to care. You wear your heart on your sleeve and your emotions are lying on the dance floor.

NINE INCH NAILS- CLOSER (DIRECTED BY MARK ROMANEK)

I am drawn to imperfections. As human beings, what make us human are our flaws. I have a kinship with the circus and its freakish minions. I love studying the Elephant Man and Schlitzie and the abnormal conditions. I have always been fascinated with the circus life. There is certain eroticism when it comes to the circus. I love the raunchy combination of underground burlesque shows with a touch of vaudeville. I love watching minions of the dark perform. Creatures such as the bearded lady, the Siamese twins, the contortionists, the bird lady, and much more fascinate me. Nine Inch Nails’ Closer brought my animalistic fascination for that world. I love the crisp sepia tone of this video. I’m influenced by the modern gothic underworld. I love Joel Peter Wikin’s photography. They are fascinating to see such looked down upon creatures at their happiness I identify with these human beings more than I can identify with the text people ordinary people. I consider myself a freak and I love it. I love the fact that I can contort my body to do things most people cannot do. That helps me write more freely. When I see this video, I am influenced by Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. She created a world where man declared himself God and the consequences of his pride led to his monstrosity in form of a giant brute. I love the idea that people who create themselves as demigods are nothing more than just puppets waiting to be distorted, experimented on, and crucified. Prideful men are just the missing links to the devolution of man. To our handlers, we are just mechanical beasts pulled and tugged whenever they please. I love the idea of writing characters the devolving before our eyes. The deterioration of the human condition is much more fascinating to see then the pure joy of an untouched soul. I love seeing happiness, but in my films, in order for them to reach their optimum level of joy, I need them to fall hard. In reality, we all struggle before we are happy and sometimes, happiness never comes. I love the lyrics, “You bring me closer to God.” It strikes accord with me because we always strive for perfection. We have been told it is the normal thing to do. As a society, we have been programmed to believe we should abide by the mandates of what other people think of us. That reminds of the 1960’s when the government would institutionalize anyone who was different; anybody who felt conformity was fascistic was imprisoned for their beliefs and lobotomized to keep their mouths shut. I think of the Beat Generation: Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac who fought for freedom of expression and condemnation of conformity. Freaks are happier than society’s normal people. We are free to do whatever we please. Our mistakes might be public but with much gusto, we take it in stride. We should not want to be God. His job is terrible anyway. We should be happy with being the freaks we were meant to be. Freaks create the art that ordinary people swoon over.

PEARL JAM- JEREMY ( DIRECTED BY MARK PELLINGTON)

When I was young child, MTV was the greatest channel of all time in my eyes. I thought to myself, “I get to watch an entire channel full of moving art every day and every hour!” I saw many music videos when I was a little girl but the one video I remember declaring that I would become a filmmaker was Pearl Jam’s Jeremy video. I was captivated by the grunge feel of this video. I loved how somber the video was. I remember being enthralled with Eddie Vedder’s enigmatic voice and his eyes burned through the celluloid. When he’s singing, you can feel the savage pain in his heart. He’s a ranting mad man. I will never forget that look in his eyes. He does not directly look into the camera. Instead, it was as if he was looking at someone off camera. He had vengeful eyes. He had eyes that hated the world for being so cruel to him. I loved the last part of the video where Jeremy kills himself in front of his classmates. He was callous. Jeremy was already dead inside. The images of pain, sorrow, and indifference juxtaposed with young actor watching his life crumple in the fire made me want to write about real characters who fought for life in the pursuit of love. Jeremy never lived because he was never loved. Vedder’s pain as he sang this song came from a honest man, a man who cared for Jeremy. I’m in love with Vedder’s voice and till this day I cannot write and make films without music and it is because music and films coexist. The last shot was ambiguous. At first glance, it seems as if Jeremy killed everyone in the room but when you realize the impact of the freeze motion, you see it was just a momentary frozen shockwave. Jeremy was provocative and its message was clear. Sometimes the pain of living a lie is just too real to bear. I researched Jeremy Wade Delle, the young 15 year old that was the subject of this song. On January 8, 1991, Jeremy walked inside his English class and took his own life. I heard that Jeremy was a sweet child who was in constant turmoil. Very little is known of this boy. His death and the circumstances that led to his death is a mystery. This video influenced me because it showed me the first images of pain. I was always fascinated with deeply disturbed characters

MUSIC VIDEOS: