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False Protagonists A cinema theatre is a safe haven. When the lights go out the audience is asked to invest in a fabricated world, but their dedication to this fiction is repaid with a sense of certainty. The implied promise of a happy ending (in mainstream commercial cinema) is the best example of this certainty. Another unspoken rule is that the main character in the movie, the one the viewer identifies with most, will make it unscathed until at least the final scenes. But a handful of movies break with this model by using a decoy or false protagonist. They seem to follow the usual mold, following a central character for some length of time, only to kill off or abandon that character long before the movie is over. Sometimes for shock value, sometimes for narrative surprise. To increase the impact well-known actors are sometimes cast in these throwaway roles, making their early exit all the more surprising. This video essay by film student Bram Luyten takes a closer look at the false protagonist phenomenon. He uses the foursome of Psycho, Scream, The Hurt Locker and in particular The Place Beyond the Pines to fashion a short that can (almost) function as a stand-alone story. Please visit www.filmscalpel.com for detailed credits. This video was made solely for educational purposes and makes "fair use" of copyrighted material. Fair use is codified at Section 107 of the Copyright Act: Under the fair use doctrine, it is not an infringement to use the copyrighted works of another in some circumstances, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, or educational use.

By Filmscalpel

12 Silent Men, video essay by Filmscalpel

http://www.filmscalpel.com/12-silent-men

Scorsese Goes To Church Martin Scorsese’s fascination with religion started at a very early age. His Catholic upbringing in Little Italy is well documented. Young Marty was not just going through the motions: this former altar boy seriously contemplated a career in the clergy. In the end, he chose cinema over a soutane. But religion in general and Catholicism in particular stayed with him. His films are infused with Catholic iconography, his mise-en-scène is often informed by his religion’s rituals. The religious references in Scorsese’s movies are as omnipresent as the Biblical God, as is illustrated in this supercut of religious imagery. Please visit www.filmscalpel.com for detailed credits. This video was made solely for educational purposes and makes "fair use" of copyrighted material. Fair use is codified at Section 107 of the Copyright Act: Under the fair use doctrine, it is not an infringement to use the copyrighted works of another in some circumstances, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, or educational use.

Scorsese In The Red Just as silent movies were rarely silent, black-and-white films were not often simply black and white. In the silent era, the techniques of tinting and toning were commonly used to add a dash of color to the grayscale images. The tinting process involved bathing the black-and-white print in a colored dye, thus adding one extra color to the footage. (The white parts of the image took on that hue). Toning was a more complicated matter, employing one of several possible chemical processes to convert the black-and-white silver image to another (metallic) element to change the color. Both methods resulted in a colored print that broke the monotony of straightforward black-and-white footage. The use of these colors became codified: blue was used to indicate moonlit night scenes, orangish hues evoked the light of a lamp or a candle. The advent of color rendered these techniques obsolete. But Scorsese has resurrected tinting and toning, or the visual impact of these techniques, throughout his directing career. An impressive number of his films feature shots or entire scenes that are drenched in a single color. The color palette is reduced to one hue, resulting in startlingly monochrome visuals. But in Scorsese’s movies, not all colors are created equal: red is his color of choice. Please visit www.filmscalpel.com for more information and for detailed credits. This video was made solely for educational purposes and makes "fair use" of copyrighted material. Fair use is codified at Section 107 of the Copyright Act: Under the fair use doctrine, it is not an infringement to use the copyrighted works of another in some circumstances, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, or educational use.

Scorsese: Look In My Eyes Look at me looking. That could well be Martin Scorsese’s motto, or serve as a concise summary of his stylistic modus operandi. His in-your-face visual style steers the audience’s gaze and commands their eyes. No wonder then that extreme close-ups of eyes feature heavily in all of his work, from his feature films to the commercials he directed. In most movies, such a close-up would signal an upcoming point of view shot, or serve to stimulate the identification of the viewer with the character. But in Scorsese’s filmic universe, these close-ups more often have a different function. They are his way of reminding the audience of their own act of viewing, of their status as spectator. It’s an almost Brechtian device, reminding the viewer of the central conceit that is at the heart of the movie-going experience. A film is no first-hand experience but a heavily mediated one. Scorsese constantly reminds the viewers of their place in the pecking order: they are looking at Scorsese looking at a scene. And the director wastes no time in rubbing this under our noses: half a dozen of his movies start with a close-up of a character’s eyes (or have a comparable shot in the very first scene). These on-screen stares are mirror images of the audience’s gaze at the screen. And their excessively close framing reminds the audience who is holding up that mirror… Please visit www.filmscalpel.com for detailed credits. This video was made solely for educational purposes and makes "fair use" of copyrighted material. Fair use is codified at Section 107 of the Copyright Act: Under the fair use doctrine, it is not an infringement to use the copyrighted works of another in some circumstances, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, or educational use.