TDGE 124 Midterm Study Guide PDF

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1. RUN LOLA RUN a. Directors i. Tom Tykwer b. Year of Release i. 1998 c. Core Ideas (Related to Taboo & Transgression) i. Taboo moments in the films 1. Scene 1: when she crosses the line and knocks out the guard in the store (up to that point, she didn’t do anything taboo or criminal) 2. Scene 2: when she begins to rob her father’s bank 3. Scene 3: Nothing? d. Leading Actors i. Franka Potente (Lola) ii. Mortiz Bleibtreu (Manni) e. Other Notes from Class Lecture: i. 3 variations of story → needs to get $$$ to save boyfriend ii. 1st Variation 1. Goes to Dad (banker) who does not give money 2. Rob the grocery store a. Transgression occurred when she became an accessory to the crime of armed robbery 3. Lola gets shot at the end of scene a. Butterfly effect → random throwing of bag leads to officer shooting iii. 2nd Variation 1. Manni dies iv. 3rd Variation 1. Manni finds original money 2. Lola wins the money gambling 2. DELICATESSEN a. Directors i. Jeanne-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro b. Year of Release i. 1991 c. Core Ideas (Related to Taboo & Transgression) i. Central taboo = ironic joke that it is cannibalism ii. Body parts of the building 1. Tubing = intestinal tract 2. Piping = arteries d. Leading Actors i. Dominique Pinon (Louison) e. Other Notes from Class Lecture: i. Faces are all asymmetrical, quirky character ii. Dark color scheme iii. Paradox = balance between beauty & squalor 1. Sample of desire of attraction and repulsion 2. Casting = not handsome; weird looking iv. Main Guy = vestige of silent films 1. Homage to Charlie Chaplin, etc 2. Movie is retro by taking this actor and discretely alluding to great silent films

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that will never die Politically → WW2 in France there was the Resistance who fought the Nazis 1. In the movie the Underground is a noble fight for freedom and everyone’s right to be a human being 2. Element of democratic nobility → freedom to resist

3. EL TOPO a. Directors i. Sergio Leone b. Year of Release i. 1971 c. Core Ideas (Related to Taboo & Transgression) i. Violence, genocide, massacre, physical deformity, and beastiality 1. Genocide in the first scene 2. Violence throughout every one of El Topo’s defeat of “masters” d. Leading Actors i. Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo) e. Other Notes from Class Lecture: i. Fable about the myth of the mole (el topo) buried in the ground away from sunlight, spending all of its life digging up to see the light. It comes to the surface of the ground, sees the sun in the desert, and goes blind 1. Parallels the constant killing of the masters only to reappear in the second half of the film as a monk seeking to help a village but being unable to prevent massacre → spiritual reconciliation between father and son ii. Considered the great grand icon of the cult film midnight movie just when the term midnight movie and cult movie came to coinage. 4. FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL KILL a. Directors i. Russ Meyer b. Year of Release i. 1966 c. Core Ideas (Related to Taboo & Transgression) i. Created influential thread genre of movie making → trash cinema 1. Deliberately bad scripts and act usually with sexual provocations and no redemptive value d. Leading Actors i. Tura Santana (Varla) e. Other Notes from Class Lecture: i. Critiques on main street USA → church, religion, middle class 1. For the phoniness of the values ii. Would take non actors (go go dancers/weightlifters) → not well trained actors but who looked physically composing 1. Did not overwhelm them with directing notes 2. Filmed in 1-2 shots 3. Liked it being very rough and real iii. Movie has motifs/connections to 3 American classic TV shows: 1. Bananza a. Cartwright family = 3 sons → each had different characteristics

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i. Joe = youngest, most handsome ii. Hoss = built like wrestler iii. Adam = brains, oldest b. Honorable family with no women i. Every week the show would have a moral problem in the town and the family would come to the aid of anybody as good samaritans ii. Never succumbed to temptation c. Show represented American history of great west prairie i. Undeveloped lands that became cities were basically inspired by this family and their Ponderosa Ranch d. No vital women in this family → omission for the myth making e. Russ Meyers → satire is so formidable because it is 3 dangerous WOMEN outlaws who end up on a modern day Ponderosa Ranch i. Meet family that is not as virtuous as the tv show and the women are ruthless 2. Charlie’s Angels a. Angels = 3 women that are powerful, smart and secret agents who work for Charlie i. Morally good; working for the right team and always completing their missions b. Russ Meyers → movie came BEFORE Charlie’s Angels i. Anticipated Charlie’s Angels who he thinks stole from him 3. Route 66 a. 2 men in a sports car going east to west on Route 66 exploring the heartland of the US b. Russ Meyers → beginning of movie we meet a young man and girlfriend doing races in are near Palm Springs i. 3 women are out to challenge them on the race Movie is saying to the US that women are not delicate, submissive 1. They are more powerful and deadlier than men 2. If men do not wake up they will be destroyed like the young man killed in the race track Irony = not to be taken literally; should be funny 1. Fable which cannot be judged literally (LIKE EL TOPO) 2. Walking away from a literal analysis Camera angles 1. Non conventional ones used 2. Fetishicistic of focusing the camera on the objects more a. Shows how material objects have more value than human beings b. Depersonalization of character and the celebration of the environment

5. HEATHERS a. Directors i. Michael Lehmann b. Year of Release i. 1988 c. Core Ideas (Related to Taboo & Transgression)

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Other films glamorize suicide, this film wants to take it off the menu 1. Two students unintentionally making suicide popular ii. Veronica is alienated by the casual cruelty and selfish vanity of her small-town Ohio cliquemates that she wishes them dead d. Leading Actors i. Winona Ryder (Veronica Sawyer) ii. Christian Slater (Jason Dean) iii. Kim Walker (Alpha Heather) iv. Shannon Doherty (Heather Duke) e. New York Times film review: i. Some individuals were appalled at the production of this film -- signing agents and parents of teen actors/actresses f. Atlantic Monthly article: i. Adaption as a Broadway musical - more hopeful, optimistic tone by the end ii. Highlights emotional abuse -- how the lesser Heather stops bulimic tendencies when the alpha Heather dies iii. Highlights teen drinking and sexual assault g. Other Notes from Class Lecture: 6. BLUE VELVET a. Directors i. David Lynch b. Year of Release i. 1986 c. Core Ideas (Related to Taboo & Transgression) i. Points of going too far -- Jeffrey invading Vallens’ apartment; Jeffrey having sex with Vallens in his second visit to the apartment (when he is caught by Frank) ii. Incessant violence of Frank iii. Jeffrey becomes a cult films viewer when watching Dorothy sing after their night together: 1. Caught between the normal life but also wanting to take the risk of going too far with Dorothy and crossing the threshold 2. There is a threshold from which is not retrievable d. Leading Actors i. Isabella Rossellini (Dorothy Vallens) ii. Kyle MachLachlan (Jeffrey Beumont) iii. Dennis Hopper (Frank Booth) iv. Laura Dern (Sandy Williams) e. Other Notes from Class Lecture: i. Reagan is president. Represented in the 1980s normalcy of Main St. and old time values/patriotism. Only crime in inner cities like Detroit, Chicago, E. LA, Oakland. The urban core had the illness of society. The rural areas and suburbs were squeaky clean. 1. Represents the nostalgia going back to a white middle class Main St. where everyone is reliably trustworthy and safe. 2. Lynch wanted to go to this myth and subvert it by saying that the little, clean town is full of contamination, sin, hypocrisy. Nothing beautiful about the small town. ii. Theme of voyeurism – peeping tom in your closet looking through cracks in the door to see what’s going on 1. Jeffrey witnesses Frank’s behavior and solves the crime, losing his innocence. Can never go back to being a normal college student, he is in another threshold. 2.

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Coda – end of the movie where he almost has a spiritual bath and all of the muck is out of his system. The bird at the end of the movie as an act of nature will remind him that it’s all not a beautiful world. We are part of a chain and the chain is part of the movie. 7. UN CHIEN ADALOU a. Directors i. Luis Bunuel ii. (Also written by Salvador Dali) b. Year of Release i. 1929 c. Core Ideas (Related to Taboo & Transgression) i. Gratuity /senselessness of the violence of the woman’s eye ii. Quietly offending religion, male/female relations 1. Making fun of anyone who was normal/uptight/church like 2. A lot of pranks d. Leading Actors i. Luis Bunuel ii. Salvador Dali e. Other Notes from Class Lecture: i. 2 Rules in Making the Movie: 1. Every scene would not make sense from the next scene = non sequitur a. No logical sequence b. No rational forward motion 2. Each used one disturbing dream a. Bunuel = dreamt he saw the moon and cloud going by like a knife and it seemed to be a human eye getting cut by a razor b. Salvador Dali = severed hand / hand that had ants on it going out of control ii. One of the most influential movies ever made iii. Bunuel wanted to kill Dali’s wife 1. Dali didn’t prevent him from acting out 2. He never killed her though iv. Bunuel had some very strange thoughts and kept them in check with all his movies 8. ROAD WARRIOR a. Directors i. George Miller b. Year of Release i. 1981 c. Core Ideas (Related to Taboo & Transgression) i. Post world war society that is post-apocalyptic and resembling a destroyed civilization. Getting gas is difficult and killing is simply pleasurable ii. Max is a character that has lost a great deal. Max has a dog by his side. Has an issue with gasoline and Pappagallo is a tribal leader that allows him to drive a truck with gas. Feral Kid possibly resembles his son. Had to do some sort of mission that involved killing and ended up being tricked because the truck had no gasoline. iii. In another generation to come, Feral Kid becomes narrator and a tribe leader. We lose the plot with Max. iv. “The mystique that propels Max into cult status has much to do with the distressed motorcycle leathers that comprise his outfitting and the unsentimental destiny that faces Max at each plot point.

1. Certainly, Max is more than a fashion statement and yet his black wardrobe is in keeping with his pessimistic, outsider stature. 2. His evil counterpart in the film, Wex, also sports an outstanding leather costume with feathers exposing more skin than Max and, with each sequence, Wez’s appearance takes on an overture of sexual violence and references the trendiness of nihilistic aggressive dress in punk subculture in major cities such as London, NY, and Berlin” d. Leading Actors i. Mel Gibson (Mad Max) 9. Intro Chapter a. Two branches of cult films i. One adores, worships, and scrutinizes our leading actors, performers, and celebrities such as Judy Garland, Humphrey Bogart, the Marx Brothers, Bruce Lee, the Beatles, Pee Wee Herman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Madonna, etc. ii. The alternative branch of cult focuses on the very nature of strange and unusual tales, fantasy films, and enormously cheap, shoddy films that would often appear in drive-in theatres across America 1. Most explore knowingly or inadvertently powerful social taboos. b. Taboo - social codes and anthropological phobias 10. Concluding Chapter a. Cult attraction characterizes a variation of modern day anthropology b. Technologies advances have changed cult film culture, practically halting it with no-drug/nosmoking policies....