'Momento' Opening.

Conventions:

Immediately, there is a presentation of death and blood. Also, the timeline appears to be going backwards which creates several enigmas.

Camera:

There are several extreme close ups and close ups, which creates a certain hazy type of focus. It's unsettling.

Editing:

The first scene is edited to go backwards, so the photo appears to be 'undeveloping'. It is also in black and white in some party, creating a muted and dark atmosphere.

Sound:

The non-diagetic music is somber and melancholy. Sound echos at several places too.

Mise-en-scene:

Black and white scenes, adding a monochromic mystery.

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No Country for Old Men

No Country For Old Men is a an adaptation by Joel Cohen and Ethan Cohen, of a novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy.

No Country for Old Men is a great movie with a slow plot and a great cast and a horrible ending. For a reference to all the men in the house, the ending is exactly like the Sopranoes (unresolved to a heinous degree), and unfortunately for both, that’s not a spoiler. The film starts off with hunter Lewelyn Moss (Goonies’ Josh Brolin), discovering the site of a herion deal gone wrong deep in the Texas sand dunes deep off the beaten path. He snatches the satchel loaded with two million dollars, and soon finds himself being chased by a maniac with a compressed air cattle gun, Anton Chigurh (an amazing Javier Bardem), and a local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). 

Josh Brolin stars as the redneck Moss, a good old country boy who still stays at the crappiest hotels despite having millions in cash on his lap. Brolin was unemotional yet endearing, a must for such a simplistic character. But the main force behind the film was Javier Bardem as the menacing, sociopathic, darkly dressed Chigurh, a role that should be ranked alongside the all time villains of cinema history. 

With a horrifying stare and odd accent, Chigurh becomes the personification of a constant fear, an pursuer that can never be stopped. Furthermore the air cattle gun is decidedly awesome, and probably the greatest weapon used by a single antagonist in a film. 

The film opens with a voice over from the Sheriff, reciting this monologue:

"I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time; him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough'd never carried one; that's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about the oldtimers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the oldtimers. Can't help but wonder how they would have operated these times. There was this boy I sent to the 'lectric chair at Huntsville Hill here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killt a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. "Be there in about fifteen minutes". I don't know what to make of that. I sure don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "Okay, I'll be part of this world.""

The majority of this scene involved non-diagetic sound, aside from the occasional cricket chirp, car door shutting, and driving. The voice over and its content secures the theme of the film as well as initially grasping the interest of the audience: 'who is the man getting into the car? Why is there someone in as sheriffs uniform? What's in that metal canister? Who's speaking and why?' being questions that the audience may initially feel inclined to ponder over.

While other thrillers usually begin with introducing the protagonist, possibly sitting in some boring nondescript bar, a perfect victim for fate to attack with the events that a Thriller movie entail, this movie introduces the antagonist first (and his awesome choice of weapon).

Overall I enjoyed this movie, if we just forget the horrifically handled ending even existed, the movie was wonderful.

Preliminary Task Evaluation.

On the whole I am reasonably happy with how my Preliminary task turned out.

It featured many of the required elements, such as two examples of Continuity Filming, no breaking of the 180 degree rule during conversation, it was edited to my satisfaction also.

The only thing that I can think of that could constitute improvement would be that it was slightly short, it could have been slightly longer, however, considering this, it does not seem rushed and the shortness of it seemed to work best, even though it would have been written to be a bit longer.

Duck Amuck.

Duck Amuck was a cartoon by Chuck Jones, released in 1953, and is decidedly my favourite piece of cartoon television, ever. It features Daffy Duck. I'm featuring it in my blog, because it breaks every single rule that this cartoon previously ran on.

Imagine in Road Runner: Wile E. Coyote catches the Road Runner, eats him, he stops using Acme poducts, he is now in Central London, talking to everyone in a civilized manner. This breaks every rule of Roadrunner right? Well, Duck Amuck is the 'Merrie Melodies' equivalent.

Duck Amuck is an incredibly postmodern Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones in 1953, in which Daffy Duck finds himself tormented by a sadistic animator. Seen as a large pencil or paintbrush coming into frame to make alterations, the animator screws around with the backgrounds, erases Daffy, paints him absurd colors, replaces his voice with random sound effects, redraws him as a bizarre four-legged creature, and so forth.

The short was an audacious experiment — which has since come to be regarded as one of the all-time great cartoon shorts

It illustrates a good dose of Modern deconstruction finding its way into the industrial cartoon industry. Daffy is faced with zero narrative cohesiveness, noises are linked with totally illogical images, the world is turned upside down. The cartoonist exposes the fragility of storytelling, of one’s own place in narrative cinema.

It does not so much break the fourth wall, as it does shatter it with a monumentally large bulldozer.

Why do I like it?

The whole premise of this episode is the proof of being able to deconstruct a character with there still being an identity to the said character. Daffy ends up in various places and in numerous situations where his body, face, or voice are either nonexistent or modified completely. All of that went against his will. By the end of the episode we leave him in that sort of nightmarish place where everything can be almost instantaneously changed to work against his best interest. He’s stuck in that reality for an undetermined amount of time, forever at risk of ending up hitting bombs with hammers inadvertently and becoming weird flower monster things and having black curtains appear to basically snuff out his life:

 It lead me to fear a capricious, omniscient, and omnipotent being, one with so much power, and it occurred to me that this cartoon has expressed that if such a power exists, it may not necessarily be good, but malevolent. Although, coinciding with the problem of evil, maybe the cartoon’s not far off the mark from human existence; the inexplicable, bad things that happen at inconvenient times could very well be part of the good fun someone— or something— else is having. Plus, for the fact that Daffy sometimes was on board for things presented to him, or at least willing to roll with what he had to work with, but eventually grew to resent them all, shows that good can come from bad and vice-versa.

Did a cartoon from the ’50s make me ask myself if there could possibly be a god?

Yes.

According to director Chuck Jones, this film demonstrated for the first time that animation can create characters with a recognizable personality, independent of their appearance, milieu, or voice. Although in the end, the animator is revealed to be Daffy’s rival Bugs Bunny, who famously declares “Ain’t I a stinker?”, according to Jones the ending is just for comedic value: Jones is speaking to the audience directly, asking “Who is Daffy Duck anyway? Would you recognize him if I did this to him? What if he didn’t live in the woods? Didn’t live anywhere? What if he had no voice? No face? What if he wasn’t even a duck anymore?” In all cases, it is obvious that Daffy is still Daffy; not all cartoon characters can claim such distinctive personality.

It's probably the only example in cartoon history that portrays stripping back what makes a character fundamentally them, and replacing them with crude caricatures, yet still being able to see that a character is inherently them.

I enjoy the deeper meaning of this particular piece of animation.

Cartoon Rules + Road Runner Rules applied to a 'live-action' show?

I'd like to make something clear before I start this blog post;

I love cartoons. I love them an inexplicable amount. They instil a certain type of nostalgia within me, and I can clearly remember every single episode of Loony Tunes, Sailor Moon, Dexter's Lab etc etc...

So forgive if this post is less than formal, as I will probably be wildly, obnoxiously (albeit eloquently) fangirling throughout it.

Road Runner Rules

Dialogue - or lack thereof.
This cartoon managed to enthral me countless times as a child, it was so, befuddlingly entertaining, that I managed to overlook it's lack of dialogue for a good 10 years without noticing it. When someone finally pointed it out to me, I remember shooting my best incredulous look their way and mentally ripping apart their soul, because it did not matter. This show is brilliant! Dialogue is of no import.
So with this in mind, at my current age of 16, I went online and re-watched a few of my favourite episodes, and it occurred to me rather strikingly, that it still does not matter. Even as a considerably more intelligent human being than I was at around 9 years old, the lack of dialogue in this specific animation is such an inherent aspect of the show, that I am completely happy with inferring everything that I could ever want to know, purely from the character's wonderfully animated expressions.

But actually, did you know that Wile E. Coyote could talk? He usually speaks by holding up signs. However, in some cartoons, especially in cartoons where tries to catch Bugs Bunny (e.g. “Operation: Rabbit”) instead of the Road Runner, he can actually talk. He has a British accent and he refers to himself as “Wile E. Coyote: Super Genius”.

The Coyote never catches the Road Runner...except when he does that one time.
We all know that these two are condemned to be in a perpetual cat&mouse chase for the rest of their lives.

The Coyote never ever catches the Road Runner, right?

WRONG - allow me to elaborate:

Allow me to draw your attention to the episode of which I speak - 'Soup or Sonic', aired May 21st 1980, here is some picture evidence:

Okay, so granted, he does 'capture' the Road Runner's right leg. BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT. This episode is well known for this fact, and also followed by the Coyote's breaking of the fourth wall with this ingenious act:

I digress.

Gravity will be his downfall - oh...wait.

Our friendly doomed Wile E. Coyote spends as much time running as he does falling off of very high cliffs, getting blown up, and just generally having his dreams crushed (I could find something profound about this fact but I'm afraid it will taint my entire childhood if I think upon it too much)

Here are some examples:

                           

And my personal favourite :

              

But it will always be his own stupidity and mistakes that cause him to never achieve his lifelong goal of being able to eat that stupid Road Runner (really I don't think if Wile E. got the actual opportunity, that he would eat him, they'd probably be best buddies after the years they spent chasing each other)

Acme Corporations.

No matter if he is flying, using a giant magnet, an anvil, a bomb, you can guarantee one thing; it will be provided by Acme Corporations.

The company name in the Road Runner cartoons is ironic, since the word 'Acme' is derived from Greek ακμή/acmē,  meaning the peak, zenith or prime, and products from the fictional Acme Corporation are both generic and failure-prone.

The Anvil is one of my favourites.

Other well-loved tropes.

One of my favourite tropes of this show are the ever-changing variety of parodic-scientific names given to the characters within almost every episode:

Running with a knife and fork/bib is also one of my favourite things, also a body-shaped hole in a cliff, bird sounds at a head injury etc etc...all of this will never get old!

What if these rules were applied to a 'live-action' show?

Well, they have been!;

But now, I'd like to talk about a different show, the show 'Supernatural'. It's a popular show, and my absolute favourite show ever. Recently, they aired an episode titled 'Hunteri Heroici' (inspired by the parodic-latin names in Roadrunner), in which their episode followed all of the rules of an episode of Road Runner, brilliantly, I will give examples:

Anvil:

Cliche' 'heart-beating-out-of-chest' deal:

Suspended in midair before dramatic fall:

Drawn Black holes on walls lead to the other side:

No actual gunfire happens:

And of corse, actual cartoon! In the South-American setting of Road Runner:

The odd, made up Latin names mid-chase:

Do I even need to name this one? It's brilliant:

With this episode of Supernatural, I can argue that,cartoons are arguably highly influential, and their idioms and tropes are timeless and very nostalgia-inducing. I love cartoons and everything about them.

I do in fact have a favourite ever cartoon episode, which will feature in the next post, but for now:

Media AS Lighting Task

Media AS Sound Exercise

Media AS Preliminary task

James Bond Thrillers.

The James Bond Films are vast and many, here is a list of all current James Bond films in order of release:

Dr. No (1962)

From Russia With Love (1963)

Goldfinger (1964)

Thunderball (1965)

You Only Live Twice (1967)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Live And Let Die (1973)

The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Moonraker (1979)

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Never Say Never Again-add in (1983 - not EON)

Octopussy (1983)

A View To A Kill (1985)

The Living Daylights (1987)

Licence To Kill (1989)

GoldenEye (1995)

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

The World Is Not Enough (1999)

Die Another Day (2002)

Casino Royale (2006)

Quantam of Solace (2008)

Skyfall (2012)

James Bond movies are classed as classic thrillers, each one is intrinsically the same, the only thing being altered being the Maguffin. Here are the key elements of a James Bond Movie:

The Rifle Barrel

Going all the way back to Bond’s first cinematic appearance in Dr. No, almost every film opens with the iconic rifle-barrel sequence. Connery wore a hat, Lazenby went down on one knee, and Brosnan got an updated CGI look, but it is this simple imagery that let you know a James Bond movie was starting.

The Pre-Titles Sequence


Early in the history of James Bond films, audiences became accustomed to seeing a cool opening sequence filled with action and stunts before the main titles rolled. Sometimes it was used to introduce the villain, like in From Russia with Love. Other times it had little or nothing to do with the plot and served as nothing more than a way to whet the audience’s whistle for the action yet to come, lithe one depicted;  the skydiving sequence in Moonraker.

The Song and Main Titles


While listening to Adele’s “Skyfall” on continuous loop until you see the film, think back to all the brilliant Bond themes. And while thinking of that, flash back to all the half-naked ladies in the title sequences, designed by the visionary Maurice Binder until the time of his death. Some songs are iconic – like Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger.” Others are epic fails – like Madonna’s “Die Another Day.”

However, they are all welcome additions to the Bond franchise.

The Bond Girls


Even if the filmmakers skimp on any of the other key elements on this list, they never leave this essential element out. Since Ursula Andress stepped out of the ocean like Venus being birthed from the sea, the sultry, sexy Bond girl was a staple to the series. Some may have been dopey characters without a brain in their heads, like Tanya Roberts from A View to a Kill or Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in The World Is Not Enough, either way, the women are all portrayed rather misogynistically, which I do not aprecciate. The franchise even toned down the number of girls in The Living Daylights, but there was always some pretty face next to Bond’s.

The International Intrigue


Imagine how lame a Bond movie would be if the whole thing took place on the streets of London around the corner from the Universal Exports office? Let’s save those kind of adventures for the BBC. The multinational travel of a Bond film is part of what gives it such pizzazz. James Bond has literally traveled around the world. He’s even been to unsavory locations like Afghanistan (in The Living Daylights), Kazakhstan (in The World Is Not Enough), and North Korea (in Die Another Day).

The Colorful, Eccentric, possibly insane Villains.


Henchmen (and henchwomen) come and go, and they’re sometimes absent. The Bond villain stays. Count on the villains to be brilliant maniacal sociopaths bent on world domination. Sometimes that world domination includes controlling water or just stealing a boat-load of money, but they’re brilliant maniacal sociopaths nonetheless. Sometimes the Bond villain is overly cartoony, like Dr. No or Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Other times they are all too real, like La Chiffre.

I must say, I very much like Raoul Silva.

The Booze


If we’ve learned nothing in 23 movies over 50 years, it’s that James Bond is one of the most charming, likeable alcoholics on the planet. He’s known for his signature martini “shaken, not stirred,” though he has downed plenty of other spirits as well. He invents the Vesper in Casino Royale, and he has a taste for Dom Perignon and Bollinger champagnes.

The Slight Dash of Racism and Sexism


Now this is not necessarily a popular ingredient in today’s politically correct times, but you cannot appreciate the suave sophistication of the Bond movies without acknowledging a bit of racism and sexism in the 60s and 70s. From the nonsensical turning-Japanese surgery (aka, heavy eye make-up and a bad wig) that Connery’s Bond gets in You Only Live Twice to the ghetto treatment Moore’s jive-turkey Bond undergoes in Live and Let Die, the series has made some uncomfortable moves. As for the sexism angle… yeah, that’s still going on, but at least Bond’s just slapping women in the rear now instead of slapping them across the face.

The Manchurian Candidate.

There are two versions of 'The Manchurian Candidate', a political thriller, the first being released in 1962, the second released in 2004.

Comparatively, the two are quite different, in more ways than one being older than the other.

Many of the character roles are different in the later version, for example, the character 'Major Bennett Marco' is fully replaced by 'Ben Marco', who's name is obviously derived from the former.

Another dissimilarity is that, in the earlier movie, the horrific threat is that of the Communist Party, the basis of a few character arc's being only to present a glorified communist witch hunt, which was more realistic during the 60's - this was exchanged for a big internationally corporate company longing to take control of the political system, which may in fact equate to a real life plausible threat of this time.

The CGI capabilities of the modern era also is cause for some changes - the war-zone scenes are much more realistic, due to the budget being much higher than the older version as well.

In general, both of these films served as good psychological, paranoid thrillers, even though they were not to my particular (extremely picky and critical) tastes.

I enjoyed the story of the older version more, I believe it was dynamically superior, and made up for what it lacked in grace and aesthetics with articulation and depth in story telling. I did not like the story changes made within the modern version, the absence of the importance of the character 'Joselyn' was something I particularly did not like the absence of. They also did not specify a trigger for Raymond Shaw, and Ben Marco's whole 'hapless hero' psychological brainwashing to be induced. The specification in the older version of the trigger being a certain card within a game of solitaire induces a certain kind of dread within us every-time we even get a glimpse of a deck of cards, it leaves the watched feeling informed and involved with the plot. The modern version lacked such meaningful detail.

It also made certain events seem unimportant, such as the equivalent of Raymond jumping in the lake – after hearing a person say this in the bar. The inharmonious and discordant soundtrack as he walks to the lake echoes and parallels his confused and troubled state of mind. This is absent from when Raymond enters the lake in the modern film, the dramaticism is instead over-emphasized by a conveniently placed unwitting killing on Raymond's behalf.

In the modern version, I believe they played it safe by not including more explicitly the discomforting incestuous attraction Raymond's mother had to him in the original book, and censorship within movies in modern day allows for such things to be seen.

Lighting.

Lighting in movies can be used to create depth, ambiance, and mood to the visual portrayal of events.

Functions of the different lights:
The Key Light is the brightest and most influential light.
The Back Light helps counter the effect of the Key Light, or can be used to create a silhouette.
The Filler Light helps to soften the harsh shadows that the use of Key and Back Light creates.

Different types of lighting:
Underlighting - when the main source of light come from below the subject. It is primarily used in thrillers and horror films.
Top Lighting - when the main source of lighting comes from above, highlighting the subject very angularly. Is thus used to create a dramatic and glamorous look.
Back Lighting - when the only source of light is from behind the subject, perhaps a window, so a silhouette is created.
Low-Key Light - creates using only the Key and Back Lights. It produces a sharp contrast of light and dark areas on the screen, as very deep, distinct shadows are formed.
High-Key Lighting - More filler lights are used to illuminate the subject completely, reducing shadows and thus lighting appears natural.

The Birds

 A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with increasingly befuddling viciousness.

This movie was not personally enjoyable for me. I enjoyed the idea of the ambiguous plot and vague reasoning behind the bizarre occurrences, but I felt that it did not reach a concluding zenith and therefore was slightly anticlimactic.

It’s hard to get your head around, and the first time you see that it actually happened, it’s somewhat astounding. Many people claim that The Birds is Hitchcock’s last great film. While it doesn’t reach the same levels of the three films that came before it, it’s still easy to see why it’s regarded as one of the director’s most well known works.

After meeting a man (Rod Taylor) in a pet shop, a San Francisco socialite (Tippi Hedren) travels to his hometown. While there, suspicious events involving birds begin to take place around the town.

Hitchcock’s infatuation with blonde actresses has been well documented, and his relationship with Hedren just as much. He did know how to pick his actresses though, and Hedren, in her first role in any movie, shines here. She’s natural, playful, and somewhat cold. She plays up that socialite aspect of her character really well.

The rest of the supporting cast is equally as impressive, especially Suzanne Pleshette, who plays the woman that’s been interested in Taylor for years. Watching Pleshette and Hedren interact with each other make for some of the most fun parts of the film.

Hitchcock develops Jessica Tandy and Taylor’s relationship nicely, and the little pieces of character backstory that Hitchcock provides the audience with regarding Tandy’s unwillingness to accept any woman as her son’s girlfriend help expand the character even further, rather than just being portrayed as an overprotective mother.

The film isn’t extremely scary, but the shock factor alone make for some nice chills. Hitchcock showed off his ability to scare audiences with Psycho, so to transition back to color for another horror film, and utilizing the bright color of blood, it allows for something extra that wasn’t available to him earlier.

Even though I appreciate these factors of the movie, I cannot find it in me to like it. It's no way akin to Psycho in it's execution and brilliance, even though being directed by Hitchcock.

I am a person who appreciates a good McGuffin - however, I also enjoy it being resolved. This is probably why I disliked North by Northwest as much as I did, it seemed very single-layered and meaningless. The same applies for this film - the McGuffin was shoved in our faces, we became enthralled, we were made to watch as it eviscerated our orbital cavities, and then it simply disappeared into the distance along with the characters among a feathery sea. I don't appreciate that, and frankly, it leaves me feeling rather cheated at the end, and not in a good way.

I generally like an unsatisfying ending: many character deaths, ambiguous futures, indicative looks, subtextual indications etc etc...however, I do want it to mean something, the McGuffin is there  as a Plot B to add to Plot A. Plot A makes you think, while Plot B sits behind an opaque window and hits you with sporadic doses of viscerally occurring feelings. The way the elements of this Thriller played out made me lack any sort of empathy for...anything, really. The hapless hero being a rather fickle, irritating, misogynistically portrayed damsel , and the villain with better means to make the (evil) cause being birds did not make things any better.

Conclusively: It was a technically good example of a thriller, but not my cup of tea as a movie.

Avengers: Assemble - Scene Analysis

The scene I have chosen to do from this movie is undoubtedly my favorite scene within it. Even among all of the frivolous and extraordinarily intense action scenes, my favorite scene begins at 1 hour 42 minutes and 30 seconds into the film, it depicts Thor’s last effort to convince his brother, not to surrender, but to stop, to amend and to go home.

For the first time, we see Loki at equal level with another character.

Throughout the movie, we’ve only ever seen him faces with offensive affronts, and confrontational contact, or the camera angle has placed us at a low point, aiming for a high angle shot, enhancing his superiority, or extreme close-ups that are quite frankly, deeply unsettling.

So, as I’ve said earlier, equal footing, for the first time throughout the movie:

 The camera shows both Loki and Thor, flickering back and forth between the two.

The lighting is deliberately bright at this scene, and also very deliberately done with a close-up shot, so you could clearly see all of the facial features of the two characters.

A shot of a decimated New York is then shown just as Thor shouts, “Look at this! Look around you!”, to Loki, pleading with his brother to see reason, to realize the severity of the situation.

This long-shot CGI shot of New York makes US realize the severity of the damage caused, and that will be caused just as much as Thor is aiming for Loki to see, as we see this from Loki’s point of view, as he glances over. The fact that a point-of-view shot is added puts us for once in a position where we are able to empathize wit Loki. This is essential due to what unfolds further on in the scene.

The rest of the scene depicts a heated conversation between brothers.

Now, for my favorite part, the intricacy of this astounds me:

 Tom Hiddleston (Loki) has very clear, blue eyes. In Avengers, this is enhanced:

This is probably to mimic the effect his scepter has upon whom it touches, indoctrinating them with information solely for the purpose of helping Loki, and in turn, making their eyes a sharp, ethereal blue.

There is a theory that this may suggest, sub-textually, that Loki was under the violating influence of the Tesseract the entire time. The Tesseract is a burden, it gives those who touch it false, malevolent purpose, and as Loki says: “I am Loki, and I am burdened with glorious purpose”. (My favorite line)

 This scene is actually supportive of this theory.

Back to the eyes – So Tom Hiddleston’s eyes are an enhanced blue, this is most apparent when he’s at his most evil, the coldest and most antagonistic.

Now, there’s something I must make clear; I personally don’t believe that Loki is inherently evil. He is a Norse God, the God of Mischief, the Trickster. All of which are not embodiments of evil, which I obviously do not believe him to be. With Loki, Joss Whedon creates a perfect Xanatos Gambit, because even though Loki portrays that he is set out to destroy Earth, the truth is, he couldn’t care less about the Midgardian world of Earth! All he wants is to go home. So, win or loose the prizefight, Loki still goes home, so Loki still wins.

Because of Loki’s intelligence, he is reasonable, so he can be swayed. This scene depicts such a thing.

Canonically, in both Comic and Norse-Mythos, Loki’s eyes are emphasized greatly as being green. Green, always green (except for when he shape shifts or has a eight legged horse baby called Sleipnir, but that’s besides the point – Norse Mythology is terribly befuddling)

When he’s good, at least. And when since we only see Loki (in this movie. Pretend Thor never existed) in his antagonistic role, we don’t get to see him as good.

BUT, when faced with his pleading brother…let’s compare.

The change is noticeable. The scene also has noticeably warmer, greener lighting, this is probably to emphasize that Loki is feeling, he’s feeling, and his big brother is there, and he’s just that little boy with the green eyes again, stuck in his brother’s shadow.

The close up of Loki’s face in this is to make us see that Loki is not unfeeling, not inexorable. And the post-production editing focused on eyes adds to this. And then all of a sudden…BAM! Loki gathers himself, his ‘glorious purpose’, and stabs

Thor:

The music abruptly changed from solemn violins to a jolting, hard melody.

And once again, we are viewing Loki from afar, from a low angle, as he is no longer at equals with Thor; he has regained his superiority.

Lonely superiority that he resigns himself to with a sad smile, a gentle, almost surprised whisper of: “sentiment” and a single tear, falling out of an almost-green eye:

Needless to say, Loki is in fact my favourite character from this particular film.

This film could have easily become just another superhero movie, with cliche' and deus ex machina coming out of it's ears, however, I believe that the complexity of Loki, the antagonist, relieves this movie of the susceptibility of succumbing to any of these unfortunate tropes.



He is indeed a wonderful depiction of an equally wonderful comic book, and mythological character.

- By Islah Jagan.