Overview
ENGAGEMENT: Reply makes a substantive contribution to the other student’s ideas (85-160 words).
TONE: Reply is respectful and positive, even in disagreement. LANGUAGE/MECHANICS: Reply is clearly worded with no errors in grammar, spelling and/or punctuation.
RELEVANCE: Reply contributes to learning and ongoing discussion of course concepts.
Book: 1.William V. Costanzo, World Cinema through Global Genres. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2014.
book link: http://dl.booktolearn.com/ebooks2/art/cinema/97811...
Please reply to the following posts separately:
Student A:
As the movie, Annabelle begins we see its first dive into the experimental stage as it takes a scene from another very popular movie called the Conjuring. In doing so the movie is already setting an ominous starting point, whether viewers have seen this other movie before or not. This scene is working as both the experimental stage in which it is establishing a field of reference, and as the classical stage where the field of reference has already been established. As the movie progresses further we see the classic elements in a horror movie, ie the haunted doll Annabelle who wants to take the main character new born babies soul as her own. This as well as some demon and cult stuff begins to unfold. Something out of character for this film however and what I believe to be the refinement stage is when the demon steals the doll from the priest in the church, showing just how powerful she is. Then in the end one of the family friends end up sacrificing herself to destroy the doll and protect Mia and her baby. As for the baroque stage this movie makes sure to end full circle into the movie the conjuring where we see a new family purchase the same doll as a collector’s item in which bad things will happen all over again.
Student B:
The film The Sixth Sense (1999) is a ghost story that shows elements of the four stages described by Thomas Schatz throughout it. The Experimental component of the film involves the use of two main characters, the relationship between a child psychologist (Bruce Willis) and a troubled child (Haley Osment) who claims to “see dead people” (Shyamalan, 1999). The Classical elements of the film involve the build-up of tension through the use of close-ups on the boy’s face as his breath becomes visible, the hair on his arms raising and the music before a pop-out scene when a ghost appears The high production quality and gory makeup also adds to the classic ghost story. While it is not a new concept to ghost stories that a ghost remains because it has unfinished business, The Sixth Sense adds the idea that the boy who can see the ghosts can also help them pass on. The Refinement element comes from Shyamalan, known for his twist endings, this movie being an important one to note. The scene where he sees his wife drop his wedding ring on the floor is when the audience realizes that Bruce Willis’ character was dead the whole time and that the boy was the only one who could see and talk to him. The Baroque element of the film is derived from the twist in the story, “the film’s surprise ending helped to make it one of the decade’s finest and an inspiration for future horror films” (Costanzo). The twist at the very end is what the audience is left contemplating over and is what makes the story so invigorating and different.