Weather and Kurosawa

One thing that really stands out is the use of weather. Kurosawa did a great job of relating and playing the weather into the scenes of his films and certain parts.

For example: The wind was vicious in Yojimbo. Especially when both of the groups were in the middle of the street facing each other.

In Ran the clouds were a big factor. We might not have covered this aspect in class but the clouds could represent how peaceful it was before the three different groups started fighting. Because, you know, everybody thinks clouds are peaceful, unless they're tornado clouds, because those things are really scary.

But in conclusion, the weather plays a major role in all of the Kurosawa movies we watched and probably the others he made that we didn't see...

Hitchcock

I would have to say that I guess that I'm a fan of Hitchcock. I like reading books (even though we're talking about movies) and watching movies about mysteries and weird stuff like that.

I especially liked the movie The 39 Steps. The black and white is a huge turn-off, but I liked the way Hitchcock set-up the movie and used the McGuffin at the end.

I also thought that Vertigo was way over-rated and didn't expect to see anything like it the way I pictured it would be in my head. The chasing of Lucy got really old within the first 30 minutes of the film. But Rear Window I thought was also outstanding. I like how Hitchcock set-up each character and I like the weird special effects too (when Jeff keeps flashing the flash of the camera to distract him).

Overall I was satisfied with the Hitchcock unit...not I can do anything about it now anyways...