Amelie

Plot:

Amelie is a French film, about a girl who suffered a childhood of despair and loneliness. She spent only limited amounts of time with her father, who then believes she has heart problems due to her fast hear beat on the occasions that she actually gets to spend time with her dad. Due to this suspected heart defect, Amelie’s father declares her unfit for school. So Amelie does not have any friends, so instead, she lets her imagination take her away to find happiness. Further on in the film Amelia drops something on the floor, revealing a secret tile on her wall, in which contains a small box of treasured items left by a young boy many years prior to her finding it. She is then determined to return the box to the owner, after numerous attempts to find him, she eventually comes across the owner of the treasures. After seeing his reactions, Amelie seems to have a change it thought about life, making sure from then on she helps anyone she can. In a way she becomes a new person, dedicating life to other people. Especially her father, as she did not spend a great amount of time with him as a child, she tries to spend time with him and get him away from his beloved gnome. Once Amelie spends a lot of time helping others, it eventually comes clear to her that she has not thought about herself in a long time, which is depriving her of finding love that she once dreamed about, it seems as though she is too nice to others, that she is unable to find someone as nice as her that she is compatible with. Amelia finds an album of unwanted pictures, again she is intrigued to find the collector of these photos, which eventually leads to her falling in love with him. 

At parts in the film, Amelie actually addresses the audience, choosing to put this in the film helps greatly to involve the viewer to let them know Amelie’s actual opinion on what is happening in the film. 

Most of the film is warmly toned, with reds especially, this helps to create the atmosphere of the film, helping it to stay relatively romantic as well as times when serious moments, as well as funny moments also occur. Also, sepia tones are also used, this helps the audience to know it is set in the past. It makes things seem aged. 

The opening sequence shows Amelie’s childhood and different things that have occurred, a simple and almost unnoticed sound effect used, is clicking, whilst the opening takes place, you can hear the clicking over it just for a few seconds, almost like the film is just getting started up, then throughout the sequence, non diegetic sound is added to add emphasis to what is going on, such as where she makes the line of paper men, you can very clearly and loudly hear them rustle. Also when she puts her finger around the wine glass you can hear the noise it makes easily. 

Depth of field is also used throughout the film effectively, helping you to focus on individual things in the scene. 

Montages and flashback are used at the start, showing Amelie’s childhood, showing many different times of her life, also during the film where Amelie is thinking about how many sexual acts are taking place at one time. There are many different cuts and jerk movements allowing the scene to cut from different places very quickly, as well as this the sound changes are also noticeable for every cut in those scenes. 

Amelie is a young woman, who has not had much experience of life. Her childhood was spent alone with only her imagination to entertain herself. During her childhood her only friend was her per fish. Which just so happened to be suicidal. After her mothers death in Notre Dame, she lived with her father. Who is obsessed with garden gnomes. As life commences, Amelie becomes more and more confident, eventually leading her to wanting to help everyone.

Some Like It Hot

Plot:

Some Like It Hot, is a black and white comedy released in 1959. The film is set in 1929, beginning on February 14th, the St. Valentines Day Massacre. Jerry and Joe, two musicians who are desperate to flee the town, and out of work, go to all lengths to obtain places in a band who are about to leave for Florida. The one problem they face, is that the band they desperately want to play in, is female only. Once the two are informed of this, they then become Josephine and Daphne. 

On the train the two meet Sugar Kane, a beautiful young woman. Joe (Josephine) falls in love with Sugar, but she has no idea that she is actually a he!

Osgood Fielding, an old millionaire, attempts to impress Daphne (Jerry) and tries to get her (him) to take his hand in marriage. 

Spats, and other gangsters from Chicago arrive at the same accommodation Jerry and Joe are staying, so not only are they trying to keep their secrets of cross dressing from the girls, they are endeavouring to be unnoticed by Spats. 

Joe and Jerry attempt to make an escape for the final time, realising the the only route of escape is using Osgood’s boat. Joe finds Sugar, kissing her whilst she realises who he really is, they make their way avoiding the gangsters to the boat, both Jerry and Joe try to explain their doings to Osgood and Sugar. Jerry finally admits to Osgood he is a man, and Osgood simply says, “Well, nobody’s perfect.” 

Characters:

Jerry is employed by a music agency in Chicago which helps him to get jobs as a bass player in bands. A man with bizarre ideas in tricky situations, he is quite confident with women however becomes very distressed and uncomfortable when put under vast amounts of pressure (such as when Joe and him are walking in the train station to meet their new band for the first time dressed as women) Instantly falling in love with Sugar Kane, a woman who is also in the band of women it is clear he falls for her but he is unhappy that Joe manages to steal Sugar’s heart before he can. Somehow Jerry somewhat leads on his new admirer Osgood Fielding, an old billionaire. He does not admit until the very end that he is actually a man, as Jerry was almost influenced to the extreme by money so much to marry Osgood only for his earnings. 

Joe is the more confident one between himself and Jerry, as well as this he is even more confident with women, especially Sugar. As soon as he finds out she adores male Saxophone players, he instantly does whatever he can to encourage her to fall for him, even though throughout the film, she believes he is a woman. Joe seems to have, “the gift of the gab” He is very good at talking his way out of things, for example, he convinces Nellie, a girl for whom his boss employs, to allow him to use her car. 

Sugar is a young, blonde woman, who both Jerry and Joe fall for within seconds of meeting her. She joined the all female band to get away from working with males, who seem to just use her for borrowing money and treat her with no respect. Early on in the film, Joe learns she takes a liking to male saxophone players. Which is enough to make him go head over heals for her. 

As the film is a comedy, there is a great amount of action occurring in scenes as well as a lot of slapstick. however, cuts tend to be slower, with the exception of the car chase etc, allowing you to focus on the goings on, rather than every single detail of the scene from different angles creating a dramatic scene. The slow cuts help you to concentrate on what is being said and the general plot, rather than many occurrences which do not allow you to take every single detail in. This is good because when jokes and funny comments are made, it is easier to think about them and know everything that is happening. 

The sounds used are mostly diegetic, however sound effects and non diegetic sound has been put in, it was used during the car chase in Chicago, emphasising the noises of crashes and screeching of the cars. Background music is heard throughout the film.