Films

Vanilla Sky

Anxiety of face, anxiety jumping of the building, regret and guilt, lucid dream, subconscious is powerful, pop subconscious, music, scene above (julie and sophia)

http://maddrey.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/movies-made-me-23-vanilla-sky.html

http://www.creakyrowboat.com/2012_08_01_archive.html 

Vanilla Sky (2001) i feel is a wonderful film that depicts the torment of the subconscious to the leading character due to his life choices. After having everything that David Aames (Tom Cruise) could ever need as a young, handsome and wealthy man that inherited his fathers music magazine company, he changes his perceptive when he falls in love with a woman he meets only once (Sofia.) However his friend, Julie (Cameron Diaz) that he regularly sleeps with, feels betrayed because she believes that they love each other. Julie tricks David, by inviting him into her car before she commits suicide.  The crash kills her but leaves David disfigured on his face and arm, suddenly his life falls apart and soon turns into the surreal. In the end we discover that David kills himself to take part in the 'lucid dreaming' program that enables his subconscious to create his own life without physically being part of it. He creates the story: "what if the dream became a nightmare?" [David.] I absolutely love this film as it explores the idea of the subconscious mind, dream and anxiety.

Cinema graphically I feel that Cameron Crowe has been able to capture the surreal and torment of David's subconscious. The film is beautiful and the music is used incredibly well also. In fact it has been used as an extension for the dialogue at times - David's entire life is heavily based around music, the magazine he works for, his apartment covered with posters and a collection of music memorabilia. Therefore throughout music that associates with the situation is used (his subconscious is filled with music therefore it is homing into this.) For instance the lyrics from 'Last Goodbye' are "kiss me, please kiss me, but kiss me out of desire, babe no consolation" after his accident which shows how his wants to reach out to Sofia. My favorite scene from this film is the one where Sofia somehow is suddenly changed to look like Julie (even photographs have been replaced with Julie - the person responsible for his accident) and he ties her up (whilst Julie seems to be mocking him as she says things such : "what is happiness to you?" which is similar to that she said before he crashed the car) he later on suffocates this Julie only to reveal it was actually Sophia - Sophia changes into Julie because of David's guilt for how he treated her and regret for getting into the car. He treated Julie poorly and without responsibility (like the life he had before Sophia) however throughout his lucid dream her character returns to torment him and his perfect life. The accident has left him anxious and his perfect life could be ruined and taken away at any time - just as it had been before by Julie, therefore she always returns torment him because she is in the back of his mind. On a subconscious level Julie's impact on David will always be there. Another reason I like this, is because a montage of music and a clips are played to create this confused state and as the music grows louder we see David becomes more and more angered before finally killing her completely. I really like that as an audience we do not know what is going on as it creates this nightmare dream. It lets us feel closer to David as we are sharing in his feelings of confusion. Furthermore dreams normally do not make sense.

David's mind has been dealing with many life changing events - such as the accident, friends leaving him, loss of his love, losing his appearance, incredible pain and headaches from the accident, his death and abuse from those around him - therefore his 'lucid dream' is corrupted and still influenced by these anxieties, and experiences. His mind is corrupt from fear, guilt, anger and anxiety and that it is what is reaching his dream reality. "The subconscious is a powerful thing." What i really liked about this film is the music and film montage that are used to add extra depth or tension. Furthermore i liked that we had no idea what was going because it felt better when we found out what it was about. I really liked that David was in control but yet he was also being tricked by his own subconscious.

Rebloggy http://rebloggy.com/post/gif-paprika-paprika/36483562372

Paprika

Subconscious taking over reality, animation and it bending reality, dreams, detective anxiety recurring dreams, darker dreams.
"We can now go back and forth through dreams" [Paprika]

http://rebloggy.com/post/my-gif-paprika-satoshi-kon
-chiba-atsuko-osanai-morio/69835741060

http://rebloggy.com/post/mygif-paprika-satoshi-
kon/23756490940

What I really took from this film is the animation - which is so imaginative and unique. To the left are some gifs that are parts in the film that really stood out for me. I like that Paprika explores the idea of reality vs. the subconscious (an dreams) Throughout the film reality is challenged and we forget what is real and what is not. I really like this concept as animation is perfect (as seen in this film) for displaying this. Paprika is a good film as it demonstrates that the subconscious can be a very powerful tool. It can trick you without your knowledge (because it is apart of you) if if your dreams were accessed while you were awake then the dreamer would be unaware of the difference.  They could continue to be conscious awake but will be able to access imagery that casts an illusion of reality. This occurs to Paprika (to the left) when she jumps over a rail to a restricted area suddenly it is transformed back to reality where she almost jumped over the balcony unknowingly - this shows how dangerous the subconscious can be. Within this film - dreams are used in a disturbing way in order to take control of the world lines such as: "Night dreams in the day, light dreams of darkness" are spoken by a doll in a dream and suggests a darker theme too it.

At the very start of this film and throughout we are introduced to a Detective who is visiting Paprika to help him with a recurring dream that is causing him much anxiety. As we later found out it is due to the feelings of guilt and regret from his earlier youth (a friend dying and not carrying out the job they shared but never did.) In this we are met with several common themes of anxiety dreams such as running without getting anywhere or being trapped or attacked. Lastly I really like the colour and bizarre images we are presented with at times as it shows how our minds/subconscious store and express our deepest desires and feelings with strange connections. Paprika is a beautiful animation that reveals a wide range of colour and imaginative use of animation to depict a dream world.

Spellbound

http://www.alfred-hitchcock-films.net/Spellbound-1944-1945.htm

Guilt complex, murder is solved with dream, surrealist dali, quotes, open door reference, reaction of lines on white

Marnie

Post traumatic stress disorder, red, sex, mum not loving her, reliving experience, camera red tint, dream

Vertigo

Anxiety, vertigo after accident, recurring, prevents him from saving her, dream,

All the above are Hithcock films that I have used within my research. Hitchcock is able to capture the mood and expression of his characters and is able too translate their emotion very well. I really like in Marnie how a red tint is used whenever a small amount of red is noticed because it expresses Marnie's immediate fear -by using a red tint as an audience we also feel this panic. In spellbound a dream sewuence by Dali is used and lots of symbolism on the interpretation of dreams such as opening doors to express letting go (when they kiss for the first time.) Lastly vertigo used alot of symbolism, the spiral is found throughout the film including the circle like pattern the plot takes - this expresses how his anxiety is always their almost subconsciously waiting.