Film Techniques In Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr.

Film, what do you think of when you hear that word? A motion picture is simply a series of still pictures shown quickly so they stimulate motion. But a film can be so much more than that. It can tell a story, inform people of news, or educate. A film can surprise, aggravate, and inspire the imagination. Some of the necessary skills to analyze how images are constructed, how they create meanings, and how they affect us help us to better understand film as a whole. Throughout the class we watched several films each displaying some different techniques used throughout the films. These techniques help provide a dynamic approach to discover the different meanings that the viewer can receive from the film. In Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. made
In this scene, the Tsar’s soldiers march down a seemingly endless flight of steps in a rhythmic, machine like fashion. While walking down the steps they are shooting into the crowd of town’s citizens creating a traumatic massacre. There were several victims including an older woman trying to stop the soldiers but she is stabbed with a knife. The next shot is of a young boy that was killed and his mother was protesting for them to help her because her boy had been hurt, but they didn’t even listen and shot her. The next shot flashes to a mother holding onto a baby carriage but she is shot. As she falls to her death she knocks the carriage down the steps. The camera continues to show the carriage tumbling down the stairs and then zooming in on the wheels of the carriage and it quickly plummets down the steps. During these main shots, there were quick shots of other town citizen’s dying and scurrying to get away. This seven minute scene just showed complete and utter chaos. Montage is used for the Odessa Step scene because it allows Eisenstein to manipulate the audience’s perceptions of time by stretching out the crowd’s flight down the steps. The rapid progression and alteration of images in the sequence gives the audience just a piece from a dreadful nightmare. This sequence of montage sets up the audience to rise up against oppression and the Tsar government. In Orson Welles 1989
This starts off as a long shot before zooming into a close up of the two kissing and they are both under Lockwood’s umbrella, which is a crucial prop for the entire scene. There is a constant rain throughout the scene, which is acknowledged by Kathy who states “This California dew is just a little heavier than usual tonight,” before she goes back inside. Don then waves away the waiting taxi which has been visible since the start of the scene. Don begins to sing the opening of “Singing in the Rain.” He then shuts his umbrella and begins dancing down the street, filled with a mixture of houses and shops with displays on the window. Don interacts with almost all of the props like the light pole on the sidewalk and the puddles of water on the road. Two people rush past him hiding under a newspaper, while he dances around them giving them a cheerful wave. Throughout his performance, Don carries an umbrella as some kind of dance partner, and at one point using it as an air guitar. This technique is used in the movie to allow the audience to use the performance to perceive different perceptions and meanings of the images and sound. Mise-en-scene in this specific scene with Don creates a different effect, leaving the audience with a feel good