Toby's Film Club

That's right, I'm starting a podcast! Every Wednesday for the next 8 weeks, I will be releasing an episode discussing something related to Film, I'll go over upcoming films or film news, then every episode have a feature where I discuss something in Film that interests me. The first Season will be 8 Episodes - the first of which releasing on Tuesday 20th September continuing every Tuesday until the 8th November. I am also hoping to get guests on the show for later on in the podcast - in a possible second season. You can listen to the trailer here:  Toby's Film Club - Trailer , or on Spotify. Don't worry if you forget the release of an episode! I will also be posting them here every week. Thanks for reading, Toby

  In Do The Right Thing and Double Indemnity , Cinematography and Sound have been used to create aesthetic effects. These are created through the use of colour and lighting on the screen and different angled shots and music. In Do The Right Thing , the use of an orange tint in all scenes taking place outside in the open, is key to creating an atmosphere of heat throughout the film. Spike Lee has stated that they wanted the audience watching the film to feel just as hot and uncomfortable as the characters are in the film. The orange tint used throughout the film easily achieves this. This is in contrast to Double Indemnity , which due to its Film Noir nature is obviously in black and white. However, there is still an element of lighting used to emphasise an aesthetic effect. Most prominently, Double Indemnity uses venetian blinds when Walter first meets Phyllis, the blinds nearly cover up Walter as he hides in the darkness, similar to how he is hiding in plain sight from Keys at hi...

  Cleo from 5 to 7 approaches narrative concepts by utilising multiple different techniques, we can use Barthes Narrative Codes and the study of Character Arcs to analyse the narrative structure used by Agnes Varda when producing Cleo from 5 to 7 .  When we take a look into Barthes Narrative Codes, I believe that Cleo follows the hermeneutic code, this means that throughout the narrative there are plot points that are left unclosed. It is up to the audience to create a conclusion for multiple different plot points, most prominently the intrigue of Cleo’s illness, it isn’t made clear on how serious the illness truly is, only by the tarot reader who creates more mysteries than she solves. After reading Cleo’s future, she tells a man that she foresees death in Cleo and throughout the film Cleo is scared of her illness, it seems as though she also believes death could be near, she is waiting to hear from the doctor which as the audience is an amplified experience with the use of...

  Un Chien Andalou rejects narrative conventions by using many typical methods commonly seen in the surrealist movement.  Most prominently, we see the dismissal of the cause and effect principle. This means when we see something happen in the film it is unlikely that we will see the action have any effect on the final outcome of the narrative, or even in the next shot of the film. For example, in the scene where the lady has her eye cut open, that shot leaves relevance as quickly as it came. It entered out of nowhere with no build up to it, this shocks the audience as literally no one could expect that to happen in the moment. After the moment has passed and we cut away, it is never even referenced again. It shocks the audience into staying engaged. This leads to a rejection of the average narrative convention that we, as an audience, have come to expect from the majority of films, which tend to follow the continuity system. We expect to have at least basic character arcs and ...

  Throughout the wide library of surrealist films, one narrative feature shines through as a significant feature of the narrative structure. This one narrative feature has a  surprising lack of any real narrative features. These films, which identify themselves as a part of the surrealism movement, consistently show audiences jumbled events which have no real relevance to any form of the greater plot. This incoherency creates a unique film style, with no surface-level meaning clearly available to audiences. To get an idea of a discernible plot, the viewer needs to investigate deeper into the film. Over the course of this article, I will be taking a look at 2 classic surrealists, Un Chien Andalou (1929) and L’age D’or (1930), whilst comparing the two to a more modern take on surrealism, Martin Scorsese’s The Big Shave from 1967. For every surrealist film, it is incredibly hard to delve deep into the plot because, to put it simply, there rarely is one. The script for Un Chien An...

(2015, Lenny Abrahamson, Written by Emma Donoghue, Performances by Jacob Tremblay and Brie Larson) Room is the story of a mother kidnapped and trapped in a shed in a man’s back garden. The mother who for most of the film is just referred to as “Ma” has been trapped inside the shed she simply calls “Room” for 8 years. Whilst inside Room she is raped on numerous occasions by the man who we do not know the real name of, but is named “Old Nick” by Ma. After 3 years inside Room she gives birth to a son, this son is Jack. Shortly after Jack’s 5th birthday, Ma devises a plan to get out of Room, or at the very least, get Jack out of Room. Ma wraps Jack in the rug on the floor. When Old Nick visits Room in the morning she tells him that Jack fell ill and passed away overnight. She tells him to take Jack to the hospital and what follows is a four minute sequence of Jack escaping from Room and Old Nick. This four minute sequence follows Jack’s journey from the moment he first leaves the room to w...

Harold and Maude is a 1971 dark comedy-drama film directed by Hal Ashby. Harold is a young man played by Bud Cort. He contrasts sharply with the woman he develops a controversial relationship when they meet at a funeral. This woman is Maude, the 79-year-old fun-lover played by Ruth Gordan.  The film, as the name suggests, is about 2 people, Harold and Maude. Harold is a young man, obsessed with death, thought to be about 20 years of age. Maude is a fun-loving spirit, days away from turning 80 years old. The pair form an unlikely relationship as they are total opposites. They both enjoy attending funerals but for very different reasons. Harold attends the funerals as he enjoys the idea of death, he often pretends to commit suicide in various ways, which is how we are introduced to Harold at the start of the film. Maude attends funerals for the opposite reason; for her, the funerals represent life, and she references “the great circle of life.” The film is set in the 1970s over a few...