The Searchers, Story Prediction.

Having studied the characters in the first 3 minutes of The Searchers, I found out that Ethan the main character is civil war veteran was fighting for the south. He seems a very adventurous but isolated and bitter character. Ethan is dominant around his sensible older brother's family.

Aaron, Ethan's older brother is the sensible and quieter brother, with a family and also enough essentials to keep a family a fairly large house, food etc.

Martha is Aaron's wife in the first few minutes it comes across she is caring, polite, thoughtful, organised and loving.

There seems to be some tension between Ethan and Aaron over Martha. Even though Martha is married to Aaron she longs for the love of Ethan. We know this because of a few signs Martha was waiting at her porch for Ethan coming home as she does every day at this time. Ethan kisses Martha on the forehead, she cherishes this moment. Also Aaron and Ethan barely utter a word to each other and when they do it seems a little abrupt. This gives the picture there is some bad history between them over Martha.

The Searchers could turn out to be a sort of Love triangle. From the title, I think Martha could possibly be captured by thugs and Ethan will go with his brother Aaron and try and rescue Martha. It would seem there would be a lot of tension and conflict if the story went this way throwing issues of love, trust and jealousy up in the air.

Twelve Angry Men

Twelve Angry Men (1957) directed by Sydney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon) was the story of a Jury sweating out a the decision of whether or not they should send the accused an 18 year old boy to the electric chair. With the evidence given every one is sure the boy is guilty except one man in shinning white suit, Henry Fonda. Fonda has doubts on whether the evidence is enough, he manages to gradually convince the angry, impatient crowd. The whole entire film is set in one Juror room on the hottest day of the year with one or two exterior shots.

I have watched this film before, I genuinely think this is a classic. The performances by each individual character were realistic and three dimensional, each one of them having a story behind their faces. The feud through out the film between Henry Fonda and Lee J Cobb's character was like a guitar string being tightened and waiting to snap. The emotions of anger, justice, empowerment and opinions flowed out of this tense and gripping drama.

There were a use of a range of lenses to compress and oppress the character's actions and emotions in each scene. There was clever sound design toward the end when tensions are rocketing the noise of a storm is brewing outside, torrential rain is heard adding to the atmosphere.

I believe you have to be in the right mood to watch it, I wouldn't say it was visually entertaining but the character development and their decisions make it worth watching.

The Conversation

A paranoid and expert electronic surveillance bugger is convinced his suspects are going to be murdered by his employer, he decides he has to investigate further.
A story about invasion of privacy, written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The Conversation was far too long and was drawn out especially the first scene. In my opinion some scenes were far too long, slow and bleak are the words to describe it. For me it was not stimulating at all.

The main character Harry Caul, played by Gene Hackman, fitted hand in hand with his job, a lonely character clearly obsessed and protective of his job. There was great character depth but the story failed there didn't seem to have great conflict, just a man getting wound up by his own works.

The use of sound throughout was impressive there is a range of taped and muffled voices, electronic sounds and ambient noises and also instruments. The use of a whole closely researched, Erie sound scape added to the paranoia and loneliness of the character and strangeness of the film.
The Sound scape and character were the strong points in this film but the story was not intriguing.