Iron Man Final Critique

Final Critique

            It has been a long year in film class and I have decided to take apart the bits and pieces of Iron Man, directed by Jon Favreau. Iron Man is a great movie that includes all of the following elements of film: sound, movement, and editing.  I chose Iron Man because it is my favorite movie and its target audience is teens my age. 

            In Iron Man Tony Stark, the main character is captured by terrorists.  When he escapes he builds the Iron Man suit and in order to fight back against the terrorists of the world.  The basic theme of Iron Man is good versus evil.  This theme is carried throughout the film, but this film is not only about the theme but it is also about the film elements of sound, movement, and editing.

            Iron Man by Jon Favreau is one of my favorite movies to watch.  The sound in Iron Man is at parts powerful and at other times the soundtrack is lost behind all of the explosions.  The beginning of the movie starts off in Afghanistan where Tony Stark is being transported home after demonstrating his new weapon to the army.  Sound is used here to suggest a place.  Back in Black is the sound track and it is used to show that the subject is in the middle of a war zone.  The sound track is appropriate for the beginning because soldiers usually have songs that pump them up for war.  This is also shown in the movie Three Kings when the troops are in their jeep driving to go get the gold.  The sound in this scene is also very low.  The low rumbling of the motor below the music is to help the viewer feel like they are in the car also.  The sound in the beginning also helps to suggest character.  The song playing suggests that Tony Stark is full of himself. 

            Sound is also very important when it is diegetic and natural sound can be found in the scene when Tony Stark is blasted with an EMF tone that impairs his movement.  The diegetic sound is coming from the phone when it is ringing.  The natural sound is found when Tony is walking towards the white couch.  However sound is not all that is important to the movie Iron Man, movement is also portrayed.

            Movement connects the actions of one character to another in a scene.  The movement used in Iron Man is mainly literal movement.  Literal movement in a movie is when the dialogue and actions are more preserved and intact.  Iron Man used a lot of hand held shots in order to take the perspective of Tony Stark.  The shakiness of the camera in the opening scene suggested that the dirt road is bumpy.  Another hand head shot can be seen in the scene where Tony is testing the new suit.  The camera takes over Tony’s perspective and allows the audience to feel like they are Tony in the suit flying through the air.

            A pan shot is used to show how fast Tony is moving towards the city where the Arabs are being held hostage.  A pan shot is used to connect the characters when they are captured together in the containment of the hills.  The pan helps to show that Tony now has a partner, Yensen, who will help him escape.  Though the movement and of the camera is important the editing helps to cut the film smoothly together.

            Editing helps cut the movie so that all of the transitions flow.  A Montage is used to help show time passing in a movie.  A montage is used in the beginning of the movie to help show confusion.  A montage of capture and surgery sequences are cut together in order to show that the final product is Stark having an electromagnet in his chest.  Three Jump cuts are used when Tony is first escaping with his prototype suit.  When he takes out the first three guards the jump cut is used to show how fast it happened.  Jump cuts are also used when Yesen is dying.  This shows that he and Tony are now drifting apart because Yesen is going into the afterlife.

            Overall Iron Man was a well edited movie with great sound elements and literal movement.  I am proud to say it is my favorite movie.

Movement in Movies

Movement

            For the chapter on movement our class watched two movies, Hero and Three Kings.  Both were very good movies but, Hero had more lyrical movement while Three Kings was more literal movement.  Although the movies are placed in different categories of movement they had a number of shots in common.

Movement is shown in many movies and is important in connecting the actions of one character to another in the scene.  There are different types of movement which are as follows lyrical and literal movement.  Literal movement in a movie is when the dialogue and actions are more preserved and intact.  Lyrical movement over emphasizes emotions given off by the subject in the frame.  But most of the movement is shown thanks to the different spots the camera can be moved to in order to get all the different shots needed to create an exciting scene or movie.  The different shots include the pan shot, the hand held shot, and the zoom shot.

            The Pan shot is when the camera is placed stationary to where the action is happening in the frame.  Then it is moved left to right, down to up and vice versa.  The pan shot connects the movie in different ways.  For example in Three Kings the pan shot is used in the middle of a conversation instead of a cut.  This pan shot connects the characters in the scene to show that they are a group.  Another pan takes the perspective of Troy Barlow when he has his collapsed lung.  The Pan shot in that scene is also a reaction shot; a shot that takes away from the action of his collapsed lung to show the more important part of his comrade dying. Hero had a pan shot when the arrow were being fired on broken sword and Flying Snow’s city.  The pan helped to show the direction in which the arrows were aimed for.  The shot is also used in the pond battle when Broken Sword wipes the water off of Flying Snow’s face.  The Pan shows that Flying snow and Broken Sword are a group and care for each other. 

            Three Kings used a lot of hand held shots in order to take the perspectives of the American Soldiers.  The shots were used to emphasize the adrenaline that the Americans had when they were stealing the gold from the bunker.  The shakiness of the camera suggested that they were giddy with excitement.  The hand held shots were useful and helped to feel like you were really in the movie watching it from your own perspective. 

            Hero was a more lyrical movements and didn’t require hand held shots because they would have been too shaky and made the movie less dramatic.  The zoom shot was used heavily during the war scenes and also during the one on one battles. The zoom shot was mostly used as a cut when the arrows of the Qin army were raining down on the city and also down on Nameless. The zoom cut shot was used to show how many arrows were coming into play and also to emphasize the speed at which each one traveled.  It added a mix of anger to the already lyrical movie.

            Hero and Three Kings were both good movies and both have great examples of movement in them.  Hero the more lyrical movie and Three Kings the more literal movie.