Alien_4

Alien 4 Ezra, Elizabeth. (2002). Resurrecting the Alien Director Jean- Pierre Jeunet in Hollywood. New Cinemas; Journal of Contemporary Film, Vol. 1 Issue 1, p54, 7p 1) Jean-Pierre Jeunet, a French director was critically slammed for his work on Alien Resurrection. This literature review tries to find out why. 2) Was it Hollywood that killed Alien Resurrection' Or was it just poorly directed' 3) The independent variable deals with the movie itself while the dependant variable deals the Hollywood machine. 1) Ezra explains that director Jean-Pierre Jeunet had a hard time directing Alien Resurrection. There was a lot of pressure to make it good, and like most directors that come from France to Hollywood, the adaptation is difficult. The movie cost 70 million dollars but only made 47 million in the US. She explains that the movie could have been over saturated with social ideals that don’t sit well with American audiences. The French ideas seem be different than what American auiences were expecting. 2) The research is used mainly to explain the fear or urban areas. He uses film to explain what is stereotypical and he uses surveys to explain what is actual thought. It is a very good essay and his research makes sense. 1) All studies done for this article were purely analytic in terms of content research. One main subject of study was between Seven, Batman, and the The Crow, and how each developed the idea fear of the city. 2) The author used a lot of other journal articles in reference to his own, along with using the films as another main source of reference. 1) Macek makes some good points in that we are afraid of cities as a whole, as a society, but this fear in a sense, isn’t justified. The city is used as the over-all state of the world in the cynical use of a metaphor. Society as a whole has lost sympathy, but using urban environments is a stereotypical way of explaining it, as if only sinners can live in the city, and only sinners live in the city. He does a great job of explainng why Seven is such an effective movie by describing the techniques used to make it so gloomy. 2) Macek uses a scene from the movie Seven to set up the entire essay and explain what he is trying to explain. The scene is of the main detective standing in the rain with his classic trench coat and hailing a cab. The cab driver asks, “Where are you going'” Sommerset responds, “Far away from here.” The scene sets up the style and mood of the entire movie, and at the same time, sets up the idea of the degraded city. 1) The result allows the reader to fully understand the idea of the city. What makes it scary' Why are these movies scary' Is it simply the aesthetics' Is it the news that shows us the aftermath of a crime, and not the actual crime that makes us afraid' Do we leave too much up to the imagination' 2) The article does a great job of explaining why Seven is so effective, from style and mood, to processing and technique. It makes the reader question the idea of the city, and what sin actually means. 1) The conclusion deals with how movies in general portray the dark side of the city, and if we don’t change the image, the fear will always be there. The urban problems will never change, and therefore our ideas will never change. 2) It was a good, interesting article, and had detailed information that aided in the explanation of the film. I liked how the author detailed both the film and the idea of fear. Bibliography: