Talking Head: Amelie
Unit 26:
Film studies
Intro
Amelie Poulain is a French film produced by
Jean-Pierre Jeunet in 2001. This romantic comedy is writting by Jean-Pierre
Jeunet and Guillaume Laurent with for the role principal Audrey Tautou.
The title of this film
describes really well what story we are going to see. It is the story about her
life, all the wellness and help she wants to give, and how she is going to find
herself.
The director, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, realised his
films in mixing the fantastic and the absurd shift to a representation of
reality in various proportions, creating dream worlds from everyday elements
and in the case of ‘Amelie poulain’ it highlights the elements of chance in
everyday, always in using a share of childish humour.
For this film, Audrey Tautou plays ‘Amelie
Poulain’ the heroine. I find, she is the perfect actress for this role, with
all her face expressions. It is with this film she became famous around the
world.
I choose this film because it is one of my
favourite films. I saw it when I was young and I am never been bored to watch it
again and again. I find it really interested how is it filming with this third
voice that is really important for all the story of ‘Amelie Poulain’. And the
music who plays an important role and carry us through third the film.
This scene has two main locations where the
action happened: Montmartre and Engain-les-bains. They happened in the interior
and exterior of this place. For a romantic comedy film the beginning can start
by a lot of possibilities. For this film it starts by all the childhood of
Amelie. That’s unfolding in the 20s and exactly in 1973.
The props –objects- are the
dominos, glass with water to produce a sound, a glass, a coin, strawberry
sweet, red fish and old camera. These props are all the description about the
childhood of the heroine, most of them represent her attraction, but some like
the red fish has a connotation of loneliness.
The costume are just some normal clothe from
this period and they characterise the French style, the colour of the clothes
are principally red and green, who characterises the Amelie’s emotion with the
connotation of passion, nature, warmth and energy.
The facial expressions when the voiceover
makes the description of Amelie’s parents provide a clear indicator about the
parents’ feeling, like when the voiceover spoke about the Amelie’s mother and
we saw her eyes moving to indicate her weak mental, it is describing to make
laugh the audience, personally I find that very funny how he describes it.
When the red fish jump out of jar and Amelie
start crying the body language of her mother describe her feelings, she is
really worry and it is too much for her about this little thing, that shows her
weak temper.
The position in the frame when Amelie and her
mother go to liberate the red fish gives a feeling of sadness to the audience,
both of them look in the river to see the fish leaving with the camera who show
after that the fish leaving and the Amelie’s sadness seeing her only friend
going away.
For this opening scene the extreme close up
are used in the generic to show what Amelie is doing with the entire object
with eccentric angle to give a strange visual.
For the Parents’ description,
it is started by a long shot then a mid shot and finish by a close up, which is
going perfectly with the voiceover during this description, and give an effect
of we know them better.
The main sound use for this first scene is
non-diegetic sound and it is a musical score created by Yann Tiersen. During
the generic when Amelie make sound with a glass with water or she breath in
leaf that is a diegetic sound which are sound effect add after during the
editing. But the most important thing I have to speak is this voiceover that
has a real important place in this movie, if it isn’t there all the film should
be boring and not funny, like it is.
The main editing is realised by a straight
cup in most of the case. But when they describe the parents again they use fade
or wipe, which give an effect of continuity.
The Equilibrium in this
film reflects more something sadness than happiness. The voiceover speaks two
times about a death -firstly the old man who lost one of is friend and the
death of Amelie's mother- and just once about the birth, who is the birth of Amelie
Poulain but in all this sadness they always are a touch of humour. But enough
quickly this voiceover give to the audience the time when the disequilibrium
going to arrive, like he said:"We are the 29th August and in 48h the
destiny of Amelie Poulain is going to titled”.
That’s given the intrigue and captive the audience. We want to know what
is going to change her life.
The voiceover shows clearly
binary opposites using 'like' and 'dislike' to describe Amelie's parents.
In this film the beginning
and the ending is organised in the same way. The character roles stay the same.
In this movie the heroine
'Amelie Poulain' is herself the dispatcher because she gave herself a goal to
find help people and find this man.
The helper is this old man who gave her advice about her life and
what she needs to be focused on.
And like I said the figure paternal -her father- not really helps
her during all her life, it is she again who is helping him, like she is doing
during all the film.
The new equilibrium in 'Amelie poulain' is happier then how the
film started. Like we see in this final scene, she finds the man she searched
during all the film. Some of other characters she helped are happy. The poet is
happy because for once he see his sentence on the wall so that means someone
remembering his sentence, the other man has a moment with his grandson, so that
means he speaks again with his daughter, the old man has finally finish his
drawing and her father has decided to stop complaining and go to travel the
world.
The action in the
final scene just is full of love and happiness. We can see her and her man on a
scooter so happy, she is behind him, the way of how it is filmed is really
interesting and gives a smile to all the audience. Even the city looks happy.
The binary Opposition is
represented by Amelie and the man but although by the happiness and the
sadness.
The main setting for this
final scene is in Amelie’s home and Montmartre. We see the principal colour in
her apartment is still red, every room have this strong red colour if is not on
the wall is on the carpet, drapes or door, always to show her personality.
The Tv, the phone, tape
video player and moped are the representations of the period. The moped with
Amelie and her man are a good connotation of the freedom and it is like their
coach if it were a film animation.
When Amelie snatch the entire photo on
her wall, her body language shows to the audience her discontent and
frustration. After that when she stay in the kitchen preparing something to
calm herself, and she start crying and thinking if this man come to her house
and in the same time she ears beard curtains move in the same time she is
imagining he is in her house to make a surprise, we saw her deception on her
face, who makes her sadder. But when she returns about her cooking with always
this beautiful music score in a back and suddenly stops, when the ring bell,
her facial expression shows the surprise and creates an interrogation to the
audience.
This scene is the second disequilibrium of
this film. I choose this one because is the moment where Amelie is feeling, she
is falling in love.
In this clip, the movement of the camera are
really specific to give at the audience this effect of moving with Amelie.
When she slept in the photo
booth they use a dolly to finish on a mid shot, to show at the audience where
she slept.
After this we have an extreme
long shot where we see all the train station with a pan movement.
Then the camera take an
extreme close up on the Amelie’s feet with a pan movement to show to the
audience where she is going to stop on. And at this moment the audience meet
this man, she is going to fall in love.
To show how she falls in love
the movement use is a dolly that stops on her heart, and at the same time is
with a diegetic sound of her heart pulse.
Her expression looks shock to
meet someone like that, she is so shock than when he is going to run she is
going to follow him and finally she is going to have a mission to find him and
give him his bag. For this scene they use a track and aerial shot.
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