Sam Dumas Alice Comparison-Tone & Mood

After viewing multiple Alice in Wonderland movies as well as reading both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, one of the main differences in the viewing experience as a whole was a result of the mood.  In Lewis Carrol’s Through the Looking Glass, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as well as the Disney Alice in Wonderland movie, an overarching mood of magic, illusion, and brightness ring true.  However, when comparing these to Funk Meyers Alice in Wonderland, much of this mood is lost, thus creating a whole different viewing experience.  As a way to compare the two, I am going to take two different scenes throughout two of the text, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderlands and Funkmeyer’s bizarre rendition and juxtapose them in terms of mood and its creation.

            In Funkmeyer’s Alice in Wonderland, the opening scene is a very chilling start to a previously children friendly story.  When Alice in sitting in the grass throwing stones into the water, the movie immediately shifts.  First off, the expression on Alice’s face mirrors the tone for the rest of the movie.  She does not look confused, nor does she look timid.  Her facial expression is one of intensity, slight dark curiosity, but most of anticipation.  Next, the repetition and quietness of Alice while she throws the rocks into the water is an opening scene out of a horror movie.  The mood is so strong that if a viewer did not know the story of Alice they would not eliminate the possibility of a killing, rape, or some other dark, intense action.  The speed at which she throws the rocks and the way the rocks hit the water are at a slow, still pace, a speed that is present throughout the entire movie.  As each rocks splashes into he water, Alice does not change her expression.  Her face is still, and so is the sound.  As she reaches for more rocks in her dress, the camera pans to the left to view the person next to her.  The mood is one of questioning, quietness, and slowness.

            In Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland the first scene is written with a gentle, more children friendly tone.  To begin, there is no emotion of a rock.  This object is replaced with a chain of daisies for which Alice is putting together.  The rock is a symbol of a hard, rough, colder exterior while a daisy is associated with warmth, summertime and gentleness.  In addition to this, the tone of Lewis Carrol’s first five sentences give power to Alice.  By this I mean that his narrative is one that reflects on Alice and the power for her to make her own decisions.  This is apparent when it says, “so she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and…” (9-10).  Contrast this to the lack of knowledge that Alice is even sitting next to her sister in the opening scene of Funkmeyer, never mind, have power of her own, it is clear that the tone is completely different.  Carrol’s way of giving  status to Alice through her decisions is completely lacking in Funkmeyer’s version where it is shown that Alice is miserable, depressed, and has nothing left to do but aimlessly throw rocks into the water in a repetitive motion.

 

 

Sam Dumas-Sholay

As with all movies, Sholay has its own unique and individualistic style.  Its visual aesthetic is of course based upon the normative standard of Bollywood films in general.  With dramatic story lines that twist and turn like a soap opera, to the musical dance numbers, Bollywood has a somewhat rigid and fixed style.  In Sholay, things are no different and the visual style is not only stunning, but very structured as well in that way that it highlights certain aspects of the camera.  Both foreground and background are extremely affected by the extremely vibrant colors represented in the Holi Ke Din Song.  This musical number is entertaining, but its art is present in how the clouds of color highlight different physical spaces within a scene.

            First off, in Sholay, the bursts of color in this particular scene, coming from the throwing of colored ‘smoke’ (whether it be purple, red, blue, green), has the effect to build from the background to the foreground.  What I mean by this is if you take a very close look at this approximately six minute scene, in many of the sub-shots where there is depth, the colors of smoke are being thrown in the background and slowly make there way to the foreground where the camera is.  This sounds obscure, but that fact is that they either stop right behind the desired focal point, or in about three particular points, approaches the camera and clouds out the camera.  This is seemingly used to gently go from once shot to the other.

            The second use of the colored smoke is in framing.  By framing I am speaking of the different camera emphasis that is provided through the use of the smoke. I have a few examples of this amazing scene to prove my point.  In one shot, the camera is facing towards a ferris wheel with a box underneath it.  The ferris wheel is on the left side of the shot and is the focal point for this very short shot.  On the right side, different colors of smoke are used to cloud out that right side so that the viewer automatically looks at what is visual, being the ferris wheel.

            In addition to these two visual experiences, I also noticed how the women’s head dressed, those in the background and foreground, somewhat matched the colors of smoke that were present in the foreground/ background.  This created a direct link between foreground and background.  This reminds me of Magnificent Seven in that in that movie, the camera held a direct link through the narrowing of camera and clear visuals.  In Sholay, the only difference is that he link between foreground and background is made with color while Magnificent Seven used visual clarity and narrowing.