Skin and Touch

Keeping Rosy Trailer 2014:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtTwnb5y0h0 
 
When it comes to body genres, there are so many different films that can be brought into this quite broad area of film. There are horrors and melodramas, but a majority of the time I find the thrillers to be the most engaging especially when it comes to the body; skin and touch. One of the most engaging things about thrillers is that there doesn't have to be gore, or sappy moments, or even explosions. Thrillers engage the audience by telling it in a way that allows them to feel what is going on within the film in that moment in time, and keeps everyone 'on their toes'. Recently I watched Keeping Rosy, an independent British thriller. Without giving anything away, Keeping Rosy is about a woman named Charlotte that is fragile and unsure of her, and when life seems to get bad, it gets worse when she does something unthinkable and continues on with life, but with fear at hand. When watching this film, there was not a moment where I did not feel uneasy or fearful myself. What I noticed within my own aspects of watching this film was that the main character had such a strong emotional sense to her, that it made me feel like that as well and made my body crawl up into a little ball. It was intense, because of the sense of danger that everyone is in. There we so many moments in the film where it the interaction of every character within the skin and touch concept. Each physical moment or interaction between all the characters were a further indication of something bigger was arising within the film. A slight touch, a hit to the face, those moments no matter how small they were, were emphasized because it played such a huge role to the characterization of each character. When watching the film, you realise each touch is a decent into each characters madness, especially between the two main characters, they fall into a deep emotional and mental state that they cannot get out of, and begin to show that physically. When something physical happens to a character for example being hit, there is a feeling of pain, but you are the one who is safe. The audience whilst watching this will definitely feel that tension between each character, and what the ‘skin and touch’ element adds is that it illustrates what can happen, what is going to happen, or what already happen within the film. 

Eye, Look, Gaze

Manifesto Julian Rosefeldt teaser:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5eIDOe9qjQ

Andy Warhol screen test (Ann):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQEiOoMyvos

The way that we look at art and films are always going to be different because everyone has different perceptions of everything. The way people look at art today is the complexities of the piece itself, and the way the artist has created something to catch the viewer’s eye, even with the gaze of someone within the piece itself. It is a hypnotizing experience to be watching something and you are in the gaze of a character. Especially within art it is quite 'normal' for a piece to involve the gaze of someone within a piece. For example within Julian Rosefeldt's Manifesto, Cate Blanchett is staring right at the viewer in all of the short films featured within the exhibition. It is a very confrontational and intense experience to be watching someone who is also in a way watching you, staring right at you, and saying things you probably don't understand or hear because she is on so many different screens saying others things. There is one moment in the exhibition where Cate pops up on every screen and it is just her staring right at the viewer, eyes wide open. Especially when it comes to film, the gaze of a character can draw you into the story and connect more with the thoughts of the character, and that is what Rosefeldt has done within the exhibition. Watching all the screens at once is creepy, and yet draws you into the characters, no matter if you do not know what the intention is, the characters gaze pulls you into their world. With Andy Warhol's screen tests, he made a young girl named Ann to stare right into the camera, and not blink. With this particular experience of watching this young girl, it is quite sad in a way because of the fact she has been told not to blink and begins to cry because of the lack of moisture in her eyes. As a viewer you feel sad for her not just because she is crying and told not to blink, but because it is what she is telling the viewer through her eyes. Before you even know what is going on and before she begins to cry, you feel a kind of sadness for the girl. She does not have to say or do anything to make the viewer feel that way, it is the way she looks into the camera that makes you feel her emotion. The way that I responded to the screen test of Ann, was that emotionally I felt quite sad, just because she had to go through that uncomfortable feeling that is before I knew she wasn’t allowed to blink. When she began to cry it was quite a shock to me because I thought ‘couldn’t she have just blinked once?’ But one of the other things going through my mind whilst watching Ann was that she has a lot of will power and strength to continue doing that, no matter if it causes her pain she wanted to keep doing it. Within film eye, look and gaze are so powerful and true when they say "the eyes are the windows to the soul", and when watching Ann I believe that you could really see her for her, instead of just a test subject.

Door, Screen and Threshold

Bates Motel Opening sequence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPQevjL5cTs

Bates Motel Season 4 trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUKHgaJYeDY 

Expanding on the story of Psycho, Bates Motel is about a young Norman Bates living with his mother, and him slowly turning into the psychopath that is seen in Hitchcock's Psycho. Within the series it has so many different elements of horror that is embedded within the everyday life of this family, some much more obvious than others. Within its current fourth series in progress, it is evolving into what many people have a familiar idea on in the film. The use of the door in this series is very important to the nature of the genre. Like in the film the setup of the main house near the motel is similar. There are many moments in the film where the spectator may not know you is at the door or if it even safe for a character to enter within a specific place. The spectator usually enters each episode with a pan across a specific area of the house, or the motel or somewhere Norman and his mother is, and is immediately engulfed within the problems of the characters and fears for them. The house and the doors of the house are like a character in itself. Sometimes it is used as a barrier between characters, and other times it is used to create a wall between the character and the spectator. The door is also something that is used to conceal what Norman is really doing when his is by himself in his room. What he thinks about and how insane he really becomes. The experience of entering the series is very stressful and quite frightening at times, because it is never known what is or how the characters are going to react to one another, in this case how Norman is going to react (without going into detail for those who have not watched the series). Even when watching the series on TV, where it is bigger, or on the laptop which is quite up close, it is an experience that is the same every time no matter where a person watches it. There is much more of a fear factor when watching the series on the laptop because it is very intimate. The screen and the spectator and in close proximity, where as if the spectator watched the series on TV, there is much less fear, but fear none the less, because of the fact there is space between the screen and the spectator. Just like the door itself being its own character, the house and the motel are as well. They bring the ‘Psycho’ out of Norman Bates in a way, because of the space that each character has. The opening sequence to the show is also very intense because it sets the audience up for something that they may or may not expect during the series. It enhances the fear factor and allows the minds of the spectators to wonder about the episode itself. One of the most interesting things about the series is that it becomes more and more like the film as it progresses, and the way it is done is that the doors become a safety neat or a trap for each of the characters. The way they have conveyed the story/back story to Norman Bates has been done incredibly well and well thought out.