Amelie

Today, I am going to study cinematography in Amelie, a 2001 French romantic comedy film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Summary of films:

The film is about an eccentric introverted girl who decides to change the lives of those around her for the better life of a tobacco dealer, a painter, and three lonely people. At the same time, she is struggling with her own isolation, as she is fearful to step out of her comfort zone as being alone and an outsider is something she has always known. At the end of the film, due to the painter, Dufayel encourage her to pursue Nino, they are beginning of a relationship.

Cinematography

The word “cinematography” is based on the Greek kinema, meaning “movement, motion” and graphein meaning “to record”, together meaning “recording motion”. The word used to refer to the art, process, or job of filming movies, but later its means motion-picture photography. It involves such techniques as the general composition of a scene; the lighting of the set or location; the choice of cameras, lenses, filters, and film stock; the camera angle and movements; and the integration of any special effects. All these component may involve a large of crews whose responsibility to achieve the photographic images and effects desired by the director.

Analysis

The beginning of the film was a wide angle shot of Rue St Vincent, Montmartre, while used a special narration way and authoritative voiceover to descript the scenes. The director attempts to portray a sense of strange through a number of different events to present the birth and the childhood of Amelie, and used the strange personal hobbies to introduce the people surrounding her, such as her father, mother, colleague and so on. The director highlights how innocent of Amelie when a kid at the opening credits by using a close-up shot and some flashlight and colour lighting to reveal the playful Amelie. Otherwise, the director likes to play around the camera angle and camera mobility like pan, tilt, zoom in, zoom out and so on to introduce her parent and the childhood of the Amelie. As example: The scene where introduce Amelie’s father, from extreme long shot to show the setting of the character belongs to, then zoom in to close up shot, then cutscene to the toilet, use tracking shot to show the toilet to the character to descript he dislike peeing next to someone else, after then use ‘whip-pan’mean very fast pan from two ladies to Amelie’s father and crane shot to his sandals and so on. The director also like to use depth of field to lead the audience to focus on the main part of the scene.

The most unforgettable scene for me is when Nino late for the date at The Two Windmills Café at 4pm. Amelie start thinks about the two possible explanations why Nino late for the date. The scene uses black and white to present the imagination of Amelie. The timing of the scene with the coordinate of the narrator to narrate the process of the possible explanation is really funny. Its also reveals the characteristic of the Amelie is, which is rich imagination as she was a kid, cause of deprived of playmates and loneliness. The director highlights how a person’s childhood will have a huge impact on how they turn out as an adult. For example, Amelie’s childhood is very lonely. This makes her fear to step out of her comfort zone as being alone and an outsider even she is given an opportunity to give the book back and talk to Nino in the first place.

Conclusion

After watching this film, I noticed that this is why the movie gets a lot of good reviews and is one of the biggest international successes for a French movie. The unique storyline coordinate with outstanding cinematography. Great colours, amazing plot, really good actors and a warm nostalgic feeling of child's innocence. Recommended.