Amadeus 

The wardrobe used in Amadeus could most easily be compared to that of George Washington and other important figures during that time period. White wigs were common, as were suits with white neck ties similar to a handkerchief one would tuck into their shirt while eating dinner.

Despite having all colors used throughout the film, red was the most prominent. The color red was used to show individuals in a stance of power and influence. Emperor Joseph II was always seen wearing red throughout the movie, proving his influence over the country and its inhabitants. Salieri was seen only a few times wearing red, each time proving that he was the main character and was planning on doing something to change the lives of others.

Back in the days of Mozart, everyone wore makeup. It was plain to see that wealthy characters powdered their faces, regardless of gender. The offstage makeup crew was also impressive both with making the funny opera characters makeup look crazy, and by the realistic abilities of the makeup artist when Mozart passed out at his opera and later passed away.

Amadeus was filmed in what was made to be immortalized as Vienna. As the audience, we were able to become lost in verisimilitude whilst viewing the streets of Vienna, the loony bin and the characters it held, Mozart's beautiful home, the amazing opera houses, and the royal palace of Joseph II. The film makers went out of their way to make sure that every location visited throughout Amadeus looked the part. Production design was amazing at putting the audience into the film and making the audience feel as though the elderly Salieri was retelling his experiences directly to the audience, as opposed to just a two hour flashback.

In 1984, red was also an important color, if not for the same reasons. Communism and McCarthyism was a big deal in the 1980s and red was the color associated with communism due to the title of the "Red Scare." People were terrified of the spread of communism and would go on near literal witch hunts to accuse others of being witches in the hopes of proving their own loyalty to the nation.

The goal of Amadeus was to "defeat the creature." Salieri was angry at God for making him the "patron saint of mediocrity" by not being a great composer, only to see that the amazing Mozart was nothing but a blubbering fool. Salieri thought it was not fair and devoted his life to destroying Mozart, therefore destroying the sound of God that flowed through him. Near the end, he goal changed becaue Salieri wanted to prove himself over God by making Mozart write a requiem mass that would be amazing, and the Salieri intended to play the music and take all the fame for the work while playing it at Mozart's funeral.

Explicitly, Mozart grew up wanting to be a great composer.  He is shown in the loony bin speaking to a preacher after trying to kill himself and retelling his story. He became good, but not great and was able to work with Emperor Joseph II. Mozart came to play for him and Salieri became upset because the work of Mozart was astounding, but Mozart himself was a stupid teenager. He becomes angry at God and decides to destroy Mozart. Mozart's father dies and his wife leaves him, causing him to be constantly drunk and fall into a deep depression. Because Mozart spends all of his money, he goes broke and Salieri offers Mozart money to write a requiem mass. Mozart becomes sick, so Salieri comes over to help Mozart write the requiem, only to have Mozart pass away before the mass is finished. Salieri is upset and tells the preacher that he is the "patron saint of mediocrity."

Rear Window 

Camera movement played an interesting part throughout the movie, because the audience is looking through the binoculars or Jeff's camera most of the time. Because of this, the camera was constantly moving in the same way someone wearing binoculars would move around to look at all of the different apartments.

Shot, Reverse, Shot was common when Jeff, Stella, Dt. Doyle, and Lisa were speaking with each other. However, Hitchcock modified the way it was done by not having the camera directly shoot over the characters shoulders. The moving camera and characters moving throughout the apartment helped to show dialogue without having to seem like an interrogation scene.

While the main characters are good at what they do and know how to act well, I was most impressed by the neighbors. The neighbors had little to no heard dialogue or close ups, so they had to be able to act well enough to get their point across in such a way that is easy to notice, but without feeling forced.

Visual effects were rather poor compared to what we see in movies today. However, in 1954 they were state of the art. The flash photography was used to momentarily blind Thorwald as he walked closer to Jeff, and Jeff falling out of the window were two main uses of visual effects.

Tension was created through bot visual and sound effects. While the ladies are digging in the garden, Thorwald starts walking home. You can hear the sound of footsteps and the camera appears darker while watching the women. To strike fear into the heart of the audience, the movie is filmed through Jeff's own camera. Because of this, when the women become concerned, they look up at Jeff, effectively staring directly into the eyes of the audience and becoming a gateway to what Stella and Lisa were feeling as they were about to get caught by Thorwald.

Explicitly, the film was about a man who was stuck in a cast and would watch his neighbors out of his window because he was bored. The man--Jeff, noticed one of his neighbors acting strangely and led Jeff to believe that his neighbor had killed his wife. He brings in a detective who doesn't believe the story, so Jeff, along with his girlfriend Lisa and nurse Stella, decide to catch Mr. Thorwald and prove that he killed his wife. After calling Thorwald, he comes to Jeff's apartment and drops Jeff out of the apartment in such a way that causes immense spectacle and Thorwald is caught by the police and confesses to the murder.

Stella describes the implicit meaning of the film best when she says, "We've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change." The implicit meaning of the film brings out what was going on during 1954 due to McCarthyism. People were so afraid of communism and of people being communists that they would spy on their neighbors and turn each other in, hoping that by turning someone else in for being communist, they would be able to support that they themselves were not affiliated with the communists.

Is turning in random people for potentially being communist ethical? I believe that was a main idea that the 1954 Rear Window was subtly discussing through Jeff spying on his neighbors. Was Jeff invading his neighbors privacy? Yes. Did the act of spying help him to catch the "bad guy?" Again, yes. I am not sure whether Rear Window really had a side on the discussing of Privacy vs. McCarthyism, but the movie does bring to light what exactly is happening and leaving the audience to decide whether what the characters did was ethical, or just an immense invasion of privacy.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

In 1969, US citizens were strongly opposed to the Vietnam war, we just landed on the moon, and the biggest music icon of all time took place--Woodstock. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid became a hit because the were rebels against authority and what was going on in the world at the time. Similarly, the hippie generation had emerged by this time and were also going against authority in their own way through protests of peace.

Implicitly, the film seemed to imply that evil, no matter how promising and attractive it may appear, can never succeed. Someone will always show up to stop evil from spreading.

Through montage, the film was capable of showing the passage of time, whilst still moving the story along in a way that did not make the film feel as though pieces were cut and pasted onto the screen. Instead, the montage used background music and as time passed, the music changed to stay up to date with what was going on in the montage.

To be honest, I am not sure why the film won Oscars for Music and Writing, because I did not enjoy the film. I felt as though the writing left a gap about what happened to Etta. After she decided on leaving, she disappeared from the film altogether, despite having been a fairly main character up until that point. The music was not great, however I will admit that during the montage, the music changed in time with the actions on the film, which was a good move. The still shot with gunshots at the end of the film was also enjoyable, however those are the only two reasons why I can imagine that the film won two Oscars.

Anti-Heros are used in almost every bad guy movie because the definition of an anti hero is when the protagonist of the film is the bad guy. Save the cat moments help to make the audience fall for and accept the protagonist as the main character and to root for them to win, despite the knowledge that the character is evil. The fact that the bad guy is the protagonist also forces the audience to automatically like the bad guy, because we have been trained to always root for the main character.

I am not a great film critic, specifically when discussing films that I did not enjoy. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid tells me that the bad guys can never win, and that once you turn evil, you can never go back to being one of the good guys, even if you want to.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is most definitely a Western. The film featured both outlaws on the run, and amazing mountain desert scenery.

If released today, the film would not have done quite as well. Western films aren't popular right now, and the film does not move fast enough. Audiences in 2015 seem to get bored faster than those of previous decades. At this point in time, movies need to have more gunshots, more action, and more romance. There should not be room to think about what is going on in the film and to plan what will happen next. Movies coming out today are created to make audiences live in the moment the characters are in by making everything happen faster than years before.

The friendship between Sundance and Butch stuck out to me because when the gang was forced to split up, Sundance and Butch would always stick together, leaving the other men behind. Throughout the whole movie, they would always stick together, not matter what was happening to them. I believe that was one of the main reasons the audience was able to root for the anti heros. Butch and Sundance were able to still be seen as humane due to their close friendship.