From the source

This week in class we watched a student film from our own college entitled "The Last Summer” by Corey Womack. He didn't tell us beforehand that it was based on the events and feelings he felt the summer before leaving for college, but from the nostalgic tone of the film I gathered that it was more than just a story he came up with one day. The main plot was of a high school graduate stuck between the need to leave the town he grew up in and the things (like his girlfriend and just fear of what is to come) that keep him from being excited to leave.

I liked his take on the home town atmosphere. I find that some teen movies in which the main character has the opportunity to leave his/her small hometown are over exaggerated and degrading to the small hometown. While I think Corey’s film definitely had that sense of limitation that comes with unrealized potential and unsatisfied ambition, I don’t think it was overly critical of the small town atmosphere. In fact, the film seems to emphasize that the main character appreciates all the things his home has given him—the decision to move away to college is just the next step in becoming who he is. I appreciated Corey’s attention to detail, especially when conveying the emotions the character feels throughout the movie. The screen frame closing in on the main character emphasizing the suffocation he feels adds a lot to the tone and depth of the film.

Hearing Corey speak about the decisions he made in the film making process after seeing the finished product really helped me connect the idea of creating a film as a creative, artistic expression of emotion. While all the movies we’ve watched this semester had that artistic quality that makes them unique, I especially felt the emotional pull between Corey and his film. Maybe there is just something to be said for being in the same room as the filmmaker as he/she talks about their creation—you can see and feel the connection between the person and the product. I wonder if Corey was even the slightest bit nervous at showing his film. I’m sure he was more relieved to be finished (as he kept reiterating that he was finished editing and that we were seeing the final version) than nervous, but I considered his film to be a very personal form of expression (especially since it was autobiographical).

One other thing that interested me in class was this little clip we watched of Alfred Hitchcock talking about tension in movies. He spent a few minutes setting up a scene for us (I say that as if he were in the room with us) to make the distinction between surprise and suspense. He described the two as: “When you show a group of characters talking and a bomb goes off, that's surprise; when you tell the audience there's a bomb and then show the characters talking, that's suspense.” The most interesting part of the clip was when Hitchcock stated that the most important thing to remember is that “the bomb must never go off.” I wondered at the reason behind never “completing the bomb sequence” (never allowing the tension to release perhaps in a metaphorical sense).

I wondered what would happen if you did let the bomb go off. Then I realized that that was just it. The bomb would go off. And there would be nothing. No story, no characters, no purpose—you negated it by destroying everything you built up to that point. I am reminded of the MacGruber Saturday Night Live skits (spoofs of MacGyver)in which the bomb ALWAYS goes off despite MacGruber’s efforts to disable it…so funny. However, in every movie I’ve seen with a bomb problem, the bomb never (or if it does, it does so in a continuation of the story and not the end) actually goes off. I always wondered why this was so prevalent in movies. Then, Hitchcock explained his reasoning: By throwing the bomb out the window and then letting it go off, you still have your characters and their reaction to the explosion (you still have something with which to work).

The main thing I gathered from class this week is that I love hearing people speak about their art almost as much as I love experiencing it myself.