Red Tails Intro to Film Eng free essay sample

This movie is an adventure film that brings to light the true meaning of brotherhood , because these men function as a unit, and proof that Black Men can serve in a combat unit. This film also brings to light the struggles that these men went through to prove their worth. The idea behind this movie is to show society the bravery and determination of a group of Black Men to prove that they can fight for their country as well as any White man. The point is proven in this movie. The story is told in an all knowing point of view. It is not centered on the thoughts and feels of any one person but on all of the characters in the movie. The plot is told in chronological order starting with their first mission , although not in a combat capacity, which is not only successful but goes beyond in destroying a train which was disguised as civilian but was actually a military train loaded with guns and soldiers. The story takes place in Italy during World War II. The unit is made up of most college students who left school to serve in the Army. Their goal was to be pilots. After numerous test they qualified to be in the pilot program. This was a new unit made up of all African Americans. It was an experiment that the Army was sure would fail. Hollywood believed that the movie itself would fail. It took more than 20 years for George Lucas to get this movie made. â€Å" More than 2 decades in the making George Lucas† passion project â€Å"Red Tails† hit theaters today after a long search to find a distributor that wanted to market an expensive film with an all-black cast. Lucas spent $58 million of his own money to produce â€Å"Red Tails , an action movie about the Tuskegee Airmen the first All- African American aerial combat unit that paved the way for the intergration of the U. S. Armed Services. It was a risky venture by Hollywood standards and one that Director Anthony Hemingway said carried enormous responsibility. ( Payne Amber and Caron Christina NBC News January 20 2012. ) ACTING AND ACTORS The main characters in this movie are played by mostly actors that are well known. Terrence Howard plays Colonel A. J. Bullard who reports back to Washington D. C. on the progress of the unit. It is a constant struggle for him. He is always fighting for the survival of his unit. Terrence Howard is well known to me. He has been in comedies as well as drama. Most of his latter career has been drama. The movie The Best Man was a mixture of both and his character handled the transition well. Cuba Gooden Jr. plays Major Emanuelle Stance. He is in charge of the actual unit and gives the men their orders. Gooden like Howard does both comedy and drama. Like Howard most of his latest movies have been drama. He won an Academy Award for his part in the movie Jerry Mcguire which was comedy , but if you want to see him at his best watch the movie â€Å"The Hit List† this is a drama and he plays the part of a hit man to a tee. The movie â€Å" Red Tails is not a comedy but both of these actors excel in their parts. The other actors in the film are not as well known as these two but most of them are well know in the African American community. An example of this would be Ne-Yo. He plays Smokey in this movie. Ne-Yo is better known as a singer of Ramp;B but he also starred in the Movie â€Å"Stomp The Yard†. I have not seen him in a comedy so his focus , other than his singing career , is drama. CINEMATAGRAPHY The cinematagrapy in this movie is not about a lot of bright lights. Most of the movie uses mute tones . The wardrobe has very little color except for the brown uniforms. The costumes are not flashy or of bright colors even when the soldiers are out and dresses in civilian clothes. Even the women in the movie wear clothes that are dull and boring. The exception to this are the fight scenes. The Tuskegee Airmen’s planes have the tails painted red thus the name for the movie. The special effects are in brilliant colors when there are explosion and plane crashes. The smoke and fire from the plans that have been hit are bright and glowing. The close up of the men that have been hit and while they are in the cockpits are brightly lit in contrast to the other scenes in the movie. The special effects of the fighting makes you feel that you are there in the cockpits with the pilots. In the scene where they follow a German pilot back to his base you can almost smell the smoke and feel the jarring destruction of the air base. You feel as if you are right there. SOUND EFFECTS AND DIALOGUE The most important sounds are those of the sounds of the engines of the planes. The sound of the engines let you know that these are not planes from today they are too loud and tinny sounding to be modern planes. Also the sound of the gun fire is indicative of the era that the movie is set in. The sounds of the bombs dropping has a whistling quality that never seems to change in movies The music does not play a very important part in this movie. There is nothing outstanding about the sound track. Not one song that is played would make me go out and buy it. The music in the Officers Club must be set to the era of the time because none of it was familiar to me . The most significant of all was the dialogue. The exchanges between the men was sometimes light and jokey and sometimes serious. The exchanges let you know how they were feeling and what their hopes and dreams were. The dialogue is the heart of the movie. The exchanges between Colonel Bullard and the Brass in Washington let you know what an uphill battle that these men faced every day just to get the respect that they deserved. It showed that these men thought that Black Men were really inferior to the White man. Even though time after time they completed their missions successfully. A different point of view was expressed by the men in the field that they protected. They were actually requested because of their impressive record of not losing a plane that they were protecting. In the beginning they were not welcome in the Officers Club even to the point of causing a fight if they entered. After they were assigned to protect the fighter they were actually invited into the Officers Club because the men that were out there doing the fighting respected them. STYLE AND DIRECTING Style is â€Å"when we can recognize similar use of technique from one film to another we are recognizing a style. (Film From Watching To Seeing Goodykoontz B. and Jacobs , C. P. 2011) This would be hard to do because this is Anthony Hemingway’s first movie. I must say with the job that he did here I will be looking for more of his movies. He stated in an interview â€Å"I really prayed and asked God for my first film†. (Wentraub , Steve ‘Frosty ,January 20 ,2012) GENRE AND IMPACT OF FILM Red Tails is an action/adventure film. The difference is that this film has an All- African American crew. There are minor characters in the film that are White but even with a minor role they bring home the point of how racism was alive and well at this time in American history. The impact of society in this film is to bring about the point of how racism is a baseless belief. These men proved time and time again that they were as good if not better than The White pilots. They were the most sought after unit of protection pilots of their era. Once they proved themselves they were accepted and treated as equals by all of the pilots that were out in the field doing the actual fighting. It seems that there is a segment of our society that had never heard of The Tuskegee before this movie. â€Å"Red Tails† certainly isn’t the first film about the Famed Tuskegee Airmen, but according to Roscoe Brown, a former squadron commander in the 332nd fighter group, it’s the first move beyond the well –told story of racism that led to the groups formation and focused instead on the combat mission. (Payne , Amber and Caron , Christina , NBC News , January 20. 2012) EDITING â€Å" Effective editing is sometimes called â€Å"invisible editing†. This is because viewers often do not even realize when a shot changes from say a two shot to a close –up of one actor or even from one location to another. (Goodykoontz , B , and Jacob , C. P. ) This style of editing seemed to be used a lot in this movie the scenes seemed to transition from one scene to another very smoothly. I also noticed directors cut where one scene instantly replaced another. (Goodykoontz B. and Jacob C. P. Film: From Watching To Seeing 2011) The movie is shot in chronological order. There is a clear beginning , middle , and end. The story starts with the men on their first mission. It is a non-combat mission. They are successful. The middle is about how they gain respect after being successful in all of their missions. The end shows them being honored for the work that they have done. Some of the most memorable are the scenes where there are close –ups on the pilots and then the shift to the planes in flight formation. APPROACH As we have learned approaches can over lap. I found this film to contain two approaches. A formalist approach â€Å"Ignore most of all of its cinematic techniques to focus on character, plot development story structure, motif fore shadowing , motivation , and the like. Goodykoontz, B. Jacob , C. P. 2011). This is not the total case but it can be detected. The major focus of this movie is on the characters and plot. Most of the cinematic technique is secondary to the dialogue. The characters are the most important element in this story. â€Å" A culturalist approach ,or seeing the film symptomatic of the culture in which it was c reated. † Goodykoontz B. and Jacob , C. P. 2011) The theme of racism is one of the main focal points in this movie. The constant fight to achieve equality is paramount to this story. CONCLUSION This movie honors the men of The Tuskegee Airman. It brought the accomplishments of these brave men to the forefront of American History. The movie showed how these men proved the racist U. S. Army that they were wrong. Anthony Hemingway did a wonderful job for his first film. George Lucas worked very hard to bring this movie to the big screen. Even to the point of investing a sizeable amount of his own movie to bring the film to life. There were critics that criticized and did not like this movie. Michael Phillips of the Tribune news was one of them. â€Å"George Lucas’ production takes a comic book approach to the exploits of World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen. Red Tails† squanders a great subject, reducing the real life struggles and fierce heroics of the Tuskegee Airmen to rickety cliche. Some of the action’s fun but if something about that statement doesn’t sound right, well , there’s your chief problem with â€Å"Red Tails†. It sets out to ingratiate without provocation or complexit y. (Phillips , Michael Tribune Newspaper , January 20 2012). I disagree with Mr. Phillips. I have had the opportunity to actually hear The Tuskegee Airmen speak. I grew up in Detroit , Michigan. Our Mayor Coleman Young was a member of The Tuskegee Airmen. He had a group of the surviving Airmen speak in our city and I was lucky enough to be there. Laughter was one of the ways that they dealt with the stress. Mr. Phillips should check his facts. â€Å"Red Tails† The World War II drama about The Tuskegee Airmen was named best picture at the 44th NAACP Image Awards on Friday evening at The Shrine Auditorium. (King Susan February 1, 2013, Movies Now Films : Past , Present and Future. ) I have to agree with the people who found this to be an award worthy movie. It kept me interested from the beginning to the end. I have watched this movie many times.