Quiz for Week of March 7-12

The film I chose to watch is The Puffy Chair directed by Jay Duplass. I chose this because I thought it would be interesting to see more of Duplass's work and the story sounded interesting. The movie stuck to the mumblecore style with the rougher filming style and realistic dialogue. I find it so interesting how powerful silences can be, something I never really noticed until I started this class. This one and all the other mumblecore films I've seen so far seem to play up the awkwardness that exists in real life. These films feel like you're just watching unedited excerpts of the characters lives, which can be a bit boring or slow sometimes but in the end, the point of the story does come across.

There is a scene in The Puffy Chair about ten minutes in where the main character (Josh) and his girlfriend (Emily) visit Josh's brother (Rhett) on their road trip that is the main part of the film. The scene uses a lot of changes in depth of field, playing with perspective. The three are sitting in a circle talking, eating and watching the film Josh's brother made. It focuses on the people as they talk as well as on the television playing the film, as if it's another person in the group. This technique is used throughout the film and it seems to emphasize the DIY aspect to mumblecore. The scenes aren't cut up to display different people talking but they instead leave the camera rolling and change the focus according to who is talking at the time. It also adds to the feeling that we are experiencing a moment in these people's lives and not just watching a scripted film.