Thursday, November 21, 2013

Scent of a Woman

Source:http://movie.mtime.com/13695/posters_and_images/262159/

Director: Martin Brest
Writers: Giovanni Arpino (novel),Bo Goldman
Leading characters:
                                           Al Pacino       Colonel Frank
                                   Chris O'Donnel       Charlie Simms
Years: 1992

The story talks about a young man who study in a exclusive school, and depends on scholarship to pay for his expensive tuition fee.  He decides to look after a retired blind colonel Frank to get three hundreds to buy a plane ticket, so he can go back home to celebrate Christmas with his family. He thought it could be a normal thing. Unexpectedly, When the colonel's family left, the colonel asked Charlie to go to New York City as an accompany with him. Then they have a fantastic travel.  The colonel spent his pension to enjoy a really luxuriant life, and in the end of the plan that he decided to suicide, because he thought he is blind and incapable. While Charlie doesn't think so. As time passed by, Charlie knew colonel little by little, and he felt that there is lots of good behavior on the colonel. When he knew that Colonel decided to suicide, he try to save him. Finally, he did it. Meanwhile Charlie had his own mess. Because he do not want to betray his friend, he is going to face be expelled from school. At the end of the movie, the school had a meeting of him and another student who avoid punishment depending on his rich father. When Charlie is going to be expelled, the colonel gave a amazing speech to praise what Charlie did for his friends. Then the committee made a right decision to let Charlie continue his study.

This is another story talks about two people helped each other to find their life, like the first movie that I mentioned in my blog. Charlie helped the colonel live, while Colonel got back Charlie's future. But there is a different thing that it is Charlie's kind-hearted to change every thing. He change the colonel's mind, change the committee's mind, and his classmates' mind. The colonel was influenced by him, then he also hoped that Charlie can affect more people, so he did it for Charlie.

There are some shot that attracted me. 





This is a 4s' shot that shows the colonel is driving a Ferrari, which is one of his dream. It starts from a long shot and ends at a mid shot. The most interested thing is that when the car is moving, the camera is moving together in a similar speed at the other side of the building, so the audience can see they crosses many building. It shows how fast they are.





This tow shots is ingenious too. In the first shot, because the colonel is blind he asked what are the committee doing. Charlie told him, but the movie doesn't let audiences to listen clearly about what Charlie said. The editor directly show it in the next shot, which from the audiences' view. It is a great way to catch the audiences' attention making the movie successful.