My experimental film project is a found footage film commentating on the male gaze theory in popular films through flicker image representations of the character’s thoughts when engaged in a conversation. Each character’s thought process is represented quickly to reveal some insight into the undertones of the conversation that go beyond the surface level meaning. By diverting the attention towards the character’s thought process, my film reveals the prevalence of the male gaze in cinema.
The Beginning
My idea came mainly from the way Charlie Kaufman’s surrealist film, I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020), depicts the conversations between the two main characters. The film gives us insight into the female protagonist’s perspective through her audible narrative thoughts, however it is portrayed in a way that makes the audience question if the other character can hear these thoughts and if they can respond to them. This uncomfortable, unknown aspect of surrealism is what inspired my film, the idea of mediating attention in terms of a distraction from the conversation to an insight of the thoughts of the characters. Initially, I was going to do this thought process idea without a feminist message, but when I was sourcing material I thought it would be more meaningful to incorporate a message about the male gaze theory. With encouraging feedback from my classmates this was the idea I ran with to expand beyond just surrealism and incorporate a feminist commentary.
Format: Found footage
I decided to make my film using found footage partly due to a lack of equipment but mainly because I enjoy manipulating media and have found my strength in editing from the previous assessment. By manipulating the audio/visuals to convey a meaning separate from its source material, I could mediate attention away from the intended course of these popular films by transforming the perspective to unveil the problematic undertones through a portrayal of the character’s thoughts. I wanted to do this with several different movie scenes but was unsure how to accomplish it cohesively, until a classmate suggested I colour code the characters. Therefore, I made the female character have red/pink toned hair and the male character wear dark tones. When sourcing these characters I discovered most of them to be within the manic pixie dream girl trope, a trope designed solely to be of aid to the advancement of the male protagonist’a character development. Though some of the films I used were a critique of this trope, the conversations within the scenes only aided in my attempt to highlight the way these female leads are designed for a heteronormative male audience.
- Movie scenes (in order)
- Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)
- The Breakfast Club (1985)
- (500) Days of Summer (2009)
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Methodology
In my editing process, I didn’t have a structured outline for my film. The only part I’d storyboarded was the main idea; the depiction of the thoughts between characters. I wanted to make each character’s thought fast paced and distorted, overlaid with colours to represent the mood and a manipulation of audio to embody a surreal but not outlandish representation of a character’s thought. With this idea in mind the rest of my process was just editing in the thoughts to be what I saw fit and discovering the message through that method.
The first scene I worked on was Scott Pilgrim vs The World (2010) by going through and visualising what I interpreted the characters to be thinking, I discovered the underlying misogyny within in it in Scott’s shocked reaction to Ramona smoking and went with it. Moving between scenes I had to line up the characters to convince the audience that they were intended to be the same person. Moving to The Breakfast Club (1985) I used the two characters smoking and a scratched film overlay to transition to the next scene. Then following to (500) Days of Summer (2009) I moved the frame to line up the characters for make a smooth transition between scenes. One major feedback from my first draft was to blend in the words I used in the thoughts better, to make them seem apart of the vision and not just laid on top. Once I’d changed the transparency the effect was much better.
The Ending
Due to the lack of storyboarding in my process, I was dreading the end. But once I’d gotten to the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), the woman’s ending line in that scene wrapped up the commentary on the male gaze in cinema perfectly and was a great ending point from the escalation of the previous scene. I wanted the ending to be this fast paced repetitive crescendo of the previous scenes to confuse the audience, make them question which parts they need to hear or see, this was inspired by Maya Deren’s, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, 1959) and its increased repetition of the images that scream to be noticed by the audience but aren’t that simple to piece together. This is what I tried to accomplish with my ending, I wanted my audience to question what was this all for? What should I take from this? What should I have paid attention to? Thus, why I incorporated the words into the thoughts quickly throughout, they may or may not have been important, who knows? The audio only enhances this, I used static/white noise towards the end to enhance the build up. Looking back I probably could have drawn out the ending to build up more but I think if I added more it would’ve drawn away from the message.
Experimental cinema has been very exciting to learn about and has uncovered a place for creativity in film without the limitations of traditional cohesive narratives. With this freedom I was able to let my creativity shine into something I’m passionate about and expand beyond the traditional rules of film. I’m excited to experiment more in the future!
Reference List
B12 2013, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Best Scene, online video, 11 February, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lvNGhBXTU0>.
Cedarbush 2020, The Breakfast Club – Smoking Scene (1080p HD), online video, 19 February, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyiWYMDzeso>.
Cinema sem Culpa 2020, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), online video, 12 August, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60wKltMmm_Y&t=484s>.
Columbo 2017, Cigar Smoking Man – Columbo, online video, 4 November, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP66mXMOcYw>.
Entertainment Clips 2020, I’m Thinking Of Ending Things (2020) Movie – Opening Scenes, online video, 8 September, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w98SpXmzl7Q>.
Hellerman, J 2020, How To Avoid the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope (For Men!), No Film School, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://nofilmschool.com/manic-pixie-dream-girl-trope>.
HitFix 2013, Ginger & Rosa – Girl talk, online video, 6 February, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVzBv0UID6c>.
LTal94 2010, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World – Ramona & Scott In The Park (Alternate), online video, 12 November, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocmUBx1p3Jo>.
Mariusz Dos Santos 2019, 500 Days of Summer – Date with Allison, online video, 12 January, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN38gP7lAQA>.
Michael Starr 2016, The Breakfast Club Have you done it, online video, 19 August, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG3-n9ABoLA>.
MylifeMyfilms 2011, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – “Who is she?”, online video, 16 April, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR49ulcC9fo>.
Sampson, R 2015, Film Theory 101 – Laura Mulvey: The Male Gaze Theory, Film Inquiry, viewed 26 November 2020,
< https://www.filminquiry.com/film-theory-basics-laura-mulvey-male-gaze-theory/>.
Hallie Rutter 
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