Semiotics – Reading the Characters in Donnie Darko (2001)

This week’s lecture looked at semiotics, and character analysis through “Denotation”, “Connotation”, and “Myth”. I decided to take apart two of the main characters in a much loved film – Donnie Darko. If you’re thinking about watching it, stop thinking and watch it. Don’t watch the directors cut though. Srsly..

DONNIE DARKO

Denotation –

-       Teenage kid

-       Dark clothes

-       Dark features – hair eyes

-       Casually dressed

-       Miserable expression

-       Apathetic look and ‘gate’

-       Slouched posture

Connotation –

-       carefree / slightly wreakless

-       Depressed / Rebel

-       Existential / questioning life

-       Gravely unhappy, unfulfilled

-       Mentally troubled

-       Unsure, nervous, anxious about the future

-       Nihilistic

The Myth –

-       Teenage boys seem to degrade society

-       Troubled people make the best art

-       The purpose behind the actions of others is widely misunderstood

-       The big picture is worth more than all the precedes it

FRANK THE BUNNYRABBIT

Denotation –

-       A person dressed in a large stylised bunny suit

-       A happy grin on the face

-       A silvery surface covers most of the face and the ears of the suit

-       Large exaggerated, distorted teeth

-       Twisted, distorted ears

-       White eyes without pupils

-       Grey furry body with white oval on chest

-       Unnatural facial ripples and contours

Connotation

-       Sinister smile , implication of sadistic personality

-       Unnatural stylised appearance reinforces the idea of frank being an imaginary construct

-       Glowing eye as “all seeing eye”

-       Tall stature – omnipotent being

-       Reflective material seems futuristic, representing tine travel

-       Warped face as a sign of abuse, past tragedies

-       Neat fur, untouchable character, reinforces omnipotence

-       Interest in the greater good, willing to be a destructive force in the short term to achieve morality

The Myth

-       Looks deceive

-       Malevolent philanthropist

-       Kindness as a result of remorse

That's all folks.

IMDB Rating : 8.2/10

My Rating : 8.5/10

Transmitting, receiving, noise, entropy, and redundancy in the Black Swan (2010)

Tonight's film was Black swan (2010) a film I wasn't expecting to enjoy after Requiem for a Dream (2000). I do wish I’d watched the film after a lecture on semiotics, because this film is saturated, and would have made a wonderfully easy write, But I digress. I dutifully sat with my notepad and pen and jotted down bits and pieces I could relate to Ivan’s lecture on the Shannon and Weaver communication model.

The start of the film seemed to be a great example of Entropy, coupled with a little bit of Noise, featuring Natalie Portman dancing with a strange morphing black creature. The creature - a construct of lovely VFX, represented Entropy (Something unfamiliar which conveyed new information to us as the audience) while the dark enigmatic stage and fast paced, tight shot created good visual "noise" which stood between the message and the recipient.

While on the subject of noise, the opposite was true when Natalie's character came to tell her mother the good news of her new part. A very low level of audible noise and a low level of visual noise (She was in a plain coloured toilet cubicle by herself) helped to create a clear transmission of information to the audience. This was crucial given the important nature of the information. 

a little later on in the film was a strange concept that I found difficult to label in terms of the terminology mentioned in the lecture. the scene involved a shot of Natalie's character (Nina) looking down at the caller ID on her phone, which showed a bright pink block colour screen with very large text reading "MUM" dominating the screen. Immediately the entropic alarm bells went off in my mind, but the more I dwelled on the idea the more I could see it as redundancy within the context of film convention. We as an audience are very used to the idea of the huge-text-full-screen-caller-ID on the phone, despite this having no grounding in real life. Just a thought. Maybe I read too much into that one.

it was mentioned in the lecture that Redundancy and entropy are are normally in a 1:1 ratio with one another but within the context of the black swan, the split seemed to be skewed towards entropy – presenting loads of new, unfamiliar, and strange information.

For the record, I didn't really enjoy the film, it felt like Darren Aronofsky had fallen into the same habits that made me hate requiem for a dream; Crazy stylised visuals and symbolism at the cost of character development, and a story told in such a way that you're never really surprised by anything.

I sure do love a bit of clever symbolism and a well thought out shot or two, but I really couldn't give a damn about the protagonist's tragic end, much like in RFAD. I'm pretty sure that's not what he was aiming for.

IMDB Score: 8.3/10

My Score: 6/10