Bibliography 1.Wallis, M., 2015. Remarks on symbols. Studia Semiotyczne–English Supplement, 7, pp.4-14. (primary) 2.Weddle, J., 2014. Orbiting Mother: Archetypal Motifs and Symbols of Modern Story in Gravity. Jung Journal, 8(2), pp.48-55. (secondary)
Literature review The primary article explained how symbols worked in general. Besides, it used Eisenstein’s films for examples which could back up my ideas.
The secondary one listed five symbols in the film Gravity from a narrative aspect, it explained how they helped tell the story of the character’s journey.
I’ve liked Batman since I was a child. So I had high expectation for the Joker film before it came out. And I was satisfied with it. I really loved the way they used colours in the film. It gave me a feeling that they really put effort in the film and that’s what a good film is supposed to look like.
I’m also interested in psychology, I think human brain is the most delicate and complicate thing in this entire universe, it’s fun to study how it works. The Joker is a character who has several mental illness, there is a lot to talk about. So I made this report to interpret how colour reveals the Joker’s mental state.
I took Freud’s ID and ego theory, and combined with three primal colours that were majorly used in lighting and costume. And surprisingly, they fit every scene in the film. The film making crew didn’t randomly use the colours, they deliberately designed them.
Let’s go to the specifics. Red means the ID which is a primal version of the character, or should I say it’s him in his subconsciousness. For the Joker, it’s passionate and violent who wants to break free. That why his outfit is mostly red rather than the original comic version of purple.
Neutral colours like blue our grey represent ego, which is a more common state of the character. He is relatively calm in his daily life. Most of the exterior scenes in this film are blue, they showed the audience day to day life in Gotham.
Yellow means the superego, which is how the society and world expect us to be. It has a higher moral standard. When the Joker was following his neighbour, there was a yellow taxi passing by, to tell him what you’re doing is wrong, stop it. And back to the therapy scene, there are yellow among the blue, it means the society wants the Joker to behave, don’t go mad and be a good boy.
Jan Svankmager’s “Dimensions of Dialogue” is a collection of short films made up of stop-motion photography, live action, and animation (IMDB). There are three parts of the story that describe three different kinds of communication. All the following interpretation is personal.
In the first part of the film, three heads made of three different types of materials indicate three persons with different ideas. Their ideas are deconstructed and reconstructed while they talk to each other. In the end, the disagreement becomes agreement, but the diversity of every individual is gone, the three people lose their characters and become identical. The process of the reformation looks violent and messy, which probably means the communication between each other is not pleasant. The process from agree to disagree could be a violent way, it is hard to persuade someone or change someone’s mind.
The materials that form the heads are relatively intact at the beginning and chopped up after the conversation. Every time the heads talk to each other, the materials become smaller pieces, then they are so mashed up that they become clay eventually. The change of material gives the message of ‘from disagree to agree’ pretty clear.
The second part of the film tells a story of a man and a woman having sex. Their bodies intertwine with each other, it is a physical level of communication. After having a good time with each other, something is born. It could be a baby, or a symbol of responsibility. Neither of them wants it, they throw this ‘problem’ at each other. Then the disagreement between them escalates into a fight which leads to destruction.
Clay is a proper medium to show this story. Their merging, the baby and the destruction are all presented well by using clay.
In the third part of the film, there are various tools that come out of two people’s mouths, one tool gives and the other receives, the tools represent the ways of communication. If they are on the same page, the conversation goes smoothly. If not, they are both exhausted. Additionally, if they are both giving(talking) or receiving(listening), the conversation will not go well either.
The tools used in this part are pairable things in real world, toothbrush and toothpaste, butter and bread, shoe and shoelace, pencil and sharpener. They easily convey the meaning of match to the audience.
After a few attempts at wrong matches, there are cracks appearing on both heads. In the end, they become two piles of mud breath heavily. These details show the audience that an unmatched conversation can be very exhausting.
The composition in the first part is mostly close-up and super close-up, which is a fascinating way to show the chaotic scene when the heads are resembled.
I’m thinking about the topic of the film language thesis. There is a strong and iconic color palette designed in the Joker film. I wonder how the colors imply the character’s mental state, and how the colors change with the plot. I’m probably going to discover the answer from a psychological aspect.
