Padlet by Katelyn Cook

Breakfast Montage

Katiebritt — 2025-09-04 17:26:25 UTC

Silence was at the table near the end of their marriage. The breakfast montage in the movie “Citizen Kane” showed Charles Foster Kane and Emily's marriage slowly falling apart. The scene began with a happy marriage, where they would have nice conversations, but by the end, they would just sit in silence and not talk. The montage encapsulates the entire life of a marriage, from the initial love to bitterness. At the beginning of the montage, they had happy voices and kept a nice tone throughout their conversations. Slowly, both of their tones were starting to sound more aggressive and bitter, and their faces grew angrier. They were short scenes with rapid cutting. The shorter the scenes got, the more their marriage fell apart. The worse the marriage got the farther the farther they sat away from each other. In the first conversation, they were sitting right next to each other. By the last scene, they had a long table between them. The music in the scene started out calm, helping to highlight the happy marriage. However, with every subsequent scene, the music became increasingly aggressive, reflecting the couple's growing unhappiness. At the beginning of their marriage, he was willing to arrive at work later just for her, but when their marriage was falling apart, he refused to show up late, and most of the time, he would be at work instead of with his wife. The transition between scenes shows a time jump with every scene. The spin transitions almost look like they are going at a faster pace each time to show the distress of the marriage. Orson Welles' intentions of the montage were to show the marriage falling apart and them starting to hate each other. Orson Welles did a terrific job on showing their failing marriage throughout the breakfast montage.

Make 'Em Laugh

Katiebritt — 2025-09-18 16:18:15 UTC

Don Lockwood was upset, so Cosmo's goal was to make Don laugh. They were on the soundstage on a set for a film. There was lots of empty space, which helped Cosmo do all of his crazy stunts throughout this scene. Props were all scattered around, like furniture, ladders, and random set pieces that help Cosmo use it throughout the scene. The set was very chaotic, but Cosmo didn’t let that stop him; he used everything he could to his full advantage in this scene. The lighting is bright in this scene, which is hard to notice because of how the colors in the scene aren't super vibrant. The set design and costumes have lots of shades of brown, tan, and gray, which would make people not enjoy this scene but Cosmos energy helps lighten the mood and causes you to not notice the boring colors around the set. The outfits throughout this scene were just the basic outfits of the time, but the hat Cosmo is wearing helps him show off his comedic energy without having to make any jokes yet. At the beginning of the film, it shows that Cosmo is just thrown to the side compared to Don. In the opening scene, no one cheered for Cosmo, and Dora Bailey wasn’t even interested in asking any questions. With Cosmo being someone who gets pushed to the side, it felt like “Singing in the Rain” was pushing the “funny friend” trope with this number. Throughout the number, Cosmo was almost getting hit with some sort of prop. The background characters didn’t notice him, almost like his character isn’t noticeable and only there to make Don laugh. Cosmo has talent, and he has great ideas, but it takes a second for them to notice all of his great ideas, so in the beginning, his character was only known for being the “funny friend”.

Kuleshov Effect

Katiebritt — 2025-09-27 03:33:16 UTC

The suspect was killing the audience, not knowing if they were going to find the woman's dead body in the ground. We continued to see basic cuts between Jeff and what he was looking at, which was Lisa and Stella digging into the ground to see if they could find the woman's body. Alfred Hitchcock sought to utilize the Kuleshov Effect in editing this movie. Alfred Hitchcock wanted the viewers of the movie to interpret what they believed the thoughts of the characters were throughout this scene.

Throughout the scene, there was no talking, so you can only try to figure out Jeff’s thoughts and emotions through his facial expressions. That is the Kuleshov Effect. All three of them started to come to terms with the fact that no one was buried in the ground, and that's when the point of view shots started to happen. We started to see Jeff's point of view through his eyes. Throughout the scene, you could see his binoculars lens to highlight the fact that it was a point-of-view shot.

Then the Kuleshov effect continues when Lisa climbs into Lars Throwald's window. Jeff's face is constantly shown with a concerned and worried reaction to the fact that Lisa is climbing into a potential murderer's home. When Lisa is looking through Lars Throwald’s home, the editing to show the point of view never ends.

A long shot occurs in this scene when Lars Throwald enters his home. The shot shows looking into the windows of Throwald's home. Throughout this scene, you can constantly see Lisa trying to hide as fast as she can away from Throwald so he doesn’t see her and potentially make her his next victim.

Alfred Hitchcock did an amazing job of showing and highlighting the Kuleshov Effect throughout this scene because the silence in the scene helped the viewers figure out what Jeff’s reaction was and his thought process throughout the film. The editing of the film helped you constantly see his face and pay attention to his thoughts.

Bonnie & Clyde

Katiebritt — 2025-10-07 23:37:11 UTC

In the final scene of Bonnie and Clyde was an ambush scene. A man's car broke down on the side of the road, and Bonnie and Clyde stopped to help the man. When helping the man, the audience experiences intense suspense. The silence in the scene caused the audience to question that something bad was going to happen. The shaking of the bushes and the man going under the car caused the viewers to figure out that it was a trap set by law enforcement. The editing shows Bonnue and Clyde's readings focusing on he fear they were feeling. The Kuleshov Effect took place in this scene because of the lack no talking, which happened just with facial expressions. The facial expressions help the audience notice their fear.

When the movie came out, it was called a gangster film. Watching this film makes sense. When watching it, I never supported Bonnie and Clyde's actions, but the beginning of this scene, when Bonnie and Clyde are happy and not doing any harm, and they see a man who is struggling to start their car. When we figure out it's a trap, I feel bad for them. I start to feel that it should be considered a gangster film.

Point-of-view shots happened in this scene. When Bonnie and Clyde drive up to the man, we see their view through the windshield, which helps highlight the vulnerability and approaching threat. The close-ups that occurred of Bonnie and Clyde captured the fear, while the long shots revealed the empty road around them and that there was nowhere to go if placed in danger. When the gunfire begins, the scene has a lot of rapid cuts, helping emphasize the sudden violence that Bonnie and Clyde were in. The sound design had loud gunfire and screeching tires, which helped add chaos and show the number of people who were trying to kill Bonnie and Clyde. The editing helps the audience focus on the horror in the scene.

The director, Auther Penn, wanted to ensure the audience felt suspense throughout this ambush. By controlling what the viewers see and when they see it through the POV shots, close-ups, and precise editing. Penn gives the audience the chance to interpret Bonnie and Clyde's fear without any dialogue, which is the Kuleshov Effect. The Kuleshov effect lets the audience create meaning for the facial expression of the characters.

"You talkin' to me"

Katiebritt — 2025-10-17 19:46:22 UTC

Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is a haunting film that shows Travis Bickle being lonely in a big city. The film follows Travis, a lonely and unstable man with insomnia who drives a taxi through the sleepless streets of New York City. Travis’s loneliness turns into anger, where Travis wants to “clean up” the streets of the horrible people, which causes him to be surrounded by violence. His breakdown is captured in the mirror scene, where he points a gun at his reflection and says the line, “You talkin’ to me? A moment that shows the film's troubled mind and confusion between right and wrong.

The film’s power comes from Scorsese’s powerful use of the four elements of film. mise-en-scène, cinematography, sound, and editing, which are all shown in that mirror scene. The mise-en-scène creates a disturbing environment. Travis’s small, dimly lit apartment, filled with guns, sweat, and clutter, helps show his messy mind. The cinematography throughout this scene escalates this isolation, using tight close-ups and harsh yellow lighting to trap the viewer inside Travis’s world. In the mirror, the camera lingers on his eyes, blurring the line between his reflection and his identity crisis. Sound heightens the tension; the haunting jazz music fades into silence, allowing the echo of Travis’s voice and the metallic click of his gun to control the moment. The editing rhythmically cuts between his expressions and gestures, slowly building unease as he rehearses his fantasy confrontation.

As the scene unfolds, Travis transforms before our eyes, from a quiet observer of the city’s chaos to a man who becomes detached from reality. His words, both strange and threatening, show that he’s losing touch with reality. Through this scene, the film shows how loneliness and a need for purpose can turn dark in a city that’s falling apart.