Weaving Masterpiece Movies: The Secrets Unveiled Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. The development of special effects techniques in the second half of the 20th century culminated in movies such as "The Matrix" (1999). One of the innovations which contributed to the success of the "Matrix" trilogy, and was imitated immediately after by others, was the production of slow motion scenes, using multiple cameras and mixing live action. However, simple slow motion has been known since 1904. It is achieved by projecting conventional 24 frames/second film at a lower frame rate, using an adjustable friction device.

Answer: False

Actually, the opposite method was, and still is, used. A scene is shot at a high frame rate and projected at the slower conventional 24 frames/second. The credit for the first slow motion camera, which was a complex opto-mechanical device, was given to Austrian priest and physicist August Musger.

Unfortunately, the motion picture industry at the time was conservative, and we had to wait until 1954 in order to see the first slow motion ("overcranked") scenes. In the classic "Seven Samurai", Japanese Director Akira Kurosawa pioneered the use of the slow motion effect to emphasize the apex of a samurai fighting.

2. Deep focus is a filming technique in which objects at different distances from the camera are in focus. It creates a perceptually more natural representation of space and gives equal importance to what happens at different planes of the scene. The technique requires high-quality cameras and lighting and is well demonstrated in Bertolucci’s "Besieged" (1998). But to which resource could a director resort 60 years ago, in order to reproduce deep focus effects with only low-quality cameras at his disposal?

Answer: Shoot the same scene twice

First the scene is shot with the lower field blocked, then the film is reversed and the same scene is shot again, with the upper field blocked. This simple technique, developed by photographer Gregg Toland and used by director Orson Wells in "Citizen Kane" (1941), requires excellent technical skills, otherwise it results in a noticeable dividing line along the frames.

Director Akira Kurosawa, known for his innovative use of the camera, solved the dividing line problem ingeniously, with the help of his photographer Asakazu Nakai, by first shooting the scene without the actors and then again with the actors playing at night. Striking examples of the use of this technique can be found in his "Yojimbo" (1961) and "The Hidden Fortress" (1958).

3. From its birth at the end of the 19th century, with the silent and one minute movies, until reaching its last developing state in the form of half-animated half-studio movies, cinema was mostly developed in the USA and diffused with time to other countries. One excellent example was the post-World War II Japanese cinema which resulted in magnificent movies such as Kurosawa’s "Seven Samurai" (1954). The pre-war archaic cinema was modernized in the next two decades, with the introduction of which of the following techniques?

Answer: Multiple cameras and long lenses

In the first post-war years, all Japanese movies were censored by the American occupation forces that prohibited expressions of nationalism and any type of violence, including sword fights in historical films. One of the banned movies was Kurosawa's "The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail" (1945), alleged to be "pro-feudalist".

It was only after 1952 that directors like Akira Kurosawa technically advanced the Japanese cinema. He introduced the widescreen format with his "The Hidden Fortress" (1958), and cutting-edge long lenses and multiple cameras with "Seven Samurai" (1954) and "Red Beard" (1965). Later he started to use Panavision lenses to achieve higher image quality and deeper focus and improved sound quality adopting multi-track Dolby sound in his "Kagemusha" (1980).

Von Sternberg’s "Morocco" was screened with subtitles in 1931 and that method was preferred over dubbing, until these days, in Japan. Sound was introduced in Japan with "Reimai" (1926) and led to mass dismissal of the katsuben, the motion picture narrators. One of them was Kurosawa's brother, Heigo, who got so depressed he committed suicide.

4. Westerns, usually describing fictional 19th century north-American life, had an important role in the history of Cinema. Interestingly, this style was strongly influenced by Italian movies produced in the 1960s and 1970s, known as Spaghetti Westerns, such as "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964). What characterized these movies in comparison to classic Westerns?

Answer: The Heroes were Anti-Heroes.

The heroes of Spaghetti Westerns were frequently greedy, cruel bandits and their violence was shown explicitly. This genre uncovered actors such as Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and Lee van Cleef, and its father was considered to be director Sergio Leone. After watching John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), he filmed the low budget "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964) which was followed by hundreds of movies.

Not accidently, both of the above movies were, respectively, remakes of Akira Kurosawa's artful "Seven Samurai" (1954) and "Yojimbo" (1961). Likewise, two Bruce Willis films, "Last man Standing" (1996) and "Lucky Number Slevin" (2006), were based on the storyline of "Yojimbo". As a matter of fact, Kurosawa won a plagiarism law suit against the filmmakers of "A Fistful of Dollars". The film was such a success that Kurosawa earned more money from this law suit than from his original "Yojimbo".

5. "Bonnie and Clyde" shocked the North American society in 1967 not only because it contained explicit violence, but mainly because it pioneered in showing, to the last detail, the physical consequences of the brutal action of the "heroes". However, years before, Samurai movies dared to show their spectators realistic impressions of the fights. What type of realistic detailing was NOT used to create that impression?

Answer: All of these were used

Samurai movies were as conservative as their western counterparts, until Director Akira Kurosawa introduced more realism to them. Regarding samurai fights, for example, he was probably the first to make them sound like fights. In "Yojimbo" (1961), he tried stabbing cuts of beef and pork, but considered the sound effect too soft to be realistic, so he recorded and mixed the sound produced by sticking chopsticks to (already dead) chickens.

The crew, on the other hand, preferred to eat the expensive beef meat.

6. The soundtrack of a movie frequently conforms to the image sequence, thus helping in setting the desired atmosphere. Sometimes it is used to create a continuity sensation in transitions between scenes, while being incongruous with the new scene images. What is this type of sound technique called?

Answer: Counterpoint sound

Besides transition between scenes, counterpoint sound can be used creatively for more sophisticated results. One of the first examples of this type of use can be found in "Drunken Angel" (1948). In this movie, director Akira Kurosawa inserted happy song music in the background of dark images of a dying gangster, making the gangster's last gasps of air look sarcastically ridiculous.

Off-screen sound is related to the visual story, but occurs outside the space depicted on the screen, like a gunshot from behind. Asynchronous sound is sound asynchronous with the video. Parallel sound complements the visual scene, like blues for a romantic scene.

7. A scene atmosphere is frequently enhanced with the use of atmospheric conditions like a heat wave, rain, wind and storm. More sophisticated is the symbolic usage of weather elements to represent human feelings and thoughts, and even characters (personification). Such exploitation of weather elements is a well-known Shakespearean motive. Appropriately, both Orson Welles' and Roman Polanski's "Macbeth" (1948 and 1971, respectively) opening scene is of terrifying heavy dark clouds. What is the generic term for this type of motif?

Answer: Pathetic fallacy

Another term is "anthropomorphic fallacy". An example of a symbolic usage of weather elements can be found in "Macbeth", where thunder, lightning storms and rain occur when evil deeds are either being formulated or carried out, thus the storm represents evil. Also, the storm, against which King Lear argues, represents the power of Nature, to which even Kings are submitted and symbolize the humanity and fragility of the King.

Director Akira Kurosawa, who creatively transposed two Shakespearean stories to the Japanese environment, used the weather motif and all its depth since the early days of Cinema, making it its virtual trademark. For example, he used heavy rain in "Rashomon" (1950) and "Seven Samurai" (1954) to represent tragic events, intense heat in "Stray Dog" (1949) to transmit the sensation of a policeman whose pistol is stolen, and snow in "Ikiru" (1952) and "The Idiot" (1951) to reflect rebirth. Specifically in "Throne of Blood" (1957), his adaptation of "Macbeth", the spectator is constantly perturbed by windy storms, rain and fog, as to symbolize the state of mind and the inevitable destiny of the protagonist.

Inanimation is the infusion of life. Animatic is a filmed storyboard sketch of a TV commercial. "Shakespearean storms" is a made up term.

8. A fluent storytelling sensation in movies requires complete mastership of directing techniques. In one classic movie, the same chain of events is told by four different observers. The stories are so plausible, while completely diverging, that the movie's name is used now to refer to the subjectivity of perception on recollection. Can you name that movie?

Answer: Rashomon

"Rashomon" (1950) is the story of a rape and a murder as accounted by four witnesses. It was remade as "The Outrage" (1964) by Martin Ritt. Yimou Zhang's "Hero" (2000), starring Jet Li, employed a similar storytelling style as well as Quentin Tarantino's acclaimed "Pulp Fiction" (1994). "Rashomon", one of the first movies with a non-linear story structure, won many prizes, like the Golden Lion in Venice Festival and an Academy Honorary Award, starting spreading the legend of Director Kurosawa among western cinephiles.

"Tora! Tora! Tora!" (1970) tells the story of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese part was to be directed by Kurosawa, but the producer (20th Century Fox) did not tolerate his slow-paced working methods and fired him. "Tampopo" (1985) is an original comedy that tells life stories through Japanese food. "Koan" is a Japanese word that was imported to the English vocabulary and refers to a paradoxical story or riddle.

9. "Star Wars" (1977) gave its viewers a strong storytelling experience, sometimes up to the sensation of reading a book. What technique did director George Lucas use frequently in order to create this feeling?

Answer: Horizontal wipe transition

The horizontal wipe technique consists of a transition between scenes in which a new frame pans across the screen over an existing image, with a noticeable moving line. Lucas was inspired by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, who successfully used this technique in several of his movies, for example "Throne of Blood" (1957) and "Seven Samurai" (1954).

This editing technique not only literally gives the viewer the sensation of browsing a book, but also suggests a brief temporal gap. It also suggests a smooth transition in space when the wipe direction accompanies the movement of a character.

10. An ingenious way to tell an epic story, without losing the direct contact with the human element, is to tell the story not through the eyes of its heroes, but those of humble "secondary" characters who were dragged by destiny into the complex situations of the plot. Which movie has such human element delivered by non-human actors?

Answer: Star Wars

Without R2-D2 and C-3PO, "Star Wars" (1977) would feel cold, distant and completely lose its light element. George Lucas' use of this technique was a direct influence from Kurosawa`s "The Hidden Fortress" (1958): important characters (e.g., the Jedi and the princess), episodes (e.g., the cantina scene with seven men threatening the hero) and symbols (e.g. the Imperial Crest) were reproduced from "The Hidden Fortress" (and a little from "Yojimbo" (1961) as well). Lucas always acknowledged the contribution of Kurosawa to his work and repaid him by producing several of his late films, "Kagemusha" (1980) and "Dreams"(1990).

I hope you enjoyed playing this quiz and gained a new perspective, allowing you to enhance your movie-watching experience. It is important to recognize that the movies we appreciate so much are the result of the technical contributions of many, including "secondary" figures hidden in the shadows such as Akira Kurosawa. The most enjoyable way to shed some light on his name is watching a few of his masterpieces and return to play the excellent quizzes about him and his cast.

Source: Author zanazana

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor skunkee before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

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