The first film I watched in my spare time was the 1994 comedy film, Clerks. Shot with a low, out of pocket budget, the movie was filmed entirely in black and white because it was cheaper that way at the time. It is one of the only movies I have seen that came out in the last 30 years or so that was filmed in black and white for no artistic purpose. The movie focuses on two underachieving convenient store clerks over the course of one day, and touches on topics in their lives such as living to their potential, and most importantly relationship issues. While the movie was pretty slow at first, I found by the end it was a very satisfying movie to watch.
I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars for several reasons. I first decided to watch the movie because it was a comedy, and I was in the mood to laugh. What I found as a watched the movie is that the humor in it tends to be more subtle, not the rib-splitting kind of material. That being said, the movie was still funny, it just wasn't exactly what I was expecting. The next big thing I noticed about the plot, was that the whole movie takes place over one day, and they never leave the store property throughout the whole film. This almost gave me cabin fever at times, as I wanted to leave the setting for a bit, but most of the time I thought it was fine.
Most of the movie is simple humor, for example while reading a newspaper and not paying attention, one of the clerks sells a pack of cigarettes to a 4 year old girl and later gets fined. The bulk of the movie is in this vein, until it gets real at the end. At the end of the film, the two main characters get into a huge fight, trashing the store, and when it settles down, the scene is silent and one of the characters says something very thought provoking and leaves. The end of the movie turns into a message to the main character from the secondary character about his love life, and how he should be appreciating the caring girlfriend he has now, rather than get back together with his old, more vain girlfriend. When the movie ends, you feel pretty satisfied, having both laughed at the comedy scenes, and thought at the provocative scenes at the end.
The cinematography of this film was very interesting. As it was cheaper at the time, the whole movie was filmed in black and white. There weren't a ton of different angles and such used as the whole film was shot in a convenient store. However, I did notice that throughout the 'comedy part' of the movie, it used a pretty outside shot that showed the whole view of the counter, and during the dramatic scene at the end, more of a semi-close up was used to convey the seriousness of the conversation. Overall, the movie was pretty well done, but it showed that it was an low budget, out-of-pocket film.
An example of the sort of humor used in this film!
This movie is easily one of my favorite comedies. One of my favorite types of acting styles is when the actors are so natural in their speaking that it's not like they're in a movie at all. Add that with the low-budget nature of the film, it is a very weird film compared to many other high budget films, but I love its charm. Clerks II is also a fun movie to check out, but it is obviously more high budget and feels a little less natural.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite scenes from the movie is definitely the conversation with the contractor about the workers on the Death Star. It's not even all that funny but it works so well. Good stuff.
I could totally see you liking this Steve, the subtly humor is right up your alley. I kept waiting for the black and white to fade out and the color to show up and at first i was a bit annoyed but you grow used to it. I understand your cabin fever comment, you almost want to just yell and escape the convenience store for at least a minute or two.
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me that that movie is rather widely known because the director really took a big risk with the mild talking, mild plotline and mild humor because somehow it kicked off. For me it has almost a cult following with the rest of the Silent Bob movies and others of the sort. Overall, good report.
I couldn't agree with you more when you say that this movie gets off to a slow start. I probably wouldn't have kept watching if it weren't for my brother who had already seen it. However, I am glad that I continued watching. One of my favorite aspects of both Clerks and Clerks 2 is the use of swearing. They swear in a very humorous fashion that is meant to be crude and inappropriate ,yet all in good fun. I wasn't too thrilled with the black and white film just because I'm really not a fan at all of black and whites. But I was thrilled to see that the second was going to be in color!
ReplyDelete