Team Presentation Eisenstien Group 1

Group 1 presentation from jleavy83

Assignment 1

Jason Leavy

Professor Mirrer

Film Theory

9-10-12

                                                   Most Influential Film

             Throughout the years of Hollywood filmmaking there have been many great movies, however there have been many flops as well. Every film that Hollywood has put out into theaters, production companies that make them hope for success. But sometimes it does not always work out as planned. There are many films that have been made over the years that come to mind when thinking about the greatest movie of all time, yet the one that really stands out to me is, Back to the Future (1985) directed by Robert Zemeckis.

The reason as to why I feel this film surpasses all it’s competitors is because the plot, camera angles, special effects, acting, and dialogue, in my opinion, were all done exceptionally well and the film’s visual aesthetics still holds up twenty-five years later. In further detail, the establishing shot of the movie was also original and really set the tone and theme of the film. The first shot of the “masterpiece” was a panning shot of character; Doc Brown’s house, showing how messy it was and a lot of clocks. This showed he personality of the doc without even seeing him on screen yet, it also showed us, the audience, that the movie was going to be about time somehow. This is how a good filmmaker goes about making a great film, setting everything up and foreshadowing with as least dialogue as possible. In the establishing shot it showed audiences all of the gadgets he had made and how some of it did not work. This shot alone it tells people a lot about the character, like he is not persistent in his inventions and that they need to be worked on. Another example is the dialogue in the film is great one scene that shows this is when Doc Brown is explaining to Marty (Michael J. Fox) that he created a time machine made out of a DeLorean and for it to work the driver must hit 88 miles per hour. A question asked by most critics is does a film still have the same affect today as if it did when it first came out in theaters? I feel that it still holds up in present day because the special effects used in the movie look very realistic and the editor did a fantastic job with cutting and placement in the film. I can watch this movie a hundred times over and still get the same affect as if I had seen it for the first time. When watching the film audiences really gets the experience, as if they were in the movie itself, the music plays a big role in this film.

Film Theory relates to this film because there are many hidden message or meaning that are shown throughout this film. For example the idea of foreshadowing is seen throughout this entire film. When Marty meets his mother in the past for the first time while saving his dad from being struck by a car, Marty was told earlier in the film of how the too met, and by saving his father, his mother fell in love with him (Marty) instead of his real father (George). This film has a lot of in depth meaning to it and that is what makes it one of my favorite movies. Every time I watch it I learn something knew or catch something I haven’t notice the other times I’ve watched the film, and that is what makes it so interesting.