On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront is a 1954 classic, controversial film directed by Elia Kazan. According to the article On the Waterfront the film's story was based on New York Sun newspaper reporter Malcolm Johnson's expose, found in a series of 24 articles called Crime on the Waterfront. The series had record of actual dockside events, labor racketeering in New York's dockyards, and corrupt practices, and won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. It revealed bribery, extortions, kickbacks to union officials, payoffs, theft, murder, and the mob's influence on New York's waterfront.

In our text book, it talks about the uniqueness of film. It states that film is both an industry and an art form. Motion picture is similar to other artistic media. Film has the elements of visual arts such as: line, form, mass, volume, and texture. Even though film is so similar to other artistic media, it is set apart by its constant motion. It conveys a sense of reality.

The text also talks about analyzing films. It is challenging to analyze film because it requires us to respond to the continuous interplay of image, sound, and movement on the screen. With the technology these days, film analyzing is a little easier task than it was before.

When watching a film, everyone reacts differently to internal and external forces that have an effect on how we view the film. It is difficult not to let these forces get in the way of your judgement on the film. If someone dislikes war movies, they won't watch those types of movies or even action films. Some people might not go to movies that are worthwhile to see because they don't want to stray away from what is normal.

The book talks about viewing the film. There is a editing process called panning and scanning where wide-screen formats are adapted to the standard television shape. A scanning device determines when the most significant information in each frame is so far to the left or the right of center as to be outside the perimeter of the narrower television picture. After that, producers adjust by centering this information in the transmitted or re-recorded image.