Short Films

This week in film theory class, we watched a movie called Breathless from the director Jean-Luc Godard. While it was from the 60s, it still blew my expectations out of the water, mostly because of the amount of detail in each character. I have never really been too fond of reading subtitles during a movie, although this was an exception. I have tried giving a lot of black and white movies a chance, yet I usually cannot pay attention to them for too long. Breathless had a very unlikeable main character, Michel Piccard, who never really seemed to get better. Strangely enough, I could not take my eyes off the movie for the entire ninety minutes. Every scene seemed like a new, more interesting movie that I was excited to explore. While 90 minutes (about 1 and a half hours) seemed like a short film, they managed to fit more entertainment in that time than a lot of 2-hour movies that I have seen. The length of the movie really made it interesting, mostly because they had to fit so many important scenes in a short amount of time.  

After watching Breathless, I decided that I wanted to explore the world of shorter movies. I have seen movies that are three hours long that are not as entertaining as that 90-minute film that Jean-Luc directed. Most of the films at the theaters today are too long, so I usually get distracted from the main plot as the movie progresses. Short films are so much better because they are straight to the point with no filler scenes, mostly because they do not have time to add irrelevant information. Short films are also more effective, which could result from them having to be so straightforward with their message. I really like to see how directors of short films can make you create a relationship with the characters in such a short amount of time. Short films are usually made on a lower budget, so it is interesting to see how directors use their resources effectively to get the most out of everything.  

As I began watching more short films this week to explore the most successful and talented works of art, I realized how popular they were. I had no idea that short films had such a huge market and audience! After scrolling through the most popular short films on YouTube, I came across an award winning short called All Too Well by Taylor Swift. I really wanted to find out why it had almost 100 million views on YouTube, although I later discovered that it won three awards for video of the year, beat long form video, and best direction at the Video Music Awards. After seeing how decorated this film was, I gave it a chance to see if I thought it really deserved all the praise that it was getting. After the fifteen-minute film ended, I was speechless to the point where I sat on my couch for 10 minutes thinking the whole movie over again in my head. Taylor not only managed to direct, sing, and sponsor the whole film, she also managed to make an appearance as the main character! It was one of the most emotional 15 minutes of cinema I have witnessed, so I had no choice but to watch a lot of shorter films. No other film I have watched has compared to All Too Well, although I am going to continue watching short films until I have been able to find one that does. Her films have inspired me to not only watch other shorts, but hopefully try to create my own one day.