Music is an important factor in helping to set the mood of most movies. For horror films, the background music tends to be more creepy, eerie, or suspenseful. Ringu is a movie that had little to no background/soundtrack music. The only sounds that appeared throughout the movie were mainly diagetic (ie. the sound of the rain, phone ringing, etc.) and dialogue. Nondiagetic sounds (ie. background/soundtrack music) only appeared when highlighting an important part or certain aspects of the film or the scene, such as when Reiko discovered the video that everyone watched. The nondiagetic music was very eerie and creepy and fit in well with what the audience would normally expect to hear in a horror film, such as Ringu. The appearance of nondiagetic music only when important points happen in the movie make it easier for the audience to differentiate between the important points in the film and the rest of the movie. The sudden appearance of the music also adds a slight element of surprise. Other then the eerie music that appeared during important points, the only times the more “typical” soundtrack-like music appeared in the movie were towards the end when the audience learns that Reiko survived past the deadline and the body of Sadako was found in the well and also when the movie comes to the actual end. When this music appears after Reiko survives, it creates a false sense of hope. The audience is inclined to think that the movie is coming to an end. Instead, it helps create a stronger effect for the plot twist when Ryuji ends up dying even though the curse was supposedly already lifted.
Jin Ah Kim The movie Ringu by Nakata Hideo made a successful hit when it was released. This movie was famous internationally and it is easy to say that almost all people have seen it at least once after it became a hit. What amazes me the most is how Hideo manages to deliver the horrific feel throughout the whole film without using violence or (not one drop of) blood. There are a lot of elements/film techniques that help add to the overall mood. Hideo frequently used visual effects to keep the horror going. For instance, when the main character first found the video, Hideo uses a pastel effect creating a dreary atmosphere. The fuzzy color change also hints at the fact that she has found the video tape. Also when the girl (student) witnessed the ghost near the beginning of the movie, Hideo gives contrast to the shot of the girl’s face highlighting the shock. The fact that the audiences do not completely know about the ghost from the start adds to the curiosity of the viewers. The use of the subjective camera emphasized the curiosity and confusion during the film. When the man was sitting at the bench, a mysterious lady stands in front of him. We see her from the man's point of view yet we dont get a full shot of her or the rest of her body other than her legs. This increases the curiosity and mystery for the audience. Japanese horror films usually create fear along with giving unpleasant feel and this film is a good example of that.
Role of the sound As the movie began, the bizarre sound struck my ears along with the dash of wild wave. The sound plays very important role in the movie in terms of shaping the frightening atmosphere. I was impressed that the director had delivered the horror to the audience by mostly using the sound in the appropriate scenes. Since the movie is about interpreting what Sadako implied in the video, every scene with a significant clue has the bizarre sound as background music to emphasize the meaning of the clue and the horrific atmosphere. For example, the bizarre sound began and continued when Asakawa found the video in the cabin and the sound amplifies its scene’s fearful air. As well as, the simple breaking sound by a phone call that was ringing after Asakawa watched the video had hit audiences’ nerves. Especially, I felt the importance of the sound when Yoichi went upstairs to Tomoko’s room in her funeral. The scene was a still and long take which could have been boring, but the background music chilled audiences to the bone. Another composition of the movie that I thought it helped the sound effect to be more efficient is close-up take. The movie contains all kinds of take, but its extreme-close up take and close take give audiences better understandings of the implication. Close up take of dark and the foaming brine foreshadows the horrific atmosphere of the future scenes in the beginning of the movie. Extreme-close up take, there was a scene of an eye with a word “Sada” that was one of the significant clues in the interpreting process. Audiences had better view of the word and the scary sound was added to maintain the horrific atmosphere.
TINA KIM Camera Position and Objects to Express Feelings-The Housemaid
In the Housemaid, there were many objects that were used to express the character’s emotions. For instance, the mirror in the scene of where the camera is focused on Kim Jun-kyu and his reflection in the mirror represented his feelings of shame. Mr. Kim can be seen looking into the mirror only to cover his face and this can be seen by the reflection of the mirror. The mirror expresses Mr. Kim’s feelings by not being able to look at himself after cheating on his wife. The rat poison is another object which is used in many scenes to express desperation, a source of escapism, and also hatred. The position of the camera, which was shooting the movie from outside or inside of the house, was unique in expressing the character’s feelings. In this discussion, I will focus on the usage of the window frame to help express the character’s feelings. The camera shot the video with the characters either inside or outside of an area through the windows. This helps express the character’s feelings of either being an outsider or being trapped. In the scene where Kim Jin-kyu was intimately teaching Miss Cho how to play the piano and where his housemaid was looking from outside of the windows reveals how she felt out casted from the house and from Mr. Kim. Another scene where she is about to commit suicide with Mr. Kim is shot with her inside of the house with Mr. Kim. This shows that she is part of the household and with Mr. Kim. For Mr. Kim, he is feeling trapped with this woman in his own house! There were also several scenes taken by the camera where Mr. Kim is alone behind the window screen looking lost and miserable. In the scene where he was inside of the bus ready to go to his son’s funeral, the camera was positioned with only him inside of the bus and included the sides of the bus windows which created a prison for him. This again helps express Mr. Kim’s feelings of being trapped by the housemaid. The window frames increased the effect of his feeling of confinement by the housemaid. After, the housemaid forced an abortion with Mr. Kim’s child; the camera took a shot of her through the windows of her room. She is inside of the house but is confined. This scene shows her feelings of lost, remorse, and the feeling of nowhere to go. She was pregnant with a married man and murdered her own child. She is much like a criminal and victim at the same time behind these “bars”. There were also shots of the wife where she was sewing nonstop. Again, the shot was taken with the window frame in between. The wife felt trapped because of her need to keep her husband’s scandal a secret in order for him to keep his job. She is also under the control of the housemaid and she had no way out because she realizes that they need money for their children and for their new house.
In the Ring, there was a long take of one scene where Tomoko’s mother was sitting blankly on an empty table. The feeling of emptiness was shown since the scene showed an empty table. The protagonist was staring helplessly at the mother who has just lost her child. The mother was staring blankly straight in front of her looking at nothing. The objects in the background were far away from the mother, which also shows how far away she was from people and how alone she felt. The lighting was quite dim. I felt like it created a trance like effect which help express the mother’s feelings of not being completely in reality after losing her daughter. The protagonist stares at the mother unable to truly understand what it is like to lose a child, but later encounters the possibility of losing a child and became desperate to find a way to break the curse. Ambient sounds such as footsteps and phone rings were amplified greatly to either create suspense or create significance. There were many scenes where the characters are walking up the stairs or walking across the room. The amplified footsteps in some of the scenes created suspense and also help signify the silence in the background. The phone rings were projected by the close-up of the camera and all other sounds were isolated which amplifies it. This created significance in the phone calls. Even the ticking clock was amplified which created a significance that “time was running out”. I found this quite amazing since simply amplifying a sound can express much more than words.
Like any horror movie, suspense plays a huge factor in making it scary. Ringu by Hideo Nakata made this possible through his use of sound or the lack there of. In various scenes through out his film, silence was used to focus on the subject and more so on the visuality of the shot. I found myself time and again wondering if someone would pop out from behind or tensing for the sound of a television turning on. The absence of sound adds depth to the scenes as well as the characters themselves.
An example was the scene in which Asakawa is in the room of the late Tomoko looking but not knowing what she would find. All is silent as she picks up a receipt when she turns to find Tomoko's mother suddenly at the door way. Silence was used to allow us to focus on Asakawa and what she was doing, but it was also used as a tool for suspense by not announcing the arrival of Tomoko's mother. This let our imagination run wild as we see Asakawa turning to look behind her, we expect to see something scary. In a way, Hideo used the absence of sound to illustrate such themes like loss. In this scene, Tomoko's mother appearing in silence can be perceived as loss. Since her child is gone, there is no reason for her to rush into the room. Her silent entrance marks her state of grief. Manyi Xu
Amanda Kim The sound effects utilized in this film played a significant role in how the audience viewed it. The eerie scene and sound of waves breaking in the ocean in the very first shot set the tone of the movie. What is often viewed as tranquil is given a sinister tinge, and it subtly insinuates the tone of the film. During the other scenes involving people, there is no lack of conscious effort in the sounds used to introduce characters into the shot. In reality where there would be outside noise, or external diegetic sounds, it is completely silent, and then cuts to the character being introduced, such as the old man at the inn. This type of cut and sound technique was particularly observed with the old man from the inn, as every time he was introduced into a shot it was by surprise, however it was not exclusive to him. The conjunctive use of sound manipulation, as well as this style of cutting, effectively abides to the style of suspense and anxiety that the director is attempting to portray. The director uses these abrupt cuts to medium/long shots of characters to preserve the enigmatic nature of the film, and especially the supernatural characters in it.
What I thought was interesting about "Ringu" was the use of close-ups to instill fear and suspense to the audience. One of the very first examples of this was in the first scene of the movie when Tomoko turned around at the TV to see what was there. We see a close-up of her face, which has a look of horror to let the audience know that something terrible is about to happen. We see a similar close-up of Ryuji as he meets his death towards the end of the movie. There was also a close-up of the dead boy's face in the car, but the most frightening of all was the close-up of a dead Tomoko when she was discovered by her mother in the closet. Finally, there was an extreme close-up of Sada's eye in the video that was very eerie and suspenseful, because I couldn't help but think that her eyes would pop out at me.
Andrew, I'm glad you picked up on the close-ups; I noticed them too, and also a pattern in the way they were filmed and delivered to the audience. Many of those close-up shots were filmed in such a way that Asakawa was illuminated in stark contrast to darker backgrounds. The anxiety and terror on her face became a visual and psychological focal point, and an effectively scary one because of the uncertain horrors looming in the much darker background. Again and again, Ringu was able to manufacture this tense expectation of action/death using simple contrast between light and dark, yet we had to wait until the end of the film (with a few exceptions) for that horror to be consummated and unleashed. This was not just teasing on the part of the filmmaker, though, nor was it accidental; this “delayed horror,” observable scene-by-scene and in the movie as a whole, mirrors the horror of the characters’ specific predicament: they have to wait seven days for a death they’re not even sure will happen. And it is through the particulars of this predicament, heightened by the “delayed horror” of each scene, that the audience (or me, at least) became effectively scared. Films like “The Grudge” may deliver more in the way of immediate shocks and sudden horror (and more shrieks in the classroom hall had we watched it instead), but in the long-term, Ringu’s horror, which favors delayed creepiness over more thrilling “pop-outs,” seems like some slow-acting poison designed to inhabit our fears long after we finish the film. Or maybe it hopes to be remembered for just seven days, long enough for us to entertain the obvious parallel that we’re watching a film about a film that kills people. Will we too somehow die from watching it? We’re not yet sure when the credits roll.
Minimalistic special effects to create horror in "Ringu"
To create horror Hideo Nakata, the director of "Ringu", focuses on the story rather than the ghost. Throughout the movie there were very few special effects and only one for the ghost which is crawling out from TV. The ghost seemed very human like and dead people were just making astounded faces. What made this movie really special were sound effects. Bizarre sounds created tension as a stunning event will happen, people with a blank expression on their faces pop up without any sound, and strange noises as somebody is near created creepy and horrifying mood. Also people in the movie caused major fear. The people in the movie were as creepy as the ghost. As I mentioned before, there were many scenes where a person pops up near the main characters as they were ghost. Yoichi, son of Reiko Asakawa, behaves as he is possessed by a ghost. The most horrifying part of the movie was when Reiko realizes that one have to show the video to someone else to get away from wrath of Sadako she called her father to watch the video for her son.
Ringu is not the typical horror movie in Hollywood. There was little to none background music in the movie. There were no scenes with gore. There were, however, many close ups, silences, and environment sounds, including waves and telephone ring. From the very first scene, we saw and heard the sounds of the black waves and TV static and screen. From then on, the entire movie continues to have eerie and suspenseful sounds. At other times, when we know something might happen, we would hear absolute silences or see close ups of one of the characters. For example, eerie sounds started playing right before Reiko enters the B4 house. Shortly after, the beating of the drums steady increased to create a more suspenseful atmosphere. After Reiko had found and watched the cursed videotape, there was absolute silence until the phone started ringing. These factors help build the mood and tension in this horror movie. At other times, these factors can also establish the element of surprise.
The director of 〈Ringgu〉 is using many ways to emphasize the sense of horror: background music, the expression of the corpse, and the way he shoots the object. background music in this movie is one of the main elements to make audience feel nervous and fear. sometimes the music is loud and raspy , and sometimes the music is soft but make audiences feel creepy. Also, the background music is served as an introduction, telling the audiences that something will be going on next or soon. for an example, when the lady is talking to the hotel receptionist, as soon as she has noticed the tape, the background music is played. In this case, the audiences can usually feel that something is going with that tape. another example, when girls have heard the phone ring, the background music is played. In this case, the background music is making audiences feel nervous about the things happen in the moire and giving audiences a hint of upcoming happens. secondly, the directors are also using the expression of the corpse to emphasize the sense of horror. everyone who has died in the〈Ringgu〉all have the same expression on their faces -eyes and mouths are wide opened. From the expression, audiences can know that the creature, who has been killing people, is very scary , which can make people died in extremely fear. Also, there is shot of the corpse’s expression that has scared many audiences - it is when the lady is talking to her sister in the room, and her sister is recalled about where she has found her daughter, and then the scene is suddenly jump to the close shot of her daughter’s expression. Finally, the way the director shoots the object can emphasize the sense of horror. the director often takes the medium close shot of the lady, but he does not really put the lady in the center of the screen- she has always be placed at the corner of the screen and leave at least half of the screen for the background. This way of shooting will always make audiences nervous about the surrounding of the object; especially in this case, audiences will be nervous about the surrounding of the object because they always think that something is going to exist behind the object.
this movie has left an incomplete ending for its audience. After the lady has found out the way to safe her son, she is driving to her father’s house. In the phone call, she has asked her father for a favor, a favor for her son, but she does not clarify the favor she has asked for. so what is going to happen next, and how the story is going to end it, the director has left viewers to interpret on their own.
After I saw the movie, the mystery of Ringu is that the sinister video kills whoever watches it, unless the tape must always be copied and passed on others in order to survive the viewers. At the end of movies, Asakawa wants to save her son, then she drive to visit her father. Will she pass on the video to her father? That leaves suspense to us. Generally speaking, sound effects make horror movies more impressive. The same off-beat and unsettling music creates tension and creepy feel. The sound effects are well integrated. In addition, the movie also concentrate on every details like space which makes characters feel alone, scary, characters’ facial expressions, environmental factors like in the boats and Japanese lifestyle such as tatami and Kimono. The director also uses symbolic sub-consciousness, which lead us to understand Sadako’s behaviors and purpose. For example, telephone is the symbol of the girl’s scattered memories like her mom, earthquake report and the well. Those lead Asakawa and her ex-husband find clues to break the curse. Death in a closed well means depression from psychology and the society; Sadako wants someone who can help her find the fact with the pressure of curse. In the movie, when Asakawa is finding Sadako’s body, the bones touch her wrist. Asakawa is supposed to be scared but not like that, she consulates Sadako as a child and puts skeletons in her arms. The appearance of skeletons means a kind of venting angers. The movies used symbolic methods to express subconscious psychology.
Sound plays a significant role in films because it helps set the atmosphere of the events that occur and can affect the way the audience feels toward the images being displayed. In today’s film, Ringu, it seemed that sound was absent for majority of the movie and only in played in certain moments to increase anticipation, increase intensity, and show significance of those moments. For example, because sound was not common, when the phone rang or the television suddenly turned on, it was striking, the audience knew it was important, and it created a sense of unpredictability and fear about what was to come. Sound also played when the main characters experienced something surprising or received a clue about Sadako. Lighter instrumental music played when the female lead found Sadako, giving the idea that the conflict was over and all was well (although that was not the case). Similar music played again when the female lead drove away with the solution to share the video with others in order not to be killed. This music left a more lighthearted feeling that the problem was solved.
Another interesting aspect of the film was the camera angles. It seemed that most of the movie was filmed at a similar distance, from the waist up, or at an upward angle towards the characters until it focused on an object of significance such as the distorted picture of the teenagers who were killed, televisions, the corpses, and the copied and original versions of the tape. It also seems as if the audience first views the characters reactions and then is shown a close up of what the characters saw. This method increases anticipation of what the characters saw or what is about to happen. It increases suspense for the scene that is to come and creates unpredictability because the audience is uncertain what will be shown.
The diegesis of the film’s music is noteworthy. The use of discordant and seemingly random and loud sounds makes the film an unusual one. There is no argument that the film does follow the typical use of music to signal an omen but the film differs in what it deems as an omen. There are two types of music in the film—the sea, assuming that natural sounds can in fact be music, would be diegetic and the film score, extra-diegetic. Both types do not flow with the actions of the film; instead they overshadow all other actions and noise and scream for attention. The extra-diegetic music is deep and slow and almost rhythmic in its bass whilst the diegetic is both chaotic in its sound and movement. The strength of the diegetic music can be seen through the explanation of a relative of Sadako’s mother. She is drawn to the sea—almost as if enthralled by it while others who depend on it for a livelihood hate it as it takes lives each year. Sadako’s mother does not see the sea as chaotic or evil. She finds solace in it. The sound as the waves crash upon each other is deafening, so deafening in fact the viewer can barely hear the conversation of those close to it. The sea becomes animated; like her it has the power to harm as it wishes. The extra-diegetic music loses it strength each time it is heard. There are at times when a shocking event occurs at the end of the piece and there are times when nothing unusual occurs. The music, although it does overshadow events as the sea does, due to its frequency does not have the same strength.
In this movie, Ringu, I was able to find two significant characteristics: sound effects, and foreshadow which tells whats gonna happen later. In this movie, the sound effect really matches good with the story line and background. To be specific, the background music of this movie is different all the times. For example, when the climax is coming, the gloomy music becomes louder gradually, causing audiences into great horror. Also, in order to suprise audiences, director put several loud sounds in the storyline. Another factor is foreshdows that producer put in the story so that the audiences can predict what will happen later. I think this this point make audiences more horrified because they know what is gonna happen but the character in movie don't. People will feel desperate. Furthermore, foreshadow can also cause huge reverse story that can change the whole story suddenly. After I watched this movie, I thought that the director used human unconsciousness which can arouse horror.
As a horror film, Ringu adopted a novel approach to create horrifying mood instead of relying on shocking or violent stimulus. Ringu succeeded in leading audience to link supernatural horror events to their everyday life through settings, light effects, sound effects, plot, and the underlying theme of the whole film. First of all, we can see that the whole story occurred under normal setting of everyday life: normal apartments, streets, houses, etc. The story just never occurred at those shabby and extremely horrifying places. The normal setting enables the audience to feel the psychological tension of encountering horror events in everyday life. Besides, items associated with supernatural events in the film, from telephone and video tape to photos and television, are so common in daily life that audience can easily plug themselves into these horror scenes. For instance, after witnessing the death of Tomoko, Tomoko's friend turned mad and said that she would not get close to any television any more. Later, Sadako climbed out of the television to kill Ryuji. Here, Ringu created the audience's fear over television. The unprecedented intimacy between horror events and everyday life increments the horror mood of the film. The light effects in Ringu also linked supernatural horror events closely to everyday life of audience. In most of the scenes, light effect was simply under natural condition. However, the widespread use of natural light did not undermine the general horrifying effect in this film. The insertion of abnormal light effect into natural light effect strengthened the horror mood. One example is when Tomoko's mother showed Asakawa how she found Tomoko's corpse. Tomoko's mother was talking in warm and mild sunshine, suddenly she opened the closet and Tomoko's corpse was shown under hyper-intense light effect. Several seconds later, the camera cuts back to Asakawa standing in the warm sunshine. The sudden switch between natural light and hyper-intense light effects created a sense that horror events are hidden in tranquil life. The sounds effects used in Ringu also perfectly linked the horror mood to our daily routine. Like most horror films, Ringu used fierce sound effects to create horror mood. At the same time, silence and natural sound persuaded audience that the story can happen in our real world. Each time the date was shown on the screen, fierce and horrifying music came out while audience are ready to follow how the story would proceed. The sound effects here indicated potential horror events. The psychological tension of the audience would thus be kept at a high level. Finally, the plot and the underlying theme of the film also push the audience to reflect the horror mood on themselves. The story showed how Asakawa and her ex-husband investigated the supernatural event. They got through the stages from not believing the event at all to becoming frightened by Sadako's curse. That exactly follows the common logic of people. After seeing Sadako's skeleton in the well, the audience generally would assume that the story is coming to the end. However, the horrifying events of Ryuji's death and Asakawa's attempt to let her father watch the video followed. The unexpected jump out of the common logic reinforced the horror mood of this film. Moreover, the scene that Asakawa attempted to let her father be cursed in order to save her son can be interpreted in different ways. On one hand, while Asakawa accused Dr. Ikuza for killing Sadako regardless their close relationship, she eventually attempted to bring the curse to her own father. We can see how controversial and unreliable human morality could be here. On the other hand, even though Sadako's skeleton was undercovered, her curse would be passed on and on without an end. That corresponds to the idea that revenge and curse can never reach an end, and the cycles of curse would still continue. The idea itself gives the film Ringu an extremely horrifying end. Shangqing Li
As others have mentioned, one of the most notable aspects of "Ringu" is its ability to generate a sense of horror using minimal special effects and absolutely no realistic violence or gore. This is achieved through a controlled method of playing with suspense. A pattern can be deciphered from paying attention to the most tense scenes of the film: the character in the movie enters a scene nervous, frightened, and aware. The "ring" sound triggers a similar reaction in the audience, causing tension to rise as we expect something scary to suddenly happen. Next, the ringing sound stops, usually interrupted by a completely normal, daily life occurrence that causes the character--and the audience--to drop their guard. This is sometimes accompanied by laughter, as in the scene in the beginning of the movie with the two girls that oscillates between real terror and a joke several times. A similar process occurs in the scene where Reiko visits Tomoko's mother: there is an imbalanced shot in the scene where Reiko is in the far left corner of the screen; this on top of Reiko's paranoid state of mind and the ringing sound causes the audience to anticipate a sudden moment of shock. Then, right when something scary should happen, the other half of the screen is filled, but it's only Tomoko's mother. Everyone in the audience releases their tension and relaxes, but mid-sigh-of-relief we are quickly shocked by a violent flashback of Tomoko's body in the closet. This same construction is used repeatedly throughout the film (another example is when Reiko visits the cabin; there is a moment of release and even humor as she reads the kid's diary before the phone rings).
Interestingly, what I found to be one of the most skillful uses of this construction was a quick cut from a sweet and safe feeling scene of Yoichi and his grandfather fishing to a shot of Yoichi laying across the floor. He's only sleeping, but his body is sprawled out in a very dead-looking position that is parallel to the position in which previous corpses were found after being killed. Notably, he's also dressed in very adult-looking clothes (I think a button up shirt and khakis) that make the scene even more uncomfortable (throughout the film Yoichi exhibits mature behavior to the extent that it is concerning. Laying out his mother's clothes, for example, draws attention to the neglect of his parents and foreshadow his death in two ways. First, it is evident that he is not being taken care of and therefore vulnerable, and second, his premature adult status also foreshadows a premature death).
The scene with Yoichi sprawled across the floor is the scene that most evidently foreshadows Yoichi's viewing of the tape and preeminent death; it puts our natural concern for the innocent, sweet, and neglected child into overdrive. I think it speaks to the power of the suspense-play and scene development that a scene that features only a sleeping child with nothing violent or even scary can have such a disturbing effect on the audience (or at least me).
There are several parallels of time and space in“Ringu”. This is mostly observed between the curse of the present and the story of the past. For instance, as Reiko and Ryuji place their hands on the well, there is a flashback to recount how Sadako was murdered. In this occasion, the past and the present are connected by the well. Such flashbacks are frequently used in the film, with a stark contrast in the two settings where the past is shown in black and white whereas the present is shown in color. A second form of parallel lies in the relationship of the characters – Shizuko, Ikuma, Sadako & Reiko, Ryuji, Yoichi. The third parallel is between the virtual scenes in the video and the actual scenes of "reality" (which links to the virtual "Ringu" we are watching and the audience in reality). Initially, the videotape seems to be the only connection between the past and present, and the action of watching the tape will cause the people of the present to be cursed by the vengeful spirit of the past. However, the barrier between the past and present is removed when Reiko finds Sadako in the well and embraces her in a hug; and the barrier between virtual and reality is removed when Sadako climbs out of the television into the living room of Ryuji.
I feel that this film is feminist in some way as women make up majority of the main characters, i.e. Reiko, Shizuko and Sadako. Among them, Shizuko and Sadako deserve our sympathy as they are the victims of Ikuma, and Reiko ends up as the first survivor of the curse. Moreover, Ryuji spends hours inside the well looking for Sadako to no avail but Reiko manages to find her instead. The scene which shows the two of them hugging brings warmth to the audience, and to specially select Reiko for this role seems to hint that such an overpowering sense of empathy can only be possessed by females. However, in the very last scene, this soft side of Reiko disappears when we see her fierce glare in the car as she is determined to save her son by making another copy of the video to pass the curse on. The last shot left a deep impression on me, where the gloomy sky looms above the long and seemingly never-ending path, which probably symbolizes the continuity of the dark curse.
To add on, I totally agree with what some of the others have mentioned about how the film has been successful in using sounds and camera techniques. These elements serve to create a common sense of horror among audiences spanning across different cultures and nationalities despite possible language barriers - Although most successful films possess the ability to transcend national borders, I feel that this common cinematic experience stands out the most in the genre of horror.
Sunghun Jeon The movie Ringu begins with ambugious sounds which play significantly throughout the movie especially for the horrofic scenes. As the director of the movie concentrates on how the main characters are overcoming fear about rumors and ghosts which was only shown for few times, that ambugious sound plays as significantly sound effect to emphasaize and maximize horrofic scenes. For example, TV with the music effect continously appear throughout the movie especially when Asakawa and Ryuji find something suspicious about the ghosts. This music effect also suggests how they are turning into the climax and makes audiences to concentrate on the story. Also Asakawa's son, Yoichi who were very friendly with Sadako, play a role of licorice by keep giving the hints to the main characters and audiences about the story including the scenes of watching Sadako's video at Grandfather's houses. As it ends as unclear story with several surprising pop out scenes, it inversely asks the audience to doubt whether the scenes continously appear with uncertainty, but also induces the audiences to expect about the unclear part of the story for the next series.
Ringu is a 1998 Japanese horror film directed by Hideo Nakata. The film is also adapted from a novel called Ring. The plot of the movie centers on a reporter named Reiko Asakawa who investigates a cursed video tape that caused mysterious murders. The movie follows traditional tropes of a horror film, such as low lighting, eerie soundtracks, and reflections to spook the audience, but combines them with a filter and unsteady camera during flashbacks to establish more unknown supernatural paranoia.
The film is littered with asymmetrical shots that place characters in half or one-third of the frame. Alongside this, many of the frightening shots usually happen in dark settings. One example of this is in the part during Tomoko’s funeral involving Asakawa’s son, Yoichi, who wanders up to Tomoko’s room. The sequence here uses shots in a distant hallway or in Tomoko’s dark room. In the hallway, the camera placement is so that we do not know if it represents an ominous presence watching and waiting for Yoichi. In Tomoko’s room, the composition is dim and Yoichi is in a medium close-up to the right side foreground of the frame while the left side background area lays the better lit doorway. By following up the short hallway shot with this lingering asymmetric shot of Yoichi, the viewers are anxiously unsure if that unknown “presence” was real and if it will appear to harm Yoichi as well as fill the rest of the frame’s composition. Continuing on with sequences like these added with creepy sounds and unsettling imagery, Nakata creates traditional horror film atmosphere.
Another notable technique that the film uses is the flashback sequence done in a sepia screen filter that denotes that the audience is viewing what is taking place in the past. Not only does the filter indicate the past, but in a horror film, it creates distance between the disturbing unknown and the audience by forcing them to watch an unfamiliar monochrome scene. In addition, the camera in the flashback sequence is slightly unsteady. With this subtle touch, Nakata is able to create a sense of disembodied yet embodied presence. The unsteady camera represents more realistically a person’s vision swaying here and there rather than a stable, fixed position even though the characters and viewers are not actually at the event of the scene. Finally, there are other glimpses of the past that include grainy-like filters mixed with white noise due to the technicalities of the VHS tapes that induce evermore frightening uncertainty. Nakata’s ability to withhold information with monochrome filters and to use an unsteady camera creates contradicting sense of presence that leaves the audience with their imagination to fill in the rest with their discomforted states of minds.
The movie Ringu, one of the earliest Japanese horror movies that attracted audiences internationally, succeeded in creating another genre of horror; it neither portrays violence nor uses excessive amount of blood to scare the audience, but the movie slowly tortures audience mentally with the idea of supernatural phenomenon and how unlucky someone will be if he or she does not follow the order from the strange object that is created anonymously. Whenever I watch Japanese horror films, I feel like the music directors pay extra attention to sound effects and background music, and Ringu also does an excellent job in surprising the audience through music with the visual representation. When I was watching the movie, I focused on listening to the sound effects and background music’s length and volume and found out how they were adjusted to each corresponding situation. When Tomoko slowly turns around to find out about the disturbing noise from her back, we can assume that she sees Sadako afterward. At this point, the background music continues to be a long, repetitive sound and reaches a crescendo when Tomoko screams. As Asakawa finds out how Youichi silently entered Tomoko’s room, the volume of the background music increases abruptly. However, Ringu does not solely rely on the background music to portray its atmosphere. When Asakawa does her daily jobs such as eating, walking, and driving, the movie does not use background music at all in order to maximize the fear of distorted noise in other frightening scenes.
Also, the visual image of Sadako remains to be the traditional form of ghost in Asia region: long, black hair with white dress. It is rather different from the image of ghosts in Westerner's mind, but Japan has consistently used this image ever since they had tales of yokai(monsters, ghosts, phantoms) such as yuki-onna and kiyohime. Asakawa first finds a handful of long, black hair that almost resembles straw in the well when Ryuji and Asakawa were looking for Sadako's corpse. Sadako's hair covers her face entirely, which hides her real identity and gives the audience a space to imagine how she actually looks like.
Reflection is one of the most important themes of Ringu, as it is demonstrated through both subtle and explicit ways. Literal and expected representations are repeatedly shown in mirrors, but the film also utilizes television screens and windows as an unexpected means of tricking the viewer, as the reflections can be misconstrued as one character instead of another. For example, multiple times during the movie, when Akasawa gazed at a blank television screen, I often mistook her reflection for that of Sadako. This only added to the suspenseful nature of the film, as the line between the expected and unexpected blurred. In addition to being an unexpected reflective source, televisions, and technology in general, play a critical role in Ringu as they are the portals through which characters are not only cursed, but also released from the seemingly unavoidable grip of death. Ringu repeatedly utilizes televisions and telephones to ominously foreshadow impending doom, but the theme extends past the seemingly obvious roles generally assigned to those objects. Technology is the beacon of despair as it curses viewers, but Akasawa, with Ryuji’s help, manages to manipulate the curse through the use of technology, and thus technology becomes her saving grace. Ringu also uses distortions in images to help the reader discern between regular and cursed individuals, as the latter have distorted visages in photographs. Reflection, especially through technology, extends past the expected and leaves the viewer in a state of questioning what is real and isn’t.
Christina Ho The 1998 Japanese horror film Ringu by Hideo Nakata uses a combination of interesting camera shots and intense music to set the tone of ease or suspense throughout the movie. There is a contrast in how normal, everyday scenes are shot versus the scenes of horror. In the normal scenes, the camera shots tend to be further away, so that the viewer can see most of the surroundings. The camera tends to focus on the main characters, everything is brightly lit, and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Examples of this are the scenes where Youichi is playing with his grandpa or when Reiko Asakawa is seen at work.
However, when the scene shifts to something more tense, the camera angles tend towards the less conventional. For example, the scene with Tomoko just before she dies, the camera shots stay very close to her, such that the viewer is unable to see Tomoko's surroundings. We are just as unaware and uneasy of our surroundings as Tomoko. During stressful scenes, camera also mimics the eye movements of main character of the segment. For example, when Asakawa is on the island and scans the room where Tomoko and her friends watched the tape, the camera angle is shown from her height, looking down at the fireplace, the walls and finally resting on the TV. In another suspenseful scene where the room was dimly lit, the scene is shot asymmetrically so that Reiko is on the left and her shadow is seen in the middle of the shot.
Music also plays a large role in setting the mood for the movie. Right after Asakawa asks Ryuji Takayama to take her picture, sharp, piercing music like nails on chalk board plays, causing the viewer to jump with the fright that we imagine Reiko feels. In everyday scenes, music is either not present at all or barely noticeable. Overall, the music and camera shots work together to control the emotions of fear and ease in the audience.
The aural aspect plays an essential role in this movie. Hideo Nakata marvellously places sound effects during scary and shock moments to create a heightened sense of surprise and scariness. This is achieved by the relative lack of sound effects when the characters in the movie were doing mundane activities. This relative ‘silence’ creates a sense of tension, which makes it appear as if there was going to be something that might happen any moment. It also creates amplification for the ringing of the phone, which then places heightened emphasis and attention on the ringing of the phone.
The relative absence of sound effects also allows the scare factor to scale to greater heights during scary scenes, where the use of sound effects then appear amplified and all the more striking. As a result, the audience becomes scared to a greater extent, both due to the sudden intrusion of sound effects and the seeming amplification of the frightening sound effects.
Nakata also creates an alternate pattern of relaxation and tension in the opening scene by interspersing humour and horror, which creates a disturbing pattern of tension and relaxation.
A number of crane shots were also used, especially during the last scene when Reiko Asakawa and Ryūji Takayama went into the well to find Sadako. The long shot creates a sort of scare factor, as it distances the character from the audience, making the audience worry that if something bad were going to happen to the character, he/she would be too far off to receive help.
The camera angle then changes to one of an eye-level later on when Asakawa finds Sadako, seemingly to demonstrate the equality between both of them. This creates a false sense of normalcy and tricks the audience into feeling relieved; it appears as if danger has already passed.
Nakata then introduces a twist in events with the death of Takayama, showing an extreme close-up of Sadako’s eye. This could symbolize the never-ending curse of Sadako or her extreme wrath.
During the ending, Asakawa appears to have the intention to show her father the video-tape in a bid to save her son. The extreme long shot here should have a distancing effect, but Nakata again uses the aural aspect to bring the audience close to the plot again. The aural ‘advice’ seems to inform the audience that Asakawa’s act could be an analogy for Sadako’s revenge on her father, and also appears to inform us of the continuous nature of Sadako’s curse.
Hideo Nakata’s horror film, Ringgu begins with a ordinary background that many of asians would catch on without much attention. Along with this movie, I realized that there are two different ways to terrify people: one way is a method of using accustomed aspect and the second one is a method of using strange aspect. The director uses a video tape as a role of horror locomotive and a cause of mysterious death. Since those setting ups are too ordinary and even seems possible to happen in our daily life, the horror of film becomes maximization in audience’s mind. I could find some familiar aspects of our daily lives as scary settings other than the televisions and the video tape such as anonymous scary rumor, children’s giggling sound between events, and the final solution of unfortunate letter type. On the contrary to these ordinary aspects, some strange setting ups bring even more interests and quality to the film. For example, there are the strange sounds of video, random scenes with unknown characters, pictures with crushed faces and etc. The boy, Yoichi’s sight gives a sense of beyond existence in the house. The husband seems like a psychometry or a psychic while Sadako and her mother are obviously not human. Meanwhile, the unusual movement of camera between a character to another character surprises audience; unexpected appear on the angle really made me scared. And also, the strange silence between characters increases the tension in the film. The most shocking aspect of this film to me is not the ‘coming out of the wall’ scene but the reason Sadako made that video and has killed people.
The music of this film (or, rather, the lack of music) is a detail that can be easily overlooked if you're not paying close attention. The soundtrack to the film seems quite sparse, which seems a little bizarre. When thinking of films, we know that music plays a key role in how a film comes across -- you can take a film that uses primarily pop music as its soundtrack and switch it to an orchestral soundtrack and completely change the feeling of the film and even how scenes (and the movie as a whole) are perceived. The film has a striking amount of silence in the first half of the film, showing very little music with tangible pitches. Sure, there is a lot of "sound" in the movie, but little of it is what we would traditionally call "music."
It seems, however, that music is more present in the last half of the film that the first half. Using the music this sparsely means that when the music is eventually used, it is meaningful and really impacts the audience (even if that impact is completely subconscious). I found the use of music (or the use of silence) quite effective and really enjoyed it zoning into this detail of the film; it was clear that this aspect of the film is an extremely essential aspect and was not taken lightly during the production of Ringu.
I questioned the importance of the male character having such a close relationship (being the ex-husband and father to the boy) with the female and son characters; I was not sure if this was actually necessary. I found myself questioning whether or not the film would change all that much if that detail had changed to him just being a "family friend."
I also found myself comparing this film to the American version of the story. There were quite a bit of differences, and, of course, obvious similarities (after all, it |is| the same tale). I found that the Japanese version was more engaging to me (particularly the scenes where people were watching the creepy film and the scene on the shore where they see into the past), but the American film was more effective (for me) in terms of the "fear factor."
Although movie Ring is based on the original novel, it could be told that movie Ring is different from the original novel because movie Ring deals with different contents compared to the novel. The novel is more likely to thriller. Nobody might think that Ring has an important bearing on Japanese movie world when it released. it cannot be emphasized enough that Ring marked a new era in the horror film renre. Since Ring tried a novel approach regardless general method of the horror film, Ring could give audience sense of fear. In fact, ironically bleeding does not appear in the movie Ring, even if common horror film make audience feel a sense of fear by showing a terrible scene. Some people may say that Ring is an influential horror movie only in only in the asian countries. However, I personally think Ring has all makings enough of what Westerner can feel sympathy. For instance, movie Exorcist which is considered as a masterpiece of horror film has something in common with Ring because both movies deeply make the viewer feel a sense of fear in terms of psychology.
The film "Ringu," heavily uses visual cues to nonverbally communicate consistent themes throughout the movie. Furthermore, the scores and sound effects reinforce events and themes throughout the movie.
A consistent visual cue throughout the movie was the use of stark contrast of lighting (boarderline noir). In many scenes lighting is essentially a spotlight is the single source of light in a scene. Characters and key objects that are interacted with are placed within the spotlight; however, once a character sees "the video," characters are no longer in the light but instead fall in the shadows. Furthermore, the DP often foretells motion character's entrances into a scene by manipulating camera angles and shadows (i.e. When the woman pulls up to her father's house). In addition, TV sets were often incorporated into shots, symbolizing the ever present fear of the video.
"Ringu" uses multiple audible themes throughout the film. The film pairs contorted scores with "frightening," visuals. In particular when the women initially views her polaroid picture and her face is obscured. Throughout the movie scores with layers of white noise are also used, referencing the haunted video. The white noise reference occurs throughout the movie is not just in the literal scores but also in background sounds (i.e. when the on the ferry the ocean strongly resembles the sound of white noise).
The most consistent themes throughout "Ringu" are light & dark, and the reference to technology. "Ringu," consistently uses aesthetic nonverbal cues to communicate these themes to the audience.
Ringu, directed by Hideo Nakata, became a huge hit internationally due to many elements that contributed to the constant suspense of the movie. Ringu was such a big success that the US created its own adaptation of the movie. Some of the elements that contributed to the success of the movie is the sound and the camera angles. Sound was such a huge element that contributed to the suspense in Ringu. For example, there wouldn't be any type of sound when the cursed video would play. Then, there wouldn't be sound until something suspenseful occurred. Therefore, everyone would keep waiting for the suspenseful scenes by listening to the music.
Camera angles also contributed immensely to the suspense in Ringu. The way Nakata uses camera angles effectively adds to the suspense throughout Ringu. For example, one way Nakata uses the camera angles to his advantage is the scene where Sadako crawls out of the television as she slowly approaches Reiko. Once she finally reaches him, the camera angle suddenly changes to her left eye. This sudden change of camera angle creates that element of suspense that everyone expects from horror movies. Another example of this technique are the sudden angle changes when a person is killed by Sadako. The first example of this is when Tomoko is in her kitchen and the camera angle changes to her face as she looks at Sadako. These sudden changes significantly contribute to the overall suspense throughout Ringu.
Hmm I didn't realize the deadline was so early... anyway:
Ringu is at heart a psychological thriller. It does an amazing job at building suspense, but in almost every case, they don't follow through with the horror in the way most western horror films would. If there is an eerie soundtrack in the back, and the camera pans slowly towards the darkness, what I expect is for something to pop up. Ringu does not do this, yet they build the suspense for it. Every moment where we would expect something to pop up, either the final shot is slower than it would be in your typical western horror film (such as the beginning scene when Masami's face freezes because of something she sees offscreen), or the culprit is a friendly character.
One example that I would take to put emphasis on is the scene of Tomoko's funeral when Yoishi goes to Tomoko's room. The walk from the bottom of the stairs to her room is very slow. The music is slow and haunted. The camera is usually very still, you can see the darkness surround the outside of the frame while Yoishi is still standing in the light. As the scene progresses the music is the same, and Yoishi is standing more in the darkness, while there is plenty of light coming from outside past the doorway. Every second is more suspenseful than the previous one. The scene ends with Asakawa slowly walking into the room and bringing him back downstairs.
When Ringu was remade as The Ring in the west, they brought back the grotesque and "jump" horror. When the body of Tomoko is shown, it is just a pale body slightly contorted with a face that is horrorstricken yet slightly comical. In the American version, the body of Katie is revealed in a quick shot initiated with a loud sound which makes the viewer jump. Not only is the body introduced in a cliche fashion, but it is also a lot more grotesque then just pale and contorted: she is green and rotton. The original Japanese version values the slow goosebump inducing buildup of psychological suspense over the remake's use of the old cheap trick of making you jump out of your seat.
"Ringu" to me was not your typical horror film. The first thing I noticed that took me away from the film was the placement of the Ritz Crackers box in the first scene on the dresser. I glanced at it and it had me thinking about those crackers for a bit because they should have been placed in the kitchen scene that was next.
The use of music throughout the movie was interesting and very deceiving at times. When you hear deep, eerie, voice-like noises you expect for something to appear, but instead you are presented with a sort of revelation. As in the first scene with the two women the music builds as the story is told. You find out that her friends have all watched the "one week death" video and thanks to the build-up of music you are fully expecting something to come out of a closet or appear in a corner, but you hear the phone ring. The music continues to confuse your psyche and makes the "scary" scenes less predictable.
The media aspect of this film seemed to be an important one too. The fact that the curse was on a VHS tape seems to be an important element. The last scene does a close-up on the VCR and it makes you think more about that VCR. If you were watching it when it came out it would have been on a VHS because that's what was still most popular even though the DVD came out in 1997. This was a cleaver attempt to get people to think about their Videocassette players. Since JVC is a Japanese company who made VCR's, it could be likely that Nakata was using this as a way of symbolizing the death of the VCR's in the marketplace since DVD's were making headway or the changes in the world of visual media. With the lady coming out of the tv at the end it re-defined the meaning of 3D in my head.
OMG.. I slep right away and just woke up due to cold. Could you allow this since this is the first response?
The only scary part during the screening was our classmate's shouts and shivering. I strongly agree that the background music contributed to fostering tension but the other factors such as the acting skills, stories and goblin did not show any interest since this movie is too old, which failed in consensus-making. This might be cynical response but the actor's reaction against the goblin and the video tape looked even ridiculous. Thus, the genre did not actually succeed to be called "horror" but just thriller.
The only prominent thing in Ringu is the sounds. In thrilled movie, there are three sounds developing tension-sound effect, background music and actor's dialogue. Ringu represented the successful sound effect such as the TV's crackled sound and sound like twisting iron stick. These sounds stimulate the peripheral nerves so that moviegoers are psychologically cowered. Another two sounds were eventually insufficient to make the viewer scary in that the background music did not include any unique technic and actor's dialogue seemed meaningless because of failing in arousing sympathy. Lastly, the yoichi's ambiguous and unexpected act also created tension. Even though he has the least dialogue among the main characters, his acts such as looking aroung Tomoko's room and watch the video possibly intensified the mob psychology.
Sadako, the ghost we didn't think that exist in the present, pops out from the television and attacks the hero character 'Ryuji'. This is how the ending scene of 'Ringu' goes like. It is a famous story that this ending scene made Japanese audience scream out in the theater. But the point of it is that it was not a scream that audience made as a cinema audience, but was a scream that was possessed in the movie character's emotion. I think this point is the most significant part of movie 'Ringu' made from the dramatic interpretation. The smart movie director used the fact that 'Sadako' is not a character that is exisisting now in the present, and counterplot that thought to dominate the audience's emotion in to fear by making 'Sadako' alive right now in front of the audience's eyes. And the movie finally throws a taboo video that has a message that the person who saw the video will die in one week. It seems like the message is not toward the movie character's but us, the audience. I remember horror stories with this similar curse was a big hit for the summer in Korea during the period this movie came out. That much, 'Ringu' had a big meaning in the east asian horror films. The plots and details were used and borrowed in every east asian horror movie's that came out after 'Ringu'.
Music is an important factor in helping to set the mood of most movies. For horror films, the background music tends to be more creepy, eerie, or suspenseful. Ringu is a movie that had little to no background/soundtrack music. The only sounds that appeared throughout the movie were mainly diagetic (ie. the sound of the rain, phone ringing, etc.) and dialogue. Nondiagetic sounds (ie. background/soundtrack music) only appeared when highlighting an important part or certain aspects of the film or the scene, such as when Reiko discovered the video that everyone watched. The nondiagetic music was very eerie and creepy and fit in well with what the audience would normally expect to hear in a horror film, such as Ringu. The appearance of nondiagetic music only when important points happen in the movie make it easier for the audience to differentiate between the important points in the film and the rest of the movie. The sudden appearance of the music also adds a slight element of surprise.
ReplyDeleteOther then the eerie music that appeared during important points, the only times the more “typical” soundtrack-like music appeared in the movie were towards the end when the audience learns that Reiko survived past the deadline and the body of Sadako was found in the well and also when the movie comes to the actual end. When this music appears after Reiko survives, it creates a false sense of hope. The audience is inclined to think that the movie is coming to an end. Instead, it helps create a stronger effect for the plot twist when Ryuji ends up dying even though the curse was supposedly already lifted.
Jin Ah Kim
ReplyDeleteThe movie Ringu by Nakata Hideo made a successful hit when it was released. This movie was famous internationally and it is easy to say that almost all people have seen it at least once after it became a hit. What amazes me the most is how Hideo manages to deliver the horrific feel throughout the whole film without using violence or (not one drop of) blood. There are a lot of elements/film techniques that help add to the overall mood. Hideo frequently used visual effects to keep the horror going. For instance, when the main character first found the video, Hideo uses a pastel effect creating a dreary atmosphere. The fuzzy color change also hints at the fact that she has found the video tape. Also when the girl (student) witnessed the ghost near the beginning of the movie, Hideo gives contrast to the shot of the girl’s face highlighting the shock. The fact that the audiences do not completely know about the ghost from the start adds to the curiosity of the viewers. The use of the subjective camera emphasized the curiosity and confusion during the film. When the man was sitting at the bench, a mysterious lady stands in front of him. We see her from the man's point of view yet we dont get a full shot of her or the rest of her body other than her legs. This increases the curiosity and mystery for the audience. Japanese horror films usually create fear along with giving unpleasant feel and this film is a good example of that.
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ReplyDeleteRole of the sound
ReplyDeleteAs the movie began, the bizarre sound struck my ears along with the dash of wild wave. The sound plays very important role in the movie in terms of shaping the frightening atmosphere. I was impressed that the director had delivered the horror to the audience by mostly using the sound in the appropriate scenes. Since the movie is about interpreting what Sadako implied in the video, every scene with a significant clue has the bizarre sound as background music to emphasize the meaning of the clue and the horrific atmosphere. For example, the bizarre sound began and continued when Asakawa found the video in the cabin and the sound amplifies its scene’s fearful air. As well as, the simple breaking sound by a phone call that was ringing after Asakawa watched the video had hit audiences’ nerves. Especially, I felt the importance of the sound when Yoichi went upstairs to Tomoko’s room in her funeral. The scene was a still and long take which could have been boring, but the background music chilled audiences to the bone.
Another composition of the movie that I thought it helped the sound effect to be more efficient is close-up take. The movie contains all kinds of take, but its extreme-close up take and close take give audiences better understandings of the implication. Close up take of dark and the foaming brine foreshadows the horrific atmosphere of the future scenes in the beginning of the movie. Extreme-close up take, there was a scene of an eye with a word “Sada” that was one of the significant clues in the interpreting process. Audiences had better view of the word and the scary sound was added to maintain the horrific atmosphere.
TINA KIM
ReplyDeleteCamera Position and Objects to Express Feelings-The Housemaid
In the Housemaid, there were many objects that were used to express the character’s emotions. For instance, the mirror in the scene of where the camera is focused on Kim Jun-kyu and his reflection in the mirror represented his feelings of shame. Mr. Kim can be seen looking into the mirror only to cover his face and this can be seen by the reflection of the mirror. The mirror expresses Mr. Kim’s feelings by not being able to look at himself after cheating on his wife. The rat poison is another object which is used in many scenes to express desperation, a source of escapism, and also hatred. The position of the camera, which was shooting the movie from outside or inside of the house, was unique in expressing the character’s feelings.
In this discussion, I will focus on the usage of the window frame to help express the character’s feelings. The camera shot the video with the characters either inside or outside of an area through the windows. This helps express the character’s feelings of either being an outsider or being trapped. In the scene where Kim Jin-kyu was intimately teaching Miss Cho how to play the piano and where his housemaid was looking from outside of the windows reveals how she felt out casted from the house and from Mr. Kim. Another scene where she is about to commit suicide with Mr. Kim is shot with her inside of the house with Mr. Kim. This shows that she is part of the household and with Mr. Kim. For Mr. Kim, he is feeling trapped with this woman in his own house! There were also several scenes taken by the camera where Mr. Kim is alone behind the window screen looking lost and miserable. In the scene where he was inside of the bus ready to go to his son’s funeral, the camera was positioned with only him inside of the bus and included the sides of the bus windows which created a prison for him. This again helps express Mr. Kim’s feelings of being trapped by the housemaid. The window frames increased the effect of his feeling of confinement by the housemaid. After, the housemaid forced an abortion with Mr. Kim’s child; the camera took a shot of her through the windows of her room. She is inside of the house but is confined. This scene shows her feelings of lost, remorse, and the feeling of nowhere to go. She was pregnant with a married man and murdered her own child. She is much like a criminal and victim at the same time behind these “bars”. There were also shots of the wife where she was sewing nonstop. Again, the shot was taken with the window frame in between. The wife felt trapped because of her need to keep her husband’s scandal a secret in order for him to keep his job. She is also under the control of the housemaid and she had no way out because she realizes that they need money for their children and for their new house.
sorry! ignore this! wrong class! please look below for the right one
DeleteTINA KIM
ReplyDeleteMise-en-scene and Ambient Sounds-The Ring
In the Ring, there was a long take of one scene where Tomoko’s mother was sitting blankly on an empty table. The feeling of emptiness was shown since the scene showed an empty table. The protagonist was staring helplessly at the mother who has just lost her child. The mother was staring blankly straight in front of her looking at nothing. The objects in the background were far away from the mother, which also shows how far away she was from people and how alone she felt. The lighting was quite dim. I felt like it created a trance like effect which help express the mother’s feelings of not being completely in reality after losing her daughter. The protagonist stares at the mother unable to truly understand what it is like to lose a child, but later encounters the possibility of losing a child and became desperate to find a way to break the curse.
Ambient sounds such as footsteps and phone rings were amplified greatly to either create suspense or create significance. There were many scenes where the characters are walking up the stairs or walking across the room. The amplified footsteps in some of the scenes created suspense and also help signify the silence in the background. The phone rings were projected by the close-up of the camera and all other sounds were isolated which amplifies it. This created significance in the phone calls. Even the ticking clock was amplified which created a significance that “time was running out”. I found this quite amazing since simply amplifying a sound can express much more than words.
Like any horror movie, suspense plays a huge factor in making it scary. Ringu by Hideo Nakata made this possible through his use of sound or the lack there of. In various scenes through out his film, silence was used to focus on the subject and more so on the visuality of the shot. I found myself time and again wondering if someone would pop out from behind or tensing for the sound of a television turning on. The absence of sound adds depth to the scenes as well as the characters themselves.
ReplyDeleteAn example was the scene in which Asakawa is in the room of the late Tomoko looking but not knowing what she would find. All is silent as she picks up a receipt when she turns to find Tomoko's mother suddenly at the door way. Silence was used to allow us to focus on Asakawa and what she was doing, but it was also used as a tool for suspense by not announcing the arrival of Tomoko's mother. This let our imagination run wild as we see Asakawa turning to look behind her, we expect to see something scary. In a way, Hideo used the absence of sound to illustrate such themes like loss. In this scene, Tomoko's mother appearing in silence can be perceived as loss. Since her child is gone, there is no reason for her to rush into the room. Her silent entrance marks her state of grief.
Manyi Xu
Amanda Kim
ReplyDeleteThe sound effects utilized in this film played a significant role in how the audience viewed it. The eerie scene and sound of waves breaking in the ocean in the very first shot set the tone of the movie. What is often viewed as tranquil is given a sinister tinge, and it subtly insinuates the tone of the film. During the other scenes involving people, there is no lack of conscious effort in the sounds used to introduce characters into the shot. In reality where there would be outside noise, or external diegetic sounds, it is completely silent, and then cuts to the character being introduced, such as the old man at the inn. This type of cut and sound technique was particularly observed with the old man from the inn, as every time he was introduced into a shot it was by surprise, however it was not exclusive to him. The conjunctive use of sound manipulation, as well as this style of cutting, effectively abides to the style of suspense and anxiety that the director is attempting to portray. The director uses these abrupt cuts to medium/long shots of characters to preserve the enigmatic nature of the film, and especially the supernatural characters in it.
Use of close-ups in "Ringu"
ReplyDeleteWhat I thought was interesting about "Ringu" was the use of close-ups to instill fear and suspense to the audience. One of the very first examples of this was in the first scene of the movie when Tomoko turned around at the TV to see what was there. We see a close-up of her face, which has a look of horror to let the audience know that something terrible is about to happen. We see a similar close-up of Ryuji as he meets his death towards the end of the movie. There was also a close-up of the dead boy's face in the car, but the most frightening of all was the close-up of a dead Tomoko when she was discovered by her mother in the closet. Finally, there was an extreme close-up of Sada's eye in the video that was very eerie and suspenseful, because I couldn't help but think that her eyes would pop out at me.
Andrew Park
*Asakawa (not Tamoko)
DeleteAndrew, I'm glad you picked up on the close-ups; I noticed them too, and also a pattern in the way they were filmed and delivered to the audience. Many of those close-up shots were filmed in such a way that Asakawa was illuminated in stark contrast to darker backgrounds. The anxiety and terror on her face became a visual and psychological focal point, and an effectively scary one because of the uncertain horrors looming in the much darker background. Again and again, Ringu was able to manufacture this tense expectation of action/death using simple contrast between light and dark, yet we had to wait until the end of the film (with a few exceptions) for that horror to be consummated and unleashed. This was not just teasing on the part of the filmmaker, though, nor was it accidental; this “delayed horror,” observable scene-by-scene and in the movie as a whole, mirrors the horror of the characters’ specific predicament: they have to wait seven days for a death they’re not even sure will happen. And it is through the particulars of this predicament, heightened by the “delayed horror” of each scene, that the audience (or me, at least) became effectively scared. Films like “The Grudge” may deliver more in the way of immediate shocks and sudden horror (and more shrieks in the classroom hall had we watched it instead), but in the long-term, Ringu’s horror, which favors delayed creepiness over more thrilling “pop-outs,” seems like some slow-acting poison designed to inhabit our fears long after we finish the film. Or maybe it hopes to be remembered for just seven days, long enough for us to entertain the obvious parallel that we’re watching a film about a film that kills people. Will we too somehow die from watching it? We’re not yet sure when the credits roll.
DeleteMinimalistic special effects to create horror in "Ringu"
ReplyDeleteTo create horror Hideo Nakata, the director of "Ringu", focuses on the story rather than the ghost. Throughout the movie there were very few special effects and only one for the ghost which is crawling out from TV. The ghost seemed very human like and dead people were just making astounded faces. What made this movie really special were sound effects. Bizarre sounds created tension as a stunning event will happen, people with a blank expression on their faces pop up without any sound, and strange noises as somebody is near created creepy and horrifying mood.
Also people in the movie caused major fear. The people in the movie were as creepy as the ghost. As I mentioned before, there were many scenes where a person pops up near the main characters as they were ghost. Yoichi, son of Reiko Asakawa, behaves as he is possessed by a ghost. The most horrifying part of the movie was when Reiko realizes that one have to show the video to someone else to get away from wrath of Sadako she called her father to watch the video for her son.
Ringu is not the typical horror movie in Hollywood. There was little to none background music in the movie. There were no scenes with gore. There were, however, many close ups, silences, and environment sounds, including waves and telephone ring.
ReplyDeleteFrom the very first scene, we saw and heard the sounds of the black waves and TV static and screen. From then on, the entire movie continues to have eerie and suspenseful sounds. At other times, when we know something might happen, we would hear absolute silences or see close ups of one of the characters. For example, eerie sounds started playing right before Reiko enters the B4 house. Shortly after, the beating of the drums steady increased to create a more suspenseful atmosphere. After Reiko had found and watched the cursed videotape, there was absolute silence until the phone started ringing. These factors help build the mood and tension in this horror movie. At other times, these factors can also establish the element of surprise.
the response of Ringgu
ReplyDeleteThe director of 〈Ringgu〉 is using many ways to emphasize the sense of horror: background music, the expression of the corpse, and the way he shoots the object. background music in this movie is one of the main elements to make audience feel nervous and fear. sometimes the music is loud and raspy , and sometimes the music is soft but make audiences feel creepy. Also, the background music is served as an introduction, telling the audiences that something will be going on next or soon. for an example, when the lady is talking to the hotel receptionist, as soon as she has noticed the tape, the background music is played. In this case, the audiences can usually feel that something is going with that tape. another example, when girls have heard the phone ring, the background music is played. In this case, the background music is making audiences feel nervous about the things happen in the moire and giving audiences a hint of upcoming happens. secondly, the directors are also using the expression of the corpse to emphasize the sense of horror. everyone who has died in the〈Ringgu〉all have the same expression on their faces -eyes and mouths are wide opened. From the expression, audiences can know that the creature, who has been killing people, is very scary , which can make people died in extremely fear. Also, there is shot of the corpse’s expression that has scared many audiences - it is when the lady is talking to her sister in the room, and her sister is recalled about where she has found her daughter, and then the scene is suddenly jump to the close shot of her daughter’s expression. Finally, the way the director shoots the object can emphasize the sense of horror. the director often takes the medium close shot of the lady, but he does not really put the lady in the center of the screen- she has always be placed at the corner of the screen and leave at least half of the screen for the background. This way of shooting will always make audiences nervous about the surrounding of the object; especially in this case, audiences will be nervous about the surrounding of the object because they always think that something is going to exist behind the object.
this movie has left an incomplete ending for its audience. After the lady has found out the way to safe her son, she is driving to her father’s house. In the phone call, she has asked her father for a favor, a favor for her son, but she does not clarify the favor she has asked for. so what is going to happen next, and how the story is going to end it, the director has left viewers to interpret on their own.
Qiutong Meng
ReplyDeleteresponse of Ringu
After I saw the movie, the mystery of Ringu is that the sinister video kills whoever watches it, unless the tape must always be copied and passed on others in order to survive the viewers. At the end of movies, Asakawa wants to save her son, then she drive to visit her father. Will she pass on the video to her father? That leaves suspense to us.
Generally speaking, sound effects make horror movies more impressive. The same off-beat and unsettling music creates tension and creepy feel. The sound effects are well integrated. In addition, the movie also concentrate on every details like space which makes characters feel alone, scary, characters’ facial expressions, environmental factors like in the boats and Japanese lifestyle such as tatami and Kimono.
The director also uses symbolic sub-consciousness, which lead us to understand Sadako’s behaviors and purpose. For example, telephone is the symbol of the girl’s scattered memories like her mom, earthquake report and the well. Those lead Asakawa and her ex-husband find clues to break the curse. Death in a closed well means depression from psychology and the society; Sadako wants someone who can help her find the fact with the pressure of curse. In the movie, when Asakawa is finding Sadako’s body, the bones touch her wrist. Asakawa is supposed to be scared but not like that, she consulates Sadako as a child and puts skeletons in her arms. The appearance of skeletons means a kind of venting angers. The movies used symbolic methods to express subconscious psychology.
Sound plays a significant role in films because it helps set the atmosphere of the events that occur and can affect the way the audience feels toward the images being displayed. In today’s film, Ringu, it seemed that sound was absent for majority of the movie and only in played in certain moments to increase anticipation, increase intensity, and show significance of those moments. For example, because sound was not common, when the phone rang or the television suddenly turned on, it was striking, the audience knew it was important, and it created a sense of unpredictability and fear about what was to come. Sound also played when the main characters experienced something surprising or received a clue about Sadako. Lighter instrumental music played when the female lead found Sadako, giving the idea that the conflict was over and all was well (although that was not the case). Similar music played again when the female lead drove away with the solution to share the video with others in order not to be killed. This music left a more lighthearted feeling that the problem was solved.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting aspect of the film was the camera angles. It seemed that most of the movie was filmed at a similar distance, from the waist up, or at an upward angle towards the characters until it focused on an object of significance such as the distorted picture of the teenagers who were killed, televisions, the corpses, and the copied and original versions of the tape. It also seems as if the audience first views the characters reactions and then is shown a close up of what the characters saw. This method increases anticipation of what the characters saw or what is about to happen. It increases suspense for the scene that is to come and creates unpredictability because the audience is uncertain what will be shown.
Callie Disney
The Diegesis and Strength of the Music in Ringu
ReplyDeleteThe diegesis of the film’s music is noteworthy. The use of discordant and seemingly random and loud sounds makes the film an unusual one. There is no argument that the film does follow the typical use of music to signal an omen but the film differs in what it deems as an omen. There are two types of music in the film—the sea, assuming that natural sounds can in fact be music, would be diegetic and the film score, extra-diegetic. Both types do not flow with the actions of the film; instead they overshadow all other actions and noise and scream for attention. The extra-diegetic music is deep and slow and almost rhythmic in its bass whilst the diegetic is both chaotic in its sound and movement.
The strength of the diegetic music can be seen through the explanation of a relative of Sadako’s mother. She is drawn to the sea—almost as if enthralled by it while others who depend on it for a livelihood hate it as it takes lives each year. Sadako’s mother does not see the sea as chaotic or evil. She finds solace in it. The sound as the waves crash upon each other is deafening, so deafening in fact the viewer can barely hear the conversation of those close to it. The sea becomes animated; like her it has the power to harm as it wishes. The extra-diegetic music loses it strength each time it is heard. There are at times when a shocking event occurs at the end of the piece and there are times when nothing unusual occurs. The music, although it does overshadow events as the sea does, due to its frequency does not have the same strength.
In this movie, Ringu, I was able to find two significant characteristics: sound effects, and foreshadow which tells whats gonna happen later. In this movie, the sound effect really matches good with the story line and background. To be specific, the background music of this movie is different all the times. For example, when the climax is coming, the gloomy music becomes louder gradually, causing audiences into great horror. Also, in order to suprise audiences, director put several loud sounds in the storyline. Another factor is foreshdows that producer put in the story so that the audiences can predict what will happen later. I think this this point make audiences more horrified because they know what is gonna happen but the character in movie don't. People will feel desperate. Furthermore, foreshadow can also cause huge reverse story that can change the whole story suddenly. After I watched this movie, I thought that the director used human unconsciousness which can arouse horror.
ReplyDeleteAs a horror film, Ringu adopted a novel approach to create horrifying mood instead of relying on shocking or violent stimulus. Ringu succeeded in leading audience to link supernatural horror events to their everyday life through settings, light effects, sound effects, plot, and the underlying theme of the whole film. First of all, we can see that the whole story occurred under normal setting of everyday life: normal apartments, streets, houses, etc. The story just never occurred at those shabby and extremely horrifying places. The normal setting enables the audience to feel the psychological tension of encountering horror events in everyday life. Besides, items associated with supernatural events in the film, from telephone and video tape to photos and television, are so common in daily life that audience can easily plug themselves into these horror scenes. For instance, after witnessing the death of Tomoko, Tomoko's friend turned mad and said that she would not get close to any television any more. Later, Sadako climbed out of the television to kill Ryuji. Here, Ringu created the audience's fear over television. The unprecedented intimacy between horror events and everyday life increments the horror mood of the film. The light effects in Ringu also linked supernatural horror events closely to everyday life of audience. In most of the scenes, light effect was simply under natural condition. However, the widespread use of natural light did not undermine the general horrifying effect in this film. The insertion of abnormal light effect into natural light effect strengthened the horror mood. One example is when Tomoko's mother showed Asakawa how she found Tomoko's corpse. Tomoko's mother was talking in warm and mild sunshine, suddenly she opened the closet and Tomoko's corpse was shown under hyper-intense light effect. Several seconds later, the camera cuts back to Asakawa standing in the warm sunshine. The sudden switch between natural light and hyper-intense light effects created a sense that horror events are hidden in tranquil life.
ReplyDeleteThe sounds effects used in Ringu also perfectly linked the horror mood to our daily routine. Like most horror films, Ringu used fierce sound effects to create horror mood. At the same time, silence and natural sound persuaded audience that the story can happen in our real world. Each time the date was shown on the screen, fierce and horrifying music came out while audience are ready to follow how the story would proceed. The sound effects here indicated potential horror events. The psychological tension of the audience would thus be kept at a high level. Finally, the plot and the underlying theme of the film also push the audience to reflect the horror mood on themselves. The story showed how Asakawa and her ex-husband investigated the supernatural event. They got through the stages from not believing the event at all to becoming frightened by Sadako's curse. That exactly follows the common logic of people. After seeing Sadako's skeleton in the well, the audience generally would assume that the story is coming to the end. However, the horrifying events of Ryuji's death and Asakawa's attempt to let her father watch the video followed. The unexpected jump out of the common logic reinforced the horror mood of this film. Moreover, the scene that Asakawa attempted to let her father be cursed in order to save her son can be interpreted in different ways. On one hand, while Asakawa accused Dr. Ikuza for killing Sadako regardless their close relationship, she eventually attempted to bring the curse to her own father. We can see how controversial and unreliable human morality could be here. On the other hand, even though Sadako's skeleton was undercovered, her curse would be passed on and on without an end. That corresponds to the idea that revenge and curse can never reach an end, and the cycles of curse would still continue. The idea itself gives the film Ringu an extremely horrifying end.
Shangqing Li
Patterns of Suspense in Ringu, Elise Huerta
ReplyDeleteAs others have mentioned, one of the most notable aspects of "Ringu" is its ability to generate a sense of horror using minimal special effects and absolutely no realistic violence or gore. This is achieved through a controlled method of playing with suspense. A pattern can be deciphered from paying attention to the most tense scenes of the film: the character in the movie enters a scene nervous, frightened, and aware. The "ring" sound triggers a similar reaction in the audience, causing tension to rise as we expect something scary to suddenly happen. Next, the ringing sound stops, usually interrupted by a completely normal, daily life occurrence that causes the character--and the audience--to drop their guard. This is sometimes accompanied by laughter, as in the scene in the beginning of the movie with the two girls that oscillates between real terror and a joke several times. A similar process occurs in the scene where Reiko visits Tomoko's mother: there is an imbalanced shot in the scene where Reiko is in the far left corner of the screen; this on top of Reiko's paranoid state of mind and the ringing sound causes the audience to anticipate a sudden moment of shock. Then, right when something scary should happen, the other half of the screen is filled, but it's only Tomoko's mother. Everyone in the audience releases their tension and relaxes, but mid-sigh-of-relief we are quickly shocked by a violent flashback of Tomoko's body in the closet. This same construction is used repeatedly throughout the film (another example is when Reiko visits the cabin; there is a moment of release and even humor as she reads the kid's diary before the phone rings).
Interestingly, what I found to be one of the most skillful uses of this construction was a quick cut from a sweet and safe feeling scene of Yoichi and his grandfather fishing to a shot of Yoichi laying across the floor. He's only sleeping, but his body is sprawled out in a very dead-looking position that is parallel to the position in which previous corpses were found after being killed. Notably, he's also dressed in very adult-looking clothes (I think a button up shirt and khakis) that make the scene even more uncomfortable (throughout the film Yoichi exhibits mature behavior to the extent that it is concerning. Laying out his mother's clothes, for example, draws attention to the neglect of his parents and foreshadow his death in two ways. First, it is evident that he is not being taken care of and therefore vulnerable, and second, his premature adult status also foreshadows a premature death).
The scene with Yoichi sprawled across the floor is the scene that most evidently foreshadows Yoichi's viewing of the tape and preeminent death; it puts our natural concern for the innocent, sweet, and neglected child into overdrive. I think it speaks to the power of the suspense-play and scene development that a scene that features only a sleeping child with nothing violent or even scary can have such a disturbing effect on the audience (or at least me).
There are several parallels of time and space in“Ringu”. This is mostly observed between the curse of the present and the story of the past. For instance, as Reiko and Ryuji place their hands on the well, there is a flashback to recount how Sadako was murdered. In this occasion, the past and the present are connected by the well. Such flashbacks are frequently used in the film, with a stark contrast in the two settings where the past is shown in black and white whereas the present is shown in color. A second form of parallel lies in the relationship of the characters – Shizuko, Ikuma, Sadako & Reiko, Ryuji, Yoichi. The third parallel is between the virtual scenes in the video and the actual scenes of "reality" (which links to the virtual "Ringu" we are watching and the audience in reality). Initially, the videotape seems to be the only connection between the past and present, and the action of watching the tape will cause the people of the present to be cursed by the vengeful spirit of the past. However, the barrier between the past and present is removed when Reiko finds Sadako in the well and embraces her in a hug; and the barrier between virtual and reality is removed when Sadako climbs out of the television into the living room of Ryuji.
ReplyDeleteI feel that this film is feminist in some way as women make up majority of the main characters, i.e. Reiko, Shizuko and Sadako. Among them, Shizuko and Sadako deserve our sympathy as they are the victims of Ikuma, and Reiko ends up as the first survivor of the curse. Moreover, Ryuji spends hours inside the well looking for Sadako to no avail but Reiko manages to find her instead. The scene which shows the two of them hugging brings warmth to the audience, and to specially select Reiko for this role seems to hint that such an overpowering sense of empathy can only be possessed by females. However, in the very last scene, this soft side of Reiko disappears when we see her fierce glare in the car as she is determined to save her son by making another copy of the video to pass the curse on. The last shot left a deep impression on me, where the gloomy sky looms above the long and seemingly never-ending path, which probably symbolizes the continuity of the dark curse.
Hui Wen, Tea
To add on, I totally agree with what some of the others have mentioned about how the film has been successful in using sounds and camera techniques. These elements serve to create a common sense of horror among audiences spanning across different cultures and nationalities despite possible language barriers - Although most successful films possess the ability to transcend national borders, I feel that this common cinematic experience stands out the most in the genre of horror.
DeleteSunghun Jeon
ReplyDeleteThe movie Ringu begins with ambugious sounds which play significantly throughout the movie especially for the horrofic scenes. As the director of the movie concentrates on how the main characters are overcoming fear about rumors and ghosts which was only shown for few times, that ambugious sound plays as significantly sound effect to emphasaize and maximize horrofic scenes. For example, TV with the music effect continously appear throughout the movie especially when Asakawa and Ryuji find something suspicious about the ghosts. This music effect also suggests how they are turning into the climax and makes audiences to concentrate on the story.
Also Asakawa's son, Yoichi who were very friendly with Sadako, play a role of licorice by keep giving the hints to the main characters and audiences about the story including the scenes of watching Sadako's video at Grandfather's houses. As it ends as unclear story with several surprising pop out scenes, it inversely asks the audience to doubt whether the scenes continously appear with uncertainty, but also induces the audiences to expect about the unclear part of the story for the next series.
Ringu is a 1998 Japanese horror film directed by Hideo Nakata. The film is also adapted from a novel called Ring. The plot of the movie centers on a reporter named Reiko Asakawa who investigates a cursed video tape that caused mysterious murders. The movie follows traditional tropes of a horror film, such as low lighting, eerie soundtracks, and reflections to spook the audience, but combines them with a filter and unsteady camera during flashbacks to establish more unknown supernatural paranoia.
ReplyDeleteThe film is littered with asymmetrical shots that place characters in half or one-third of the frame. Alongside this, many of the frightening shots usually happen in dark settings. One example of this is in the part during Tomoko’s funeral involving Asakawa’s son, Yoichi, who wanders up to Tomoko’s room. The sequence here uses shots in a distant hallway or in Tomoko’s dark room. In the hallway, the camera placement is so that we do not know if it represents an ominous presence watching and waiting for Yoichi. In Tomoko’s room, the composition is dim and Yoichi is in a medium close-up to the right side foreground of the frame while the left side background area lays the better lit doorway. By following up the short hallway shot with this lingering asymmetric shot of Yoichi, the viewers are anxiously unsure if that unknown “presence” was real and if it will appear to harm Yoichi as well as fill the rest of the frame’s composition. Continuing on with sequences like these added with creepy sounds and unsettling imagery, Nakata creates traditional horror film atmosphere.
Another notable technique that the film uses is the flashback sequence done in a sepia screen filter that denotes that the audience is viewing what is taking place in the past. Not only does the filter indicate the past, but in a horror film, it creates distance between the disturbing unknown and the audience by forcing them to watch an unfamiliar monochrome scene. In addition, the camera in the flashback sequence is slightly unsteady. With this subtle touch, Nakata is able to create a sense of disembodied yet embodied presence. The unsteady camera represents more realistically a person’s vision swaying here and there rather than a stable, fixed position even though the characters and viewers are not actually at the event of the scene. Finally, there are other glimpses of the past that include grainy-like filters mixed with white noise due to the technicalities of the VHS tapes that induce evermore frightening uncertainty. Nakata’s ability to withhold information with monochrome filters and to use an unsteady camera creates contradicting sense of presence that leaves the audience with their imagination to fill in the rest with their discomforted states of minds.
Grace Chang
ReplyDeleteThe movie Ringu, one of the earliest Japanese horror movies that attracted audiences internationally, succeeded in creating another genre of horror; it neither portrays violence nor uses excessive amount of blood to scare the audience, but the movie slowly tortures audience mentally with the idea of supernatural phenomenon and how unlucky someone will be if he or she does not follow the order from the strange object that is created anonymously. Whenever I watch Japanese horror films, I feel like the music directors pay extra attention to sound effects and background music, and Ringu also does an excellent job in surprising the audience through music with the visual representation. When I was watching the movie, I focused on listening to the sound effects and background music’s length and volume and found out how they were adjusted to each corresponding situation. When Tomoko slowly turns around to find out about the disturbing noise from her back, we can assume that she sees Sadako afterward. At this point, the background music continues to be a long, repetitive sound and reaches a crescendo when Tomoko screams. As Asakawa finds out how Youichi silently entered Tomoko’s room, the volume of the background music increases abruptly.
However, Ringu does not solely rely on the background music to portray its atmosphere. When Asakawa does her daily jobs such as eating, walking, and driving, the movie does not use background music at all in order to maximize the fear of distorted noise in other frightening scenes.
Also, the visual image of Sadako remains to be the traditional form of ghost in Asia region: long, black hair with white dress. It is rather different from the image of ghosts in Westerner's mind, but Japan has consistently used this image ever since they had tales of yokai(monsters, ghosts, phantoms) such as yuki-onna and kiyohime. Asakawa first finds a handful of long, black hair that almost resembles straw in the well when Ryuji and Asakawa were looking for Sadako's corpse. Sadako's hair covers her face entirely, which hides her real identity and gives the audience a space to imagine how she actually looks like.
Christine Kim
ReplyDeleteThe Role of Reflection in Ringu
Reflection is one of the most important themes of Ringu, as it is demonstrated through both subtle and explicit ways. Literal and expected representations are repeatedly shown in mirrors, but the film also utilizes television screens and windows as an unexpected means of tricking the viewer, as the reflections can be misconstrued as one character instead of another. For example, multiple times during the movie, when Akasawa gazed at a blank television screen, I often mistook her reflection for that of Sadako. This only added to the suspenseful nature of the film, as the line between the expected and unexpected blurred. In addition to being an unexpected reflective source, televisions, and technology in general, play a critical role in Ringu as they are the portals through which characters are not only cursed, but also released from the seemingly unavoidable grip of death. Ringu repeatedly utilizes televisions and telephones to ominously foreshadow impending doom, but the theme extends past the seemingly obvious roles generally assigned to those objects. Technology is the beacon of despair as it curses viewers, but Akasawa, with Ryuji’s help, manages to manipulate the curse through the use of technology, and thus technology becomes her saving grace. Ringu also uses distortions in images to help the reader discern between regular and cursed individuals, as the latter have distorted visages in photographs. Reflection, especially through technology, extends past the expected and leaves the viewer in a state of questioning what is real and isn’t.
Christina Ho
ReplyDeleteThe 1998 Japanese horror film Ringu by Hideo Nakata uses a combination of interesting camera shots and intense music to set the tone of ease or suspense throughout the movie. There is a contrast in how normal, everyday scenes are shot versus the scenes of horror. In the normal scenes, the camera shots tend to be further away, so that the viewer can see most of the surroundings. The camera tends to focus on the main characters, everything is brightly lit, and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Examples of this are the scenes where Youichi is playing with his grandpa or when Reiko Asakawa is seen at work.
However, when the scene shifts to something more tense, the camera angles tend towards the less conventional. For example, the scene with Tomoko just before she dies, the camera shots stay very close to her, such that the viewer is unable to see Tomoko's surroundings. We are just as unaware and uneasy of our surroundings as Tomoko. During stressful scenes, camera also mimics the eye movements of main character of the segment. For example, when Asakawa is on the island and scans the room where Tomoko and her friends watched the tape, the camera angle is shown from her height, looking down at the fireplace, the walls and finally resting on the TV. In another suspenseful scene where the room was dimly lit, the scene is shot asymmetrically so that Reiko is on the left and her shadow is seen in the middle of the shot.
Music also plays a large role in setting the mood for the movie. Right after Asakawa asks Ryuji Takayama to take her picture, sharp, piercing music like nails on chalk board plays, causing the viewer to jump with the fright that we imagine Reiko feels. In everyday scenes, music is either not present at all or barely noticeable. Overall, the music and camera shots work together to control the emotions of fear and ease in the audience.
Ng Hui Shin
ReplyDeleteThe aural aspect plays an essential role in this movie. Hideo Nakata marvellously places sound effects during scary and shock moments to create a heightened sense of surprise and scariness. This is achieved by the relative lack of sound effects when the characters in the movie were doing mundane activities. This relative ‘silence’ creates a sense of tension, which makes it appear as if there was going to be something that might happen any moment. It also creates amplification for the ringing of the phone, which then places heightened emphasis and attention on the ringing of the phone.
The relative absence of sound effects also allows the scare factor to scale to greater heights during scary scenes, where the use of sound effects then appear amplified and all the more striking. As a result, the audience becomes scared to a greater extent, both due to the sudden intrusion of sound effects and the seeming amplification of the frightening sound effects.
Nakata also creates an alternate pattern of relaxation and tension in the opening scene by interspersing humour and horror, which creates a disturbing pattern of tension and relaxation.
A number of crane shots were also used, especially during the last scene when Reiko Asakawa and Ryūji Takayama went into the well to find Sadako. The long shot creates a sort of scare factor, as it distances the character from the audience, making the audience worry that if something bad were going to happen to the character, he/she would be too far off to receive help.
The camera angle then changes to one of an eye-level later on when Asakawa finds Sadako, seemingly to demonstrate the equality between both of them. This creates a false sense of normalcy and tricks the audience into feeling relieved; it appears as if danger has already passed.
Nakata then introduces a twist in events with the death of Takayama, showing an extreme close-up of Sadako’s eye. This could symbolize the never-ending curse of Sadako or her extreme wrath.
During the ending, Asakawa appears to have the intention to show her father the video-tape in a bid to save her son. The extreme long shot here should have a distancing effect, but Nakata again uses the aural aspect to bring the audience close to the plot again. The aural ‘advice’ seems to inform the audience that Asakawa’s act could be an analogy for Sadako’s revenge on her father, and also appears to inform us of the continuous nature of Sadako’s curse.
JiEun Lee
ReplyDeleteHideo Nakata’s horror film, Ringgu begins with a ordinary background that many of asians would catch on without much attention. Along with this movie, I realized that there are two different ways to terrify people: one way is a method of using accustomed aspect and the second one is a method of using strange aspect. The director uses a video tape as a role of horror locomotive and a cause of mysterious death. Since those setting ups are too ordinary and even seems possible to happen in our daily life, the horror of film becomes maximization in audience’s mind. I could find some familiar aspects of our daily lives as scary settings other than the televisions and the video tape such as anonymous scary rumor, children’s giggling sound between events, and the final solution of unfortunate letter type.
On the contrary to these ordinary aspects, some strange setting ups bring even more interests and quality to the film. For example, there are the strange sounds of video, random scenes with unknown characters, pictures with crushed faces and etc. The boy, Yoichi’s sight gives a sense of beyond existence in the house. The husband seems like a psychometry or a psychic while Sadako and her mother are obviously not human. Meanwhile, the unusual movement of camera between a character to another character surprises audience; unexpected appear on the angle really made me scared. And also, the strange silence between characters increases the tension in the film. The most shocking aspect of this film to me is not the ‘coming out of the wall’ scene but the reason Sadako made that video and has killed people.
Zachary McCoy
ReplyDelete-Ringu
The music of this film (or, rather, the lack of music) is a detail that can be easily overlooked if you're not paying close attention. The soundtrack to the film seems quite sparse, which seems a little bizarre. When thinking of films, we know that music plays a key role in how a film comes across -- you can take a film that uses primarily pop music as its soundtrack and switch it to an orchestral soundtrack and completely change the feeling of the film and even how scenes (and the movie as a whole) are perceived. The film has a striking amount of silence in the first half of the film, showing very little music with tangible pitches. Sure, there is a lot of "sound" in the movie, but little of it is what we would traditionally call "music."
It seems, however, that music is more present in the last half of the film that the first half. Using the music this sparsely means that when the music is eventually used, it is meaningful and really impacts the audience (even if that impact is completely subconscious). I found the use of music (or the use of silence) quite effective and really enjoyed it zoning into this detail of the film; it was clear that this aspect of the film is an extremely essential aspect and was not taken lightly during the production of Ringu.
I questioned the importance of the male character having such a close relationship (being the ex-husband and father to the boy) with the female and son characters; I was not sure if this was actually necessary. I found myself questioning whether or not the film would change all that much if that detail had changed to him just being a "family friend."
I also found myself comparing this film to the American version of the story. There were quite a bit of differences, and, of course, obvious similarities (after all, it |is| the same tale). I found that the Japanese version was more engaging to me (particularly the scenes where people were watching the creepy film and the scene on the shore where they see into the past), but the American film was more effective (for me) in terms of the "fear factor."
Eunhae Seo
ReplyDeleteAlthough movie Ring is based on the original novel, it could be told that movie Ring is different from the original novel because movie Ring deals with different contents compared to the novel. The novel is more likely to thriller.
Nobody might think that Ring has an important bearing on Japanese movie world when it released. it cannot be emphasized enough that Ring marked a new era in the horror film renre. Since Ring tried a novel approach regardless general method of the horror film, Ring could give audience sense of fear.
In fact, ironically bleeding does not appear in the movie Ring, even if common horror film make audience feel a sense of fear by showing a terrible scene.
Some people may say that Ring is an influential horror movie only in only in the asian countries. However, I personally think Ring has all makings enough of what Westerner can feel sympathy. For instance, movie Exorcist which is considered as a masterpiece of horror film has something in common with Ring because both movies deeply make the viewer feel a sense of fear in terms of psychology.
The film "Ringu," heavily uses visual cues to nonverbally communicate consistent themes throughout the movie. Furthermore, the scores and sound effects reinforce events and themes throughout the movie.
ReplyDeleteA consistent visual cue throughout the movie was the use of stark contrast of lighting (boarderline noir). In many scenes lighting is essentially a spotlight is the single source of light in a scene. Characters and key objects that are interacted with are placed within the spotlight; however, once a character sees "the video," characters are no longer in the light but instead fall in the shadows. Furthermore, the DP often foretells motion character's entrances into a scene by manipulating camera angles and shadows (i.e. When the woman pulls up to her father's house). In addition, TV sets were often incorporated into shots, symbolizing the ever present fear of the video.
"Ringu" uses multiple audible themes throughout the film. The film pairs contorted scores with "frightening," visuals. In particular when the women initially views her polaroid picture and her face is obscured. Throughout the movie scores with layers of white noise are also used, referencing the haunted video. The white noise reference occurs throughout the movie is not just in the literal scores but also in background sounds (i.e. when the on the ferry the ocean strongly resembles the sound of white noise).
The most consistent themes throughout "Ringu" are light & dark, and the reference to technology. "Ringu," consistently uses aesthetic nonverbal cues to communicate these themes to the audience.
Tyler McBride
ReplyDeleteRingu, directed by Hideo Nakata, became a huge hit internationally due to many elements that contributed to the constant suspense of the movie. Ringu was such a big success that the US created its own adaptation of the movie. Some of the elements that contributed to the success of the movie is the sound and the camera angles. Sound was such a huge element that contributed to the suspense in Ringu. For example, there wouldn't be any type of sound when the cursed video would play. Then, there wouldn't be sound until something suspenseful occurred. Therefore, everyone would keep waiting for the suspenseful scenes by listening to the music.
Camera angles also contributed immensely to the suspense in Ringu. The way Nakata uses camera angles effectively adds to the suspense throughout Ringu. For example, one way Nakata uses the camera angles to his advantage is the scene where Sadako crawls out of the television as she slowly approaches Reiko. Once she finally reaches him, the camera angle suddenly changes to her left eye. This sudden change of camera angle creates that element of suspense that everyone expects from horror movies. Another example of this technique are the sudden angle changes when a person is killed by Sadako. The first example of this is when Tomoko is in her kitchen and the camera angle changes to her face as she looks at Sadako. These sudden changes significantly contribute to the overall suspense throughout Ringu.
Hmm I didn't realize the deadline was so early... anyway:
ReplyDeleteRingu is at heart a psychological thriller. It does an amazing job at building suspense, but in almost every case, they don't follow through with the horror in the way most western horror films would. If there is an eerie soundtrack in the back, and the camera pans slowly towards the darkness, what I expect is for something to pop up. Ringu does not do this, yet they build the suspense for it. Every moment where we would expect something to pop up, either the final shot is slower than it would be in your typical western horror film (such as the beginning scene when Masami's face freezes because of something she sees offscreen), or the culprit is a friendly character.
One example that I would take to put emphasis on is the scene of Tomoko's funeral when Yoishi goes to Tomoko's room. The walk from the bottom of the stairs to her room is very slow. The music is slow and haunted. The camera is usually very still, you can see the darkness surround the outside of the frame while Yoishi is still standing in the light. As the scene progresses the music is the same, and Yoishi is standing more in the darkness, while there is plenty of light coming from outside past the doorway. Every second is more suspenseful than the previous one. The scene ends with Asakawa slowly walking into the room and bringing him back downstairs.
When Ringu was remade as The Ring in the west, they brought back the grotesque and "jump" horror. When the body of Tomoko is shown, it is just a pale body slightly contorted with a face that is horrorstricken yet slightly comical. In the American version, the body of Katie is revealed in a quick shot initiated with a loud sound which makes the viewer jump. Not only is the body introduced in a cliche fashion, but it is also a lot more grotesque then just pale and contorted: she is green and rotton. The original Japanese version values the slow goosebump inducing buildup of psychological suspense over the remake's use of the old cheap trick of making you jump out of your seat.
"Ringu" to me was not your typical horror film. The first thing I noticed that took me away from the film was the placement of the Ritz Crackers box in the first scene on the dresser. I glanced at it and it had me thinking about those crackers for a bit because they should have been placed in the kitchen scene that was next.
ReplyDeleteThe use of music throughout the movie was interesting and very deceiving at times. When you hear deep, eerie, voice-like noises you expect for something to appear, but instead you are presented with a sort of revelation. As in the first scene with the two women the music builds as the story is told. You find out that her friends have all watched the "one week death" video and thanks to the build-up of music you are fully expecting something to come out of a closet or appear in a corner, but you hear the phone ring. The music continues to confuse your psyche and makes the "scary" scenes less predictable.
The media aspect of this film seemed to be an important one too. The fact that the curse was on a VHS tape seems to be an important element. The last scene does a close-up on the VCR and it makes you think more about that VCR. If you were watching it when it came out it would have been on a VHS because that's what was still most popular even though the DVD came out in 1997. This was a cleaver attempt to get people to think about their Videocassette players. Since JVC is a Japanese company who made VCR's, it could be likely that Nakata was using this as a way of symbolizing the death of the VCR's in the marketplace since DVD's were making headway or the changes in the world of visual media. With the lady coming out of the tv at the end it re-defined the meaning of 3D in my head.
^ Ren (Karen) Curry
DeleteOMG.. I slep right away and just woke up due to cold. Could you allow this since this is the first response?
ReplyDeleteThe only scary part during the screening was our classmate's shouts and shivering. I strongly agree that the background music contributed to fostering tension but the other factors such as the acting skills, stories and goblin did not show any interest since this movie is too old, which failed in consensus-making. This might be cynical response but the actor's reaction against the goblin and the video tape looked even ridiculous. Thus, the genre did not actually succeed to be called "horror" but just thriller.
The only prominent thing in Ringu is the sounds. In thrilled movie, there are three sounds developing tension-sound effect, background music and actor's dialogue. Ringu represented the successful sound effect such as the TV's crackled sound and sound like twisting iron stick. These sounds stimulate the peripheral nerves so that moviegoers are psychologically cowered. Another two sounds were eventually insufficient to make the viewer scary in that the background music did not include any unique technic and actor's dialogue seemed meaningless because of failing in arousing sympathy.
Lastly, the yoichi's ambiguous and unexpected act also created tension. Even though he has the least dialogue among the main characters, his acts such as looking aroung Tomoko's room and watch the video possibly intensified the mob psychology.
Sadako, the ghost we didn't think that exist in the present, pops out from the television and attacks the hero character 'Ryuji'. This is how the ending scene of 'Ringu' goes like. It is a famous story that this ending scene made Japanese audience scream out in the theater. But the point of it is that it was not a scream that audience made as a cinema audience, but was a scream that was possessed in the movie character's emotion.
ReplyDeleteI think this point is the most significant part of movie 'Ringu' made from the dramatic interpretation. The smart movie director used the fact that 'Sadako' is not a character that is exisisting now in the present, and counterplot that thought to dominate the audience's emotion in to fear by making 'Sadako' alive right now in front of the audience's eyes. And the movie finally throws a taboo video that has a message that the person who saw the video will die in one week. It seems like the message is not toward the movie character's but us, the audience. I remember horror stories with this similar curse was a big hit for the summer in Korea during the period this movie came out.
That much, 'Ringu' had a big meaning in the east asian horror films. The plots and details were used and borrowed in every east asian horror movie's that came out after 'Ringu'.