Monday, 25 June 2007

Man of Fire - Film

The film itself is not the object of my analysis, but the interesting and inventive typography used in the subtitles. Much of the film, set in Mexico city, is spoken in Spanish, and therefore subtitles are a necessity for the understanding of the film. I have never seen this in subtitles before and it would be interesting to know if there are any others like this out there.


Typography is used in the film to illustrate emotions, enhance particular words and personal characterisitics:

1> emotions - a jarred, ambiguous type is used to convey the fear and confusion in the womens voice.




2> enhance particular words - the most important words are bigger to illustrate his tone of voice.





3> personal charcteristics - there is a fuzzy halo around the words that i think demonstrate the mind of an old person and also as a conotation to religion and faith.



A variety of typefaces are also used to convey different people and different social situations. The positioning of the words also relate to the pace of the scenes and the words that are being said.

3 comments:

Michelle Almond said...

This film is absolutely amazing! I love it's edgyness... the way it's shot and edited! Awesome!

Alan said...

A classic for the future? YES or NO

riannawilliams said...

I will have to watch this film. I remember seeing an article in a magazine the other day, I think it was Creative Review but I have just been looking for it and can't find it so can't confirm. But it was about how bad the typography in films generally is. It seems they have finally done something about it. I wonder if this will set a trend for further generations of world cinema.

I do have my reservations about it though. Sometimes isn't it better to have understated subtitles so as not to distract from the picture itself? Actions speak louder than words and all that.