"Brick" and Kurosawa

Today I rewatched one of my favorite films, Rian Johnson’s “Brick” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and was paying close attention to some similarities to the Kurosawa films we’ve watched in Signs and Wonders this year.

JGL as high school badass Brendan Frye.

Both movies are filmed in the “noir” style and it’s fascinating how this filmmaking technique has evolved in the past 56 years. Each movie features classic noir tropes, such as the use of a “hardboiled detective” anti-hero as the main character, heavy use of low- and wide-angle shots, harsh, dramatic lighting snappy fast-paced dialogue, and dark tone.

I think it’s very interesting to watch a movie from 1948 and understanding the grass roots of a genre and then watching a movie from 2004 mimicking the style of the older one. You can definitely tell that Johnson takes advantage of modern filmmaking techniques, especially in sequences that feature quick cuts, fights, and dolly tracks. It really makes you wonder how genres that have recently become prevalent in the Hollywood scene (i.e. superhero films, low-budget horror movies) will evolve in the years to come.

Will future films like "Paranormal Activity" actually be good??

On a somewhat unrelated note, “Brick” was filmed on an incredibly low budget (by Hollywood standards) but can still compete visually with any ultra-high-budget blockbuster that I’ve seen that doesn’t require heavy use of CGI or extravagant set. It’s definitely a movie that does not look as cheap as it really is, and I think as film students we can learn a lot from it.