Formal Film Study Gavin O'Connor, Pride and Glory, Miracle, Warrior

For my formal film studies project I decided to watch and analyze 3 of Gavin O'Connor's movies.  Gavin O'Connor is an American film director, screen writer, producer, playwright, and actor.  The 3 movies I viewed of his were "Warrior", "Miracle", and "Pride and Glory".  The Movie Warrior is about two brothers that were separated in their teens due to their alcoholic and abusive father, one son going with the mother, the other going with the father.  Tommy Riordan one of the brothers returns from the war in Iraq to reunite with his father.  His other brother Brendan is a high school science teacher who is struggling to pay the bills.  But both brothers share a similar gift, Fighting.  The two start to train for the same high stakes tournament that will give them the money they need if they win, both not knowing the other is training for it.  Tommy and Brendan eventually meet in the finals after both having tough battles getting their.  The movie Miracle is based on a true story of the 1980 mens US olympic hockey team.  It goes in depth of how Coach Herb Brooks upset everyone by taking a bunch of college kids to the olympics to take on the Soviet professionals.  the game took place during the cold war and it allowed the United States to do their talking on the ice as well, not just the war that was going on.  The odds were against the US team but they overcame obstacles and adversity to make a dream come true.  The Third movie i watched was by far the worst in my opinion. Pride and Glory is about a group of corrupt New York City cops, but their is a police station where the father is the police chief and his two sons are straight cops and his son-in-law is a crooked cop.  His son-in-law does many illegal things because he has the power to behind his badge, all of his malice acts catch up with him.  In the end the son-in-law gets the hole family in trouble.  

Style

The word I would use to describe the style of all 3 of these movies is DARK.  Just the overall feeling in  them is sad for most of the movie if not the whole thing.  all 3 of the movies are depressing, but warrior and miracle branch of and have happy endings.  Warrior and Miracle are depressing because they continue to show the brothers in warrior and the hockey players in miracle struggle and fail over and over again.  I guess those two movies offer a good lesson that if you keep working as hard as you can you'll eventually reach your goal.  but in warrior the father has a relapse after 1000 days of being sober and it just breaks you down because their family is just ruined again where they make the family non existent and makes it seem like there is so much hate between all of them.  but in the end it shows that the family is finally at peace.  in miracle it's the basically the same thing, these kids grew up dreaming of being NHL hockey players and winning the olympics. They go through all of this hard work for some of them to be cut from the team a week before they go.  It's hard to watch someone's dreams get crushed like they do in the film but it has a happy ending like warrior and they go on to upset the soviets to win the gold.  So those two movies are just depressing, dark, evil, and gray until the end when the team reaches their goal and the family is at peace.   Pride and Glory just sucks because it follows the same path as the other 2 but when the other 2 turn off and have a happy ending Pride and Glory just keeps getting more and more depressing.  Nothing goes right for the family the whole movie, nothing good happens it just makes you feel sad, that terrible things happen to good people. Their brother-in-law who caused all the families problems just gives up in the end and allows criminals to murder him.  But you don't feel bad that he's murdered because he deserved it but he leaves the family with all these problems he caused.  and his brothers wife is dying of cancer the other brothers life is in the shitter the whole movie is just depressing and dark again.  

Indusrty

Gavin O'Connor's work is different then most film directors, I don't think he would be capable of making a comedy movie. His work is similar to directors who make more crime/ drama type movies. It's unlike the work of Adam Mckay who is one of my favorite directors because all of his movies are funny and make you feel good.  He directed movies like Step Brothers and The Other Guys.  In Hollywood Gavin O'Connor definitely fits in with other directors of dramas and serious movies that have a lesson involved in thier plots. 

Technology

The most interesting piece of technology in these movies i would say is the sound and some of the still pictures, i have a vivid picture of some of the scenes in the movies in my head always. If i think about the movie i think about that scene in my head instantly.  But the soundtracks in Miracle and Warrior are really good I own both of them.  and the songs are used at the appropriate time in the movies, they make you feel so much different then you would feel if the songs they picked weren't in there. the one song in Warrior almost makes you want to cry at the end called "About Today" by The National.  and some of the pictures that i always  think of are 

these are both key scenes in the movie where everything is quiet and it makes you think.  

Politics/History

Warrior- this movie really has no connection to anything other then it's a really good story, also UFC is a rising sport in the world and there hasn't been a lot of films done on it.

Miracle-  this films content has a lot of history in it and some people who saw it might not even know it.    one reason this game was so big for the united states was that the cold war was currently going on during this time.  Other then the soviets being so good at hockey and unstoppable are countries weren't exactly seeing eye to eye.  and this game gave the united states hope and gave them something to turn to when are country was in a low place

Pride and Glory-  this movie was made in 2008 when there was currently some stories and cases where police officers were accused of police brutality, beating people up, doing things because they could and people were afraid of them.  but this movie shows that there are good cops as well that brought the bad ones to justice and this could be to show people that there are good cops.  also Gavin O'connor's father was a New York City police officer and he said "It's a birthday bash of honest cops, which was everything my father was about." and he wanted to evoke peoples thoughts about the 1970's how police were sometimes corrupt.  

interesting quotes

one of my favorite quotes ever is from miracle and it is the speech coach herb brooks gave his players before the gold medal game. i think about it all the time when I'm getting ready for a bug game myself.  Great moments are born from great opportunity. 
And that's what you have here tonight, boys. 
That's what you've earned here, tonight. 
One game. 
If we played 'em ten times, they might win nine. 
But not this game. Not tonight. 
Tonight, we skate with 'em. 
Tonight, we stay with 'em, and we shut them down because we can! 
Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world. 
You were born to be hockey players -- every one of ya. 
And you were meant to be here tonight. 
This is your time. 
Their time -- is done. It's over. 
I'm sick and tired of hearin' about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw 'em! 
This is your time!! 

another quote i liked was from warrior

Principal Zito: You got no business in the ring with those animals.

Tom Conlon: Actually, I used to be one of those animals

this quote doesn't have a meaning behind it like the other one but it was a funny quote in the movie that made my whole family laugh.  

Main thing I discovered

I mentioned earlier the main discovery just that the movies are all dark with stories about people that have to make tough choices and overcome adversity to be great or do the right thing opposed to the easiest thing. those were trends in all of the movies.  but one thing that also stuck out was the type of camera shot that was used.  the camera was being held in the camera mans hands it wasn't on a tri-pod in alot of the scenes because they wanted to make you feel like you were running with the scene because it was an action scene and the screen would be shaking and it wasn't still like it would be if you were running
Reviews

http://www.timeout.com/london/film/warrior

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=49976

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/movies/Section?oid=846987archives/2004/0204/040213_1.html

Research

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WJiM0d2lsk

this is a video interview where gavin o'connor was asked if he had any inspirational films he watched that inspired this, and he said rocky not the fighting scenes but all the hard work he goes through to reach his goal.  and thats the part of the movie thats inspirational to me...... all the hard work they put in.