For being such a depressing and distraught film, I surprisingly enjoyed One Hour Photo. Although the pace of the movie was slow for the most part, there was never a dull moment, as I always found myself curious of what and when Robin Williams’ character would do something drastic. I did like how the movies pace picked up towards the end, but am still not fully sure of what Sy’s motives were, or why he took pictures of Yorkin and Maya. I would also like to know what the final verdict on Sy was, as I am a bit perplexed due to the threat officer’s reaction to saying that Yorkin was a poor father. I did notice and appreciate the nuances of the camera movement. For example, I liked the scene where Mrs. Yorkin and Sy came up the escalator and how the camera was positioned on the ground to appear as if they walked over the camera. I was also pleased with Robin Williams’ performance, as I felt he played a very convincing role. I have purposely not seen any of his films in numerous years because I disliked his older films that much. I was also impressed with the performance of the boy, as I felt he did a much better job than either of his parents.
One Hour Photo is a movie that draws you in through the mystery of Robin William's character. Since this isn't one of his typical comedic roles, it makes the audience that much more interested; it gives us the opportunity to see a side of him we have never known. The movie itself falls into a drama/thriller category, it's scary but not a horror film, it's drama but it's not overwhelmingly emotional. Williams seemed to be the perfect actor for this role, he conveyed a lonely and disturbed man surprisingly well. One Hour Photo is a movie that you don't want to take your eyes off of, it really keeps you on the edge of your seat. Although the ending leaves some things up to the imagination of the viewer to figure out, it doesn't make you feel like you're missing something, which is difficult to do. Robin Williams played his role so well that you no longer felt that it was Robin Williams as an actor, instead, I saw him as Sy, the mysterious film developer. This movie intrigued me to the point where I thought about the movie for a while after it ended.
Robin Williams really shines in One Hour Photo, a disturbing film about a Wal-Mart employee who takes pictures and kills men who are involved in adulterous affairs. In this film Williams takes pictures of Yorkin and Maya, a young couple who have one child. Sy has an empty life and tries to live vicariously through this young couple. This emptiness is illustrated when he collapses emotionally after being fired from his job. Sy prides himself in his photo producing skils and that is truly the only aspect of his life he is good at. He has not really taken the time to enhance his life further or build up contacts and some sort of social life. He is truly an empty shell. His emptiness can be shown in his clothing. He wears a white shirt and a blue vest, making him blend into the background. The creepiness of Sy is shown at the last part of the film where he tries to kill Yorkin and the girl he is with. It is scary that such an innocent looking man could actually commit such atrocious crimes. Williams’ portrayal of this fragile man as a cold blooded serial murderer is superb and really shows his strengths as an actor.
Although Robin Williams is normally seen as being casted in comedies, I tried not to let that interfere with how I saw him perform as “Sy the photo guy.” This movie, although psychologically creepy and suspenseful, really helped me understand the concept of mise-en-scene. I can agree that the movie was a perfect example of this concept as everything in the frame carried significant importance to the overall message itself. The very bland and stale mood created from the settings, design, and composition carries over to the viewer as our own moods become swayed. Out of all the settings, the one that I think carried the most importance was Sy’s apartment. The fact that it was very claustrophobic, minimalist and simplistic with almost too white of walls added to the creep factor that told us something wasn’t right about him. It almost seemed like his home was his prison that didn’t get any visitors as he was closed off from the world. However I think the colors in the movie are carefully picked in order to fit each character. The idea that Sy tends to blend in with his surroundings really works in isolating him while keeping that low profile from everyone else. The only flashes of color we see are from the pictures of the family that he secretly printed. At first we think he is just a lonely man with a blank description but later when the colors transition into the bluish hues we see him in a different light. I thought it was interesting how the colors that he wore intertwined with all of the different locations. The voice over parts really allowed you to get into Sy’s head and led us into what he was thinking. The music played a large role too as it fluctuated from strong siren-like and hectic sounds which kind of portrayed the stirred up the thoughts in his head. In the scene right after Sy gets fired from SavMart, the tension in the music builds up as he walks down the aisles of the store. Without music in this scene, it would have been hard to know what Sy was thinking because of his flat affect. In the end this movie classifies as a thriller but I think that it should be classified as a psychological character study.
One Hour Photo is one of the most interesting thrillers I’ve seen in awhile. It’s not your typical “slasher”-- blood and guts thriller. The main character is Sy the Photo Guy played by Robin Williams. Just the name “Sy the Photo Guy” is reminiscent of Bill Nye the Science Guy, so that was already a bit off-putting as a de-scare factor for me. In addition to the name, I grew up watching a lot of films starring Robin Williams. He will forever be the nice, funny man; even in What Dreams May Come, Robin Williams is still the nice guy. So when he is trying to be turned into the villain in One Hour Photo, I had to try and remove myself to really be able to be scared by him which in the end, was an epic fail. I left the movie feeling sorry for Sy. He’s just this misunderstood photo guy who idolizes this seemingly perfect family and wants very badly to be a part of it. It’s understandable that Sy goes crazy once he finds out through developing photos that the perfect family isn’t so perfect. I would highly recommend this film to any family that has had or thinks they will have problems with cheating spouses, just to show the cheater what could/will happen to them. I think that would be a more scare-able audience. It would either convince them never to cheat cause if they get caught.. well what happens to Will would be their comeuppance, or it would make them very careful about cheating. Or it could produce a third reaction, in the minds of those who would cheat, it gives an outsider’s perspective from Sy, “He has everything! Why would he just throw it all away?” Breaking from the seriousness of the movie, is the scene where Sy is “in” the Yorkin’s home. Completely imagined, he walks around, sees the picture of himself on the fridge, uses their bathroom, changes into Will’s clothes, grabs a beer and watches the football game with their dog. I think this fitting, yet somewhat random scene, is hilarious and adds some levity to the dark themes the movie deals with.
“One Hour Photo” was the first film I watched in this class that I truly found entertaining. It not only confirmed the fact that Robin Williams is a superb actor for me, but it a developed an intriguing plot that was both engaging and disturbing. Williams delivers in both his performance and his appearance. His impeccable uniform, clunky glasses, and bleach blonde hair not only make his character seem to fade into the world around him, but underscores both his emotional instability and the disturbingly deliberate actions he takes to “right” the wrongs in the family he obsesses over. The sets, ranging from Sy’s apartment, to the Savmart, to the family’s home, each play a detailed and key role in developing the story. Sy’s stark white, bare apartment reflects his solidarity and isolation. The orderly shelves of the Savmart reflect the naïve view of perfection Sy has for his surroundings. The family’s large house filled with material belongings hints at the emptiness in their emotional bonds. All of the sets and props come together to drive the interesting and twisting plot to its conclusion. How the film ultimately succeeds is by making the viewer both pity and fear Sy. His actions are terrifying, but at the same time he does them out of a misguided sense of heroism. I for one believe he was truly trying to help the Yorkins, just not perhaps in the best manner by holding the cheating father at knifepoint. All in all, “One Hour Photo” is a well-developed (no pun intended) and engaging film.
One Hour Photo tells a story that the world is filled with happy illusions. The clean supermarket in the movie (absolutely the most clean and tidy supermarket that I have ever seen) shines comfortable light, but what concealed below is the cold rules for surviving. The more illusions you get, the stronger eagerness or guess for truth you will have.Both Sy and the family of three that he “peeps” as the “happy image” live in happy illusions. This is a dilemma, a dilemma for surviving. Different individuals are experiencing capricious feelings and happiness. Sy losses his only way to peep the happy image, and he suddenly discovers the hidden illusions behind the family he once thought it nice, while the heroine has to cover her pains with silence. This is what the cruel reality and the movie bring for the audiences to think. Why not fight for her happiness? Is it a reconstruction for happiness, even to disclose the husband’s cheating behavior?Sy has so little happiness that he will collect every small piece; he will “pick” a “departed mother” in the fleamarket. So once such little happiness is broken, even by a person who involves in this happiness, he will adventure his life to “teach” that person who broke the happiness (the way of teaching is confusing and painful). Sy cannot bear women’s indifferent response, thus the photo of catching adulterers in the act can be interpreted as a kind of striking abreaction and photos (both in the beginning and in the end of the movie) give the audiences a clear event axis.If this is a horror movie, the horror comes from the life itself.
One-Hour Photo: I really like this story due to its new unpredictable idea. Sy is a solitary old man, who makes photos in Wal-Mart. He tries to enter a young couple’s life, because he has been looked so deeply into their photos and gets him involved in their lives. It is really interesting to see a comedy actor Robin William to act like a horror old man who is trying to kill Yorkin and his illegal girlfriend whom he has no relationship with. Because Sy has no personality or surrounding relationship, he is empty, so he tries to create a role for himself. He sees himself as a part of Yorkin’s family. He watches Yorkin’s kid grow up and really likes this happy family. As time goes by, he finds out that this happy family is not as happy as he thinks, then he tries to make everyone to follow his willingness to keep this family as happy as before. He thinks that he has ability to “help” this family out, that’s the cause why he hurts Yorkin and his girlfriend. Actually I feel sad about this movie, the old man Sy who uses stranger’s photos and happiness to fill up his empty life, and also get him feel about what life is. That’s really woeful, and I think Sy just doesn’t want anybody know that he is alone, and living with empty world. The most successful thing in this movie is to use comedy actor Robin William to play this totally different and challenging role of Sy.
One Hour Photo was an extremely interesting film for me. Sy was a very dynamic and even disturbing character in this film. He was a very lonely man not really noticed by the rest of the world. I feel that the choice for his hair color, clothing, and demeanor reflect how Sy was supposed to blend into the rest of the world. All of these choices are bland and make very unoriginal and unnoticeable just as his character in the film is a secluded man. Also, the perfection seen throughout the scenes set juxtaposed with the imperfections Sy sees in the families. It was a very interesting role for well-known comedian Robin Williams. I can only remember him playing a very serious, almost creepy, role once before and that was for a Law and Order: SVU episode he was cast as a guest star for. Interestingly, in this episode he had a very similar look and persona about him. He had the same bleach blonde hair and perfectionist tendencies and mannerisms in both roles. This movie really kept me captivated from beginning to end and I thoroughly enjoyed the thought provoking film.
One Hour Photo is an amazing film. It effortlessly combines elements of horror with film noir and familial melodrama. Although film developing is outdated, the leitmotifs of loneliness, infidelity, family, and societal degradation are universal to our culture. Furthermore, the character of Seymour Parrish is very well thought out. He is a believable “psycho” of the modern era.
I loved the film’s moral ambiguity. It is told predominantly through Sy’s perspective, allowing the audience to sympathize with him. In actuality, he is not much different from a typical American: a drone earning minimum wage with nothing to show for his clockwork labor except a meager employee of the month award. Of course, he exhibits traits of voyeurism, but his motives are relatable. He secretly loathes his lonely life, and instead lives vicariously through the imagined lives of the Yorkin family. Yet, the Yorkin family is far from perfection, plagued by infidelity and a chronic lack of communication and emotional connection. Interestingly, Nina Yorkin does not respond to her husband’s infidelity. It is Sy who fights for moral justice. Unlike the typical psycho, Sy’s pursuit is noble (he wishes to save the Yorkin family) but his modus operandi is corrupted. Sy is a kindhearted man driven into obsessive voyeurism by a heartless, consumer driven society that solely focuses on work and not on what’s important: family.
The mise-en-scene in the film is also superb. The set pieces are powerful, and propel the story more effectively than mere words. Sy’s wall of photos brilliantly expresses Sy’s demented obsession and his desire for companionship. I also enjoyed the experimental dream sequence in which Sy’s eye’s bleed out; it effectively expresses his horror, which is actually more profound than Nina’s. In addition, the SavMart setting is an extension of Seymour Parrish himself. Both he and the SavMart are drabbed in pale, lurid whites complemented with dead blues. The colors convey the spiritual deadness of society, and also have an eerie resemblance to WalMart’s color scheme.
I really love this film. It reminds me so much of Taxi Driver, one of my all-time favorite films. Both films depict monsters created by a corrupt society. The jarring actions of their tragic protagonists may help to shock society into reassessing its moral standards.
This film was to me weird in almost every aspect, although it did entertain me. First of all, it is not a common movie for Robin Williams to be in it, and secondly, I was a little overwhelmed with all the white at the beginning, particularly the store. I didn’t like much the store; it seemed to me that it had a lot of space, empty space. It was really creepy Sy’s attitude the whole movie, the picture wall specifically. The music in the film is a major contributor to how the viewer perceiver the movie, because it is like a sad and filled-with-suspense music that fits with the theme of the film. In other words, it is very dramatic. Sy is very, very strange. I do not really understand why he cares that much about Nina and her family. When he was fired, I would argue that he felt awful and cried and everything primarily because he thought he was going to lose contact with her and her family. He loved Jake, but when he saw her husband kissing with the other woman, he turned against him. That part was the turning point in the film, it created all the trouble no only Sy, but also Nina and her husband, went through. Overall, I was really entertained with this film regardless of how weir it was and how creepy Sy turned out to be. It really kept me on the edge of my seat so to speak. At first I though Robin Williams was not really in his comfort zone, but I believe he pulled it off.
Before watching One Hour Photo, the only thing I could think of is Robin Williams in Flubber and Mrs. Doubtfire. I never realized Williams could play such a creepy/stalkerish role without being humorous. I really enjoyed this thriller. Williams did an amazing job playing Sy and pulled off this creepy character very well. As we learned about Mise-en-scene, I realized not only did Williams' acting portray a creepy character, but the setting, costuming, music etc. determined the mood too. Sy was always seen wearing shades of whites and light grays while carrying a blue bag. The store he worked at was unrealistic as every product was in perfect place and the only colors used were blues and whites. The only colors throughout the film were when the family Sy became obsessed with was shown. The colorful clothes the family would wear represented the liveliness and how much Sy wanted to be apart of this family. His disturbing character and obsessive nature shined through against the bland background of shades of white. There were also voiceovers during the film from Sy expressing his feelings which made the film even creepier knowing what went through his head. Even though the first scene of this film shows Sy getting arrested, this did not stop me from being on the edge of my seat throughout the film. The film is set up with you knowing what is going to happen at the end yet with all the creepy twists and turns of Sy's nature, it kept me glued to the movie.
Mark Romanek’s “One Hour Photo” was a film that I almost found difficult to watch at times. The sheer awkwardness of the main character, Sy, who is played by Robin Williams, is stifling. The way the film is shot adds to this overwhelming sense of creepiness. Where Sy works, the photo development counter, at what looks like a generic version of a Wal-Mart shows just how odd Sy is. He talks about his dedication to giving people the best prints of their photos as if his job is of the utmost importance to the world. Sy’s obsession with the Yorkin family shows the viewer just how isolated and alone Sy is. Sy almost lives vicariously through the Yorkins by printing an extra set of their photos so that he can keep a set for himself. My initial reaction to Sy’s obsession was that it was odd, but not necessarily threatening. As the film progressed it seemed like I was watching Sy’s gradual progression toward insanity. The scene where Sy is visibly upset over the fact that he found out that Will Yorkin was cheating on his wife was almost difficult to watch. In my head I was thinking how can someone who the family hardly even knows really care that much? Robin Williams does an excellent job of playing this delusional wallflower type of person. He makes Sy seem like he would just be a face in a crowd, but Williams gives the viewer insight into what it is like to go inside the mind of someone who is so isolated like he is. Overall I enjoyed the film because of how well Romanek stylized the film and how well Williams portrayed the role of Sy.
Although the slow and steady pace of this movie, One Hour Photo was surprisingly good. Upon seeing that Robin Williams was going to be cast as a seriously deranged and dangerous human being, I was not sure if he would be able to to pull it off convincingly. He not only was convincing, but totally shattered his Flubber niche, and proved that he can be talented on multiple levels. From a movie standpoint, One Hour Photo was at times, painfully slow...but so is the photo making process. This apparent intertwinement of themes such as Sy's obsession, not only with making good photo prints, but also the family that he was terrorizing and stalking. Unlike a photo; which captures emotion and life, Sy is a dull person in the crowd, giving no one a clue about himself. This juxtaposition also propels his obsession with photos. It almost seems as if Sy is so obsessed with the photos because he can live vicariously through the family, replacing his dull life with memories/photos of the life he wish he had. Sy realizes he cannot live their life, and this leads him to obsess, stalk, and eventually kill. Robin Williams was able to keep me interested in the film through the slow times, because I wanted to see how he would end up. Overall a good movie that gives you a chance to see a different side of Robin Williams.
One Hour Photo is a spectacular suspenseful thriller. I'm really happy that there is a movie about this because the plot is very realistic, we never really think about the people who develop our photos and videos and how much of our private lives are exposed to them. Once when I was shopping at my local drugstore, where my family get their photos developed, the man behind the photo counter recognized me...so it is very realistic. The element of the film that stuck out most to me, was the mise-en-scene. The mise-en-scene choices were very thematically significant. For instance, the car he drives is a white Toyota Echo. This is significant because Robin William's character is very pale with white hair, almost albino looking, and the way he stalks the family makes him an echo of sorts. His entire life is mainly colored off-white, which is meaningful because it takes on the metaphor of his life being “bleached.” The only other color that we really see in his life is a blue at the store. I found that component of the setting to be really intuitive in fully developing his character.
One Hour Photo The movie One Hour Photo was particularly creepy yet real to me. I never really though about how easy it is for the person developing your personal photos to duplicate copies for themselves. This whole notion is very creepy and disturbing, yet very real. The creepy theme instilled in One Hour Photo makes the movie extremely intriguing and interesting. Robin Williams (Who plays the main character Sy), who I, and most people consider a very humorous, silly actor plays this serious, disturbing character extremely well. I was very surprised to see him play such a serious role and excel at it so much. Sy develops a woman named Nina and her son Jake’s photo very frequently. They have a very friendly customer to worker relationship. The irony is that Jake and his mother think Sy is very happy and not lonely when in reality he is. In fact, he is so lonely that he obsesses over this family, duplicates their pictures and has created a collection of them in his home. At first Sy envies this family because he believes they are “perfect” but later realizes they are anything but. He ends up discovering that Nina’s husband is having an affair and goes through great heights to reveal this to her. The movie overall is actually very sad because of Sy’s desperation and sad life. I thought that the actors in the film played all played their role pretty well and that you were able to tell from the beginning (from the characters actions) that not all was right. The movie created a depressing and disturbing mood but was overall interesting to watch. Erik Rueckle-c10166645
The plot of One Hour Photo attracts the audience so well because of its intense, creepy, yet realistic nature. I usually tend to enjoy horror/action movies, however, the plots usually tend to lack the realistic aspect. The plot for One Hour Photo is disturbingly realistic. It reminds me of one of those really disturbing stories that comes up in the news every once in a while, where the suspect has some mental issues. Robin William’s appearance and persona in the movie creates the perfect fit for a creepy stalker type person. The fact that he knew all about that family, posted their pictures to his own wall, and actually pretended he was in their family was extremely disturbing this sort of plot appeals very well to horror/mystery genre lovers. The aspect of Robin Williams character that I liked the most in the movie was how he was so nice and caring around the family but when they weren’t there, he was extremely eerie and weird. I also really liked how there were two stories going on at once in the film. Along with the central plot of Sy taking the family’s photos and stalking them, Sy also catches the husband In the act of cheating on his wife with another women when he sees him in another woman’s photos when they are being developed.
“One hour photo“ is fascinating and disturbing at the same time. It showed me how easily people can be overlooked when they just adapt themselves to the society. With this strategy, they can hide their “sick” desires, and nobody would be suspicious. But, when they show their abnormal desires everyone else wonders about it, as no “normal” person could ever do this. Robin Williams shows this transformation in “One Hour Photo” perfectly.
I didn’t like Robin Williams before because he usually is famous for his delightful and charming roles. But, in “One Hour photo” his acting was superb. I believe him that he is the lonely worker at the super market, who is desperate to become a part of a perfect pictured family, the Yorkin’s family. This is the reason why he calls himself as the uncle Sy, and why he’s highly overreacting when Nina is thinking of buying herself a digital camera (as this would mean that they wouldn’t come to see him at his photo desk anymore). The sudden and radical change in Sy’s personality of the “likeable guy” to a psychopath (yes, he was this before too, because no “normal” person would admire an unknown family that much; however, to threaten someone with a knife and force him to take porn photos is something different) was surprising. But, this change was still believable due to the acting.
Another great aspect of the movie is the mise-en-scene. Everything related to Sy looked normal with the potential to be overlooked. He wears ordinary uniforms of the supermarket and the supermarket itself looked dull and common. However, the beautiful Yorkin’s family has a bright house with colorful and wears eye-catching clothes. The contrast of reputed perfectness and ordinary life and their crashes is pictured well in the movie.
So, I enjoyed the movie because it was remarkably different from what I expected from a movie where Robin Williams is acting in. In addition, the cinematography was excellent.
When I watched “One Hour Photo” trailer in class, I thought it was kind of thriller movie. So, I expected that someone would be killed and pursued. However, after seeing this film, I just realized it was not kind of thriller movie but drama. Some people could feel nasty to see Seymour’s stocking of Nina’s family. However, I felt different way with those people. While I watched this movie, I’ve never thought Seymour is scary and obsess too much. I just think that the person such as Seymour who never get loved from others don’t know how to love with someone. Also, this kind of person has different way compared with others to express emotion to people. For me, Seymour is pathetic, pure and good man. He is just lonely guy who have never got love from people. In our society, people usually don’t care how other people live and not even saying hello to them. Seymour is too weak to live such cold-hearted society. Perhaps, Seymour wants to live as ordinary member in a warm family. He always takes picture for other people but no one take picture for him. I was sad when I watched Seymour being happy to see pictures police take to upload to criminal list. Police officer is the only one person in his life who takes picture for him
The film “One Hour Photo” was an interesting play on an everyday situation in which ordinary information and everyday transactions can turn into nightmares for others. Aside from the paranoia it may cause the audience, the movie does have some great aspects to it. First, one can’t deny the greatness of Robin Williams in this movie. He usually plays roles of happy and uncontroversial characters. This role was much darker, and forced him to act as a psychopath who has managed to adapt to the society he lives in.
There are other aspects of the film that jumped out at me. The fact that Jake, the son, is the one to first notice Sy’s social awkwardness is significant. It plays on a similar theme that many movies touch on, which is that children have a sense for things that can’t easily be inferred by adults, as seen in the movie “The Sixth Sense.” Lastly, the fact that Sy chooses to follow and exploit Will shows that he does not only want to be part of the love and affection that his family has, but that he wants to be Will. Will has intimate relationships with multiple women, which is something that Sy would kill for, and he almost does. The character of Sy is a play on the problems of complacency and not daring to strive from the normal until it eats you up inside.
I enjoyed watching “One Our Photo”. There wasn’t a single second were I didn’t felt the suspense rising and rising. I felt scared for some little parts but at the end I ended up feeling attached to Seymour, I just wanted to hug him. This movie threw my expectations away. When it started I thought that Seymour was going to be unlikable to say the least. We can all agree in something, he was creepy, creepy as hell. But at the end of the movie I just ended up feeling compassion, and pity for him. He obviously had daddy issues to be resolved, and he was clearly not mentally stable. But his motifs weren’t evil, he was overprotective of what he though was his family, the “picture-perfect family” he choose for himself. And this was kind of sweet. Even though, I wouldn’t desire to have someone like that in my life, I understand why Nina was terrified and feared for his family, because as I said earlier, he was clearly mentally unstable. I thought that overall, the cast presented excellent performances. I imagine that as an actor, playing the role of a kind of likable creepy CREEPY guy most be hard, but a master like Robin Williams pulled it off.
I thought this film was surprisingly good. Robin Williams’ performance was excellent; the implied revelation of his abusive childhood at the end of the movie really brought the entire movie together and essentially explained to the audience why this serious psychopath seemed to almost be the “good guy” in terms of his motives. Overall, the movie explored really interesting ideas about morality and obsessions. At the end of the movie, with the history of abuse exposed and the disclosure that Sy did not actually kill Will or Maya, Sy almost comes off as a sympathetic character who was just trying to make up for what happened to him. But Sy was a dangerous psychopath with a complete misunderstanding of family and love, and the perceived sympathy for him really shows how successful Robin Williams was as an actor in that role. Furthermore, the director and crew did a great job of setting up the three main settings of the movie. The SavMart looked appropriately soulless and sterile and Sy’s apartment, with the wall of pictures and the framed pictures, was appropriately creepy. However, the best setting, to me, was the Yorkins’ house; it looked appropriately comfortable and suburban, but with an emptiness that foreshadowed the underlying problems in the Yorkin family. Overall, I thought that it was an excellent film and a really interesting, unique examination of family and family values.
One Hour Photo was not the greatest movie I have ever seen and will never be in my top ten favorites, but it is a picture that I am glad that I watched. It is movies like One Hour Photo that show the versatility of great actors like Robin Williams. I feel like if the film had any other actor in the lead role, the movie would have been absolutely terrible. People sometimes envision actors in certain roles and can not think of them as any other character. Elijah Wood has been constantly struggling to get rid of the moniker of Frodo ever since Lord of the Rings. It is too often that Robin Williams is only known for Flubber or Mrs. Doubtfire. One Hour Photo shows Williams can play a very dark role well. However, I feel like an episode of Law and Order SVU he did showed his serious acting ability better. He played a sexual deviant who outsmarted the police perfectly. My opinion of Williams maybe flawed though because I have never seen Good Will Hunting, and I have been told I am really missing out on a classic, but certain parts of One Hour Photo, such as the final scene where Williams breaks down in front of the interrogator, show how good of an actor he really is. Williams does a great acting job, but the viewer likes the character Sy so much because of the way the movie is filmed. The editing makes the viewer feel dull and dreary as Sy feels in the boring and almost too perfectly set up SavMart. Furthermore, excellent methods of suspense make the viewer share Sy’s rush of adrenaline as he steals a knife from SavMart. I don’t think the movie was an amazing film, but Robin Williams and the editing make it one worth seeing.
Sy has how much patient to be in the cold darkroom for 11 years.In this 11 years he has seen so many happy family, so many cute pussy, and so many baby faces.How poor Sy is,even little Jack thinks so, when he and his mom prayed for him Sy was touched, he might was thinking of what if he has his own family. Then he pretended that he has a family,buying a photo of a old women as his mother's and bringing a same novel book with him to feel the feeling of HOME. Robin Williams has been a good doctor, good teacher, good father for so long time on the screen.It's big challenge for both him and the audiences this time,but he did great! Many people would regard it as a crime film but in my opinion,I think the point is on how a husband protect his family and how a father protect his son.The only thing different is they are fake.The wife and son are the role Sy regards them as.This is also the reason to make is become a tragedy. I like the ending of the movie,I really wanna see how would the "wife" and "son" trade this "stranger".Sy was not in a life, he was in a photo of life.
This film took me by complete surprise. Robin Williams' character Sy was unlike any of the characters I had seen in his other films. Having grown accustomed to seeing him in roles such as Mrs. Doubtfire, I was slightly unnerved to see him playing an isolated psychopath. The movie was incredibly creepy and the suspense just kept growing as the film progressed.
What really impressed me about the film was the attention to details. Everything in the store Sy worked as was lined perfectly and brightly colored. While, in contrast, Sy wore his drab uniform, oversized glasses, and had bleach blonde hair. All of this caused him to fade into the scenery and made him almost invisible to the people around him. It is because he has managed to fade into the back that his obsession with the family is able to foster and he is able to live through their family photos.
Although it was probably a risk for the director to cast such a well known actor for the role; casting Robin Williams most definitely paid off. The character that he was able to create held so much mystery, while at the same time Sy appeared almost innocent and fragile. Harmless, in other words. This is definitely the best film that I have watched for the class.
This movie is a movie full of suspense and creepy moments. It is a thriller that shows Semour "Sy" Parrish works in a store processing photos and he is really dedicated to his job; this job is his life. He has no one go to back home and he is a very lonely person. He loves the Yorkin family, and has several times processed the photos for them. Nevertheless, this loves turns into an obsession. Sy has always acted as a harmless man in front of them and has gained the love of this family. The creepy part of the movie is when we learn that Sy is really memorizing every detail of this family’s life and is secretly making his own copy of the Yorkins' photos so that he can make a collage in his room. I extremely got scared in the scene were we see Sy bloodshot eyes in one of his dreams. Sy had physiological problems and a seen that help me realize me was when he imagined himself going in into the Yorkins house and drink beer while watching tv and at the same moment the family comes in and even though I thought that they were gonna be scared because the audience does not realize this is just a thought of Sy, the family greets him as an uncle. This latter scene helps build up suspense. His reality collapses when he learns that the husband is being unfaithful to the wife and even more when he gets fired from his job. We learn later in the movie that Sy’s father took dirty pictures of him when he was a child, or at least I deducted that information out of the movie. Also, I did not understand the meaning of the pictures Sy took of the different stuff in his hotel room by the ending of the movie and I thought this was creepy. It was really awkward for me to watch Robin Williams, who I have the image of being this funny and happy character in comedies such as Mrs.Doubtfire, in a thriller where he is the psychopath. It is amazing how they change Williams physical appearance to resemble that of a crazy and lonely man. He got fatter, stopped working out and dyed his hair blonde so that he could look creepy and as a lonely man who doesn’t care for his physical appearance. I also loved how the director blended William into the scenes. For example, the store where Sy works is blue and he is wearing a blue uniform and it seems as if he were one with the store, symbolizing that the store is his life. Even though printing photos in a store is not so popular nowadays, it really scared me out the fact that some of the workers might actually use some of my pictures or anyone’s picture against them. Even though the plot of this move is very simple, I felt as if the movie was ambiguous in the sense that we never really now what happened to Sy or the Yorkins or Maya. The ending made me feel that the director intended for this movie’s ending to be open and subject to any audience imagination.
I believe that this movie is an example of how a trailer can give you a wrong impression about what to expect from the movie. I remember when this movie came out, and I saw a trailer for it, I interpreted it as following. Robin Williams character works at a one hour photo place where he develops the film, but makes a second copy for himself of all these photos. Then he basically goes out and murders these people that he has stalked via photograph.
While the film is not quite as creepy as that, it is extremely creepy. I think though that a lot of this comes from the casting. Robin Williams is known for being a funny-man. To take him, and move him from not only being funny to a very serious role, but to a creepy psychopath is such a huge step. I think that even though Robin Williams is not typecast as one particular character, him as a funny-man is the typecast we associate. When we move him from this, the audience is taken out of their comfort zone. They no longer know what to expect, and as a result, things tend to look stranger.
In addition, I love the attention to detail that goes into this movie. Every detail is so meticulous that it adds to the feeling that Sy's reality is not actually reality. Although, not extraordinary in any way the details at Savmart create this setting which we know is fake. We cannot even relate to it in our own lives as in real life, stores like this are often messy, and not so sanitized clean looking.
Robin Williams really surprised me in this movie. I had no idea that he did a movie outside of his regular nice/funny guy persona. As soon as I saw the trailer for the movie, I was immediately interested and eager to see it. The ending was not what I expected, but at least Robin's character did not physically hurt anyone. I was expecting him to be the guy who went off the deep end and kill because his life fell apart. Even though Sy did a lot of creepy things, it was all out of good intentions. All he wanted was a family and to be loved and accepted. His revelation of being sexually abused as a child by his father was sad. It explained his actions and why he did what he did. I felt for him the same way that I felt for Benigno in Talk To Her. They both did things that were wrong, but their thought process that lead them to their decisions gave them a pass.
For some reason, I felt like Sy was doing the same thing that John, the mastermind in Saw, was doing. John took people who took their life for granted and tried to teach them a lesson. Sy did not do anything extreme that would hurt anyone, but I felt like he did try to teach Will a lesson. Will had everything that Sy wanted. He had a beautiful family. The fact that Will was willing to jeopardize his family for his mistress really upset Sy because he did not have that. I thought that he was going to kill Will and his mistress in the hotel room. I expected the worst case scenario. I thought for sure that the cops were going to find Will and Maya's body parts in that hotel room.
Throughout the movie, I thought of Sy as a creeper but the ending changed my perspective of him. The atmosphere in the movie was eerie. The store was too perfect. The blue and white colors made it looked washed out and odd. All of that added to Sy being creepy. Even his blonde hair made Sy like a possible killer. It did not show the aftermath of the hotel drama, but I hope that the Yorkin family got a chance to work out their issues. This movie did a good job of putting meaning into every scene. From the deliberate colors that were used to the costuming, I enjoyed this movie. One Hour Photo is one of my favorite movies I have seen this semester.
One hour Photo was a difficult movie for me to digest at first. It is important to consider that I kind of created a bias, since I thought of Robin Williams in movies such as Hook and Patch Adams. This one was completely different where a technician in a Wal Mart type of place is developing films for families. He has some type of crush for a family, knowing who each person is, with the fantasy of being part of this family and being loved deeply. The character is difficult to identify with since he is creepy and creates a type of college with additional prints at his home. This main character, Sy Parrish is an utterly lonely man, which is represented through his fixation on this family and his lifeless apartment. In addition, he gets fired from his job because his boss found out he was taking pictures, and Sy knows that Nina’s husband is cheating on her. This causes a profound effect on him, which leads him to taking pictures of Bill’s daughter and ultimately of Will and his mistress. It is extremely difficult to identify this man whatsoever, all throughout the movie. Overall, this movie was one of my favorites in the semester.
The movie that showed me that Robin Williams has more range than the slapstick, over-the-top romp was extremely compelling. It is creepy, and William’s character was creepy. The sense of isolation, loneliness, and a deep-seeded pain was amazingly portrayed by Williams who isn’t really well known for that kind of subtly that the character required. This movie was shown to highlight the mise-en-scene aspects that depicted the story of William’s character and his interactions with the family he’s stalking. The large aviator glasses and bleached, buzzed hair instantly gave away the fact that Sy is a troubled individual with problems. The lighting and sets of the store and the photo hut led to this eerie feeling and the whiteness of Sy’s house portrayed a sense of sterility. His wall of photos was the ultimate point of awareness. Here you could really tell that this man was psychologically unhinged and close to breaking point. His getting fired and constantly trying to insert himself into the lives of the family led him to the point of violence. William’s acting ultimately compelled to feel sympathy for this character. The interrogation scene sticks out in my mind as one of the best scenes in the film. There was so much emotion, and it just poured out. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, and you come to realize why he behaved the way he did. That’s the kind of parallel that I could draw from Talk to Her, but in that movie you ultimately didn’t get a conclusive answer to why Beningo did what he did. Here, all the psychological trauma that Sy endured in his life came out, and it makes complete sense. Overall, this movie is about someone who is deeply disturbing, and the fact that Williams did a great job in that role was very impressing. That alone made me appreciate this film.
In my opinion, One Hour Photo was one of the best films we have watched this semester. As we have discussed in class, it is really hard for a star to expand to a completely different type of movie role. Robin Williams completely transformed his typical goofy character in many comedies including Mrs. Doubtfire and Flubber. Although this performance did not compare to his performances in Good Will Hunting or Dead Poet Society, this was up there as one of his best.
The film itself is extremely haunting and sad. For the first half of the movie you almost feel bad for Sy. All he has in his life is his job at the one hour photo. You feel sad for Sy, and want him to find the connection and love that he desperately seeks. As the story progresses he becomes hauntingly more psycho and takes extreme measures. His craziness appears to begin after he losses the one thing he loves, his job developing film. It goes further after he learns that her husband is cheating on her with another woman. The movie begins and ends with the same scene of Sy trying to explain to the interrogator why he did what he did to Will Yorkin and his mistress. We learn that a lot of his craziness and anger came from his terrible upbringing as a child and the things that happened to him when he was younger. This movie does a good job having the audiences switch off between rooting for Sy and rooting against him. Overall, I really enjoyed viewing this movie and would definitely recommend it to everybody.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie, "One Hour Photo." I think that Robin Williams did an exceptional job as portraying Sy. I was expecting the character of Sy to come across as completely crazy before I watched the movie, but his character was almost very subtle. I found myself feeling bad for him throughout the movie even though a lot of his actions were very creepy. It is sad to think of someone who works at a photo place and sees tons of happy looking photos all day long when they themselves are completely alone. I found it interesting that at the end of the film it is revealed that Sy had an awful childhood and even though he held Will Yorkin and Maya at gunpoint, I still felt sad for his character. It was interesting to watch his obsession with the family from a psychological standpoint.
I also found the use of white throughout the film to be done well. That was definitely the dominating color, which makes sense because photo labs are always white. Sy spent his days in a white photo lab and would come home to his stark white apartment. I liked how the only signs of life within his apartment were the pictures on the wall of the Yorkins. This really showed how emotionally disturbed and alone Sy was. The only thing he lived for was this happy family who turned out to be pretty messed up themselves. Sy getting fired and him finding out that Will was cheating were definitely his emotional breaking points. I was almost waiting for him to kill Will, so it was interesting that although he had snapped he didn't really use much violence. I also found it interesting that his pictures in the end were just of random objects throughout the hotel room. That kind of brought back the sense that Sy never grew up and was taking sort of child-like pictures as Jacob had. So, all in all I enjoyed "One Hour Photo" and would recommend it. The movie was one of my favorites from class this semester.
In my opinion "One Hour Photo" was an okay movie. Although, this movie was not to my liking, I felt that Robin Williams did a great job playing the character; Sy. To me he came off a bit creepy; he wore the same type of clothing each day, he was always to himself, and had a hamster as his only friend. You can tell he was not very happy about his life and would fantasize a lot to take him to a better place. Working in the photo clinic for many years, he got to see the inside of peoples lives. His favorite photos to develop were from the Yorkin's family. He thought they were absolutely perfect and wanted to be a part of the family. In the movie he makes copies of the families photos. At this point is when I start to think that Sy was definitely crazy. It was not normal how he he started posting the pictures in his house and started to feel love for the family when he really did not know them. Overall I felt that he did his job in playing Sy's character very well; a lonely, sad, obsessive, psycho being.
Robin Williams does an excellent job taking a drift away from his usual comedic roles. I particularly liked this movie and appreciated the many instances that left me in suspense as to what was going to happen next. At the beginning of the movie we are presented with an ordinary character- a man who simply works film development at a savings club and takes pride in his job. But not soon after, we find out that this man who puts on an ordinary facade by his day job, recedes to his boorish apartment at night where he has fixated an obsession with the Yorkin family. Sy, a lonely man, has dedicated a portion of his apartment into making a sort of shrine wall with duplicates of all the photos that Mrs. Yorkin has brought into develop. Sy, a lonely man, yearns to be a part of a family (the Yorkins) and often fantasizes (with the aid of photos) about it. But one day, after losing his job he decides that this isn't enough and Sy slowly starts to interject himself into the families lives. I think the director does an excellent job commentating on the facades the we are forced to put on in a society and the evil that unseeingly prevails us. The ordinary clerk at the 'SAMs club' like store who one would think is just an ordinary man happily developing photos is not really who everyone thinks. It makes us wonder how many people have anterior motives they show behind closed doors- beyond the smiling facade they show in public. As a photographer, I find the use of photographs in this movie fascinating. Sy lives his 'fantasy life' through that of photos. Photos that capture only the brightness in the Yorkins life. And at one point- Robin Williams even commentates on how we typically use photos only to capture the brightness and happy moments in our lives and never the sad. We like to use photos to keep us from aging and to have something to look back on and remember only the good. Towards the end of the movie, Sy finds out the Nina's husband is having an affair. And the way he takes care of this is the only way he knows how, through photos.
I was pleasantly surprised by this film. Robin Williams, unlike most other actors who try to do what he did, made a great transition from his usually funny role into this role. He played the role perfectly and I honestly couldn't have pictured a better person for the role after seeing his performance. This movie depicted mise-en-scene extremely well. Everything in the scene had a reason to be there and everything was organized the way it was in order to help the film. For example, the meticulous detail and cleanliness of the store plays towards Sy's perfectionist attitude towards his job. The lighting in the film really helped with the suspense because it created very eerie atmospheres. Also, it seemed as though as the film progressed, the suspense built, creating for a more entertaining and exciting experience. Sy was played tremendously and even with his psychological issues, he has able to win the audience over. I felt myself feeling sorry for him and understanding why he does what he does. Finally, the colors of the film are very important. The store has such vibrant colors and Sy wears white and has such blonde hair that it makes him almost transparent within the store. Overall I enjoyed this movie and was most struck by how well Robin Williams played his role.
One Hour Photo is a very peculiar type of movie, and it is difficult to identify, or even feel pity for the main character. The main character is Robin Williams, who has a very lonesome and depressing like. He works at a department store, where everything looks perfect, in the sense that he likes his job, takes great care in offering the best service to his customers, and is always on time. However, when he gets home, the audience gets to know who he truly is, since he just sits down on his plain sofa on his plain living room watching television, depicting his depressing and lonely life. It is a bit gruesome to see how he feels about the Yorkin family. At first, it looks as if he cares for them in a normal and familiar type of way. As if he were an old acquaintance. These feelings for this family become distorted, until the point that he is completely obsessed about them. There are scenes that further demonstrate his depression when he imagines that he is part of the family. His feelings turn to being envious, angry and explosive once he finds out that Will is having an affair. The turn of events throughout the movie, especially when Sy takes pictures of Will in the hotel room are not predictable whatsoever. I first thought it would be an easygoing movie.
In One Hour Photo, we get to see the diversity of skill with which Robin Williams can deliver a role. His performance is among one of the creepiest I have seen, which I believe is not possible without a certain degree of actual insanity in the actor himself. I think one may not be inclined to disagree with me after watching just a few of Robin Williams' other movies or even just his stand up comedy. In One Hour Photo, Williams plays Sy, A very calm and quiet employee of a photo shop who has no friends whatsoever. He is very lonely and becomes obsessed with the idea of family and so begins to stalk a family. This film incorporates mis-en-scene cinema very thoroughly often reflecting moods through color and objects, and paying attention to every single aspect of every detail in every scene, from the arrangement of cereal boxes to the font with which signs are written. Robin Williams dresses in blue and white throughout the movie and at times almost disappears into the surroundings of his photo shop. He blends in to the surroundings; this reflects his isolatedness from the world, for no one really knows him or anything about him. Even his name reflects his loneliness, the most obvious interpretation to me being the semblance to the word "sigh". I normally do not like suspenseful movies such as this one but I must say it had me quite involved throughout the entirety of the film. I saw this film also as a child and it left quite an impression on me. Robin Williams with his creepy bleached hair and quiet attitude have haunted me for many years.
I truly disliked One Hour Photo due to the plot and its choice of characters. I am usually accustomed to seeing a cheery Robin Williams, which is probably a misconception of mine, where I think about movies such as Mrs. Doubt fire and Patch Adams. I think this is the issue with characters that play similar roles. At the beginning I was interested, but when Sy arrived to his home and demonstrated what a lonely and crazy person he was, I realized this movie would have a lot of twists and turns. It was gruesome to see how he felt about the family, and how he took picture at the hotel with the husband and the mistress. This is the kind of movie that I would not see again since it is complicated and lacking motivation.
One Hour Photo told the story of the mid-age man Seymour Parrish, a weird, lonely man who lives in an apartment that doesn't even have all the necessities. He was obsessed with the Yorkin's family, especially on Nina (the wife) and his teenage sons. And Seymour delusionaly see himself as part of the Yorkin family as "Uncle Sy". I think one of the most creepy moment in the movie was when he bought toys to the sons and never actually give them, because the sons don't even know him much. However, as he see himself as part of the family, he decided to revenge after he finds out that will is cheating on his wife. Normally when people have the fantasy about something they are aware it's unreal and won't do anything to let the others know in real life. Symour did, however, kept all of Torkin's family photos by himself which made him fired by his boss. I think that when people are desperate about something they would become unconscious. The creepiness of Seymour was caused mainly by his loneliness, and Yorkin's family became his fantasy on the kind of life he wants. I think it's kind of sad for Seymour to be so desperate that his life was ruined. And the story of this movie reflect the real life problem that lots of people - especially in their mid-late stage of life, became lonely and loveless thus caused some mental problems. So by looking at the movie in this point, I don't think Seymour is truly creepy, however a victim of the modern society issue of social separation.
I really enjoyed this movie overall and I thought the past academy winner Robin Williams had a respectable performance. I thought the director did a spectacular job with the use of making such simple scenes being filmed in a house and a photo developing store into a fascinating movie. Trhoughout the entire film, it was difficult to not feel bad for Sy, including learning about his childhood and his lonely existence working at a one hour photo. It’s really interesting how this movie almost forces you to be on Sy’s side by making you feel sympathy for him. At times it was difficult to watch this movie due to Robin William’s very awkward and creepy character. It was also very interesting to see him take on this very controversial character, while I see him as someone who usually is comedic and happy in many of his past movies. I thought it was the a little crazy that he would drive over to their house and attend Jake’s soccer practice to just satisfy a fantasy he was dreaming. There were many scenes throughout the movie that radiated creepiness to the extreme, however near the end of the movie I felt a lot of sympathy towards him because all he wanted was a perfect family that cared about him. One of the characters was Will who had a lifestyle with multiple intimate women partners that Sy is desperate to have. The little boy pointed out right away that Sy seemed depressed and there was something wrong with him, while his mom remained clueless to this fact and that he desperately wanted people in his life to love him. This led into his decision to ruin Nina and Will’s relationship by informing Nina about her husband’s affair. While knowing this fact, I was almost certain that he would kill will, and his obsession with his family became obvious with the showing of pictures at the end of the movie in the hotel room. The movie also focuses on the idea that the most ordinary seeming individuals in society could be totally mentally unstable and it would be difficult to even realize it. This concept is somewhat very relatable to our culture now, where many loneliness, along with family pressures are very common. Overall though, the filmmakers painted a fascinating movie through the eyes of psychopath, who seemed harmless until he couldn’t handle being alone anymore or living such a boring life without purpose.
One Hour Photo Entering this movie, the trailer had not impressed me too much. Although the film seemed like a horror film, it also seemed like a hammy, poorly-assembled film. However, the film was much better than I had expected. I found it a realistic exploration of the life of lonely, misunderstood, and wounded man. Creepiness aside, he is far from a bad guy. He wants what many want: a stable job, a loving family, a comfortable livelihood, and a decent social life. He has none and lives vicariously through seeing the photos of others when they bring them into his one-hour photo. Ultimately, I feel like that man's intentions are very noble and yet sad. I am glad that the detective at the end of the film seems to understand the main character, who is named Sy. The film works well because of the lighting and music. It has a calm, mellow, yet sinister ambience. Additionally, the music amplifies the overall creepiness and emotionality of a movie bereft of much action or explosive plot. I found two things interesting. One is how the superstore looks like Wal Mart and has all of the shelf products lined up by neatly and by color, which never happens in a real store. Additionally, most of the scenes that are not at the store or when Sy is watching a lovely family tend to be grainier and looking more decayed, reflecting the emptiness and disenchantment that Sy feels while at work and in the "real world" compared to a world where he "has" everything that he wanted. The cinematography works very well in this case.
One Hour Photo Entering this movie, the trailer had not impressed me too much. Although the film seemed like a horror film, it also seemed like a hammy, poorly-assembled film. However, the film was much better than I had expected. I found it a realistic exploration of the life of lonely, misunderstood, and wounded man. Creepiness aside, he is far from a bad guy. He wants what many want: a stable job, a loving family, a comfortable livelihood, and a decent social life. He has none and lives vicariously through seeing the photos of others when they bring them into his one-hour photo. Ultimately, I feel like that man's intentions are very noble and yet sad. I am glad that the detective at the end of the film seems to understand the main character, who is named Sy. The film works well because of the lighting and music. It has a calm, mellow, yet sinister ambience. Additionally, the music amplifies the overall creepiness and emotionality of a movie bereft of much action or explosive plot. I found two things interesting. One is how the superstore looks like Wal Mart and has all of the shelf products lined up by neatly and by color, which never happens in a real store. Additionally, most of the scenes that are not at the store or when Sy is watching a lovely family tend to be grainier and looking more decayed, reflecting the emptiness and disenchantment that Sy feels while at work and in the "real world" compared to a world where he "has" everything that he wanted. The cinematography works very well in this case.
This film was incredible in every way. First of all the story was different then all the movies we see recently, where you can just guess the ending. This movie was not like this, it kept you on the edge of your seat the whole time. It is a mix between horror and family drama which i thought went great together, especially with Williams as Sy. He did an excellent job and really went out of his comfort zone and gave his all, we could really see that and even though i had my doubts before watching the movie, he ended up being the perfect character, making people not only fear him but pity him, which is another reason the film worked this well. One thing i kept noticing throughout the movie was the colors and the open spaces. There were many empty spaces and the colors were always the same. Sy would always wear shades of whites and light gray while carying a blue bag, the store was completly unrealistic as everything was perfect and the colors seemingly the same. Yet the colors change when you see the family, everything suddenly becomes colorful, as to show how lively they are compared to Sy's emptiness. Overall i believe this movie was really great.
I really enjoyed One Hour Photo. I thought it was cool to see Robin Williams playing a creepy character when he normally plays a funny family man. The weird thing is that it really worked; he was able to play Sy perfectly. I thought it was really sad that although Sy was very weird, I don’t think he was a bad man; he just wanted to belong to a family and be loved. Collecting all the pictures was a complete invasion of privacy and was very obsessive of him, but I think that’s what was keeping him somewhat sane. He was able to fantasize, pretending that he was a part of their family. I don’t think he meant anyone harm. Although he stalked Nina and admired her beauty, I don’t think he would have ever sexually assaulted her; he thought of himself as Uncle Sy rather than a replacement of her husband. When he realized that her husband was having an affair, his fantasy of this perfect family was ruined and he was crushed. He was so mad at her husband for having an affair, but even then he didn’t harm him or his mistress. I understand that his actions were extremely out of line but it is sad that he wasn’t actually a bad person but he will have to pay the consequences of his actions when all he ever really wanted was to have a family.
I feel the same way about this movie now as I did when I first saw it. I had seen One Hour Photo many years ago, and it was one of those films that gave one impression in the trailer and other promotional material, and then didn’t so much come off that way in the actual film. This was not in a good way either. Ironically, I didn’t find those feelings to change much, even when I knew what I was going into the second time seeing it for class. It was made to look like a thriller. That’s not to say it didn’t have thriller-like film elements, but I just felt then as I did this time as well that the film as a whole was somewhat misrepresented all around. I felt as though a lot of the content, particularly the sexual content and nudity, was entirely unnecessary. I also kind of felt like the whole film ended up feeling like one big choo-choo train to nowhere, which I again kind of blame on the representation of it in the trailer, though if the trailer hadn’t given off the impression that it did, I probably never would have wanted to see the film and my expectations would have likely been different or altered in some major way. As to how this applies to the second time seeing it, I feel like that misrepresentation and resulting feelings toward the film lingered into the second viewing as well. As it stands, I found it slow, and I don't think in the way the creators or the director necessarily intended. Overall, I didn’t quite like it.
In regards to the performances, I did think Robin Williams gave an interesting one. However, he seemed to be the only one. If I remember correctly, and I might be leaving out a few more minor characters here and there as a result of my feelings towards the film as a whole, none of them really stuck out to me. I found the husband and wife of the family he was stalking nothing special, which I don’t blame on the actors, but more the characters they were given to play.
This is a full of happiness assumptions about world, as the white supermarket, reflects the comfort of glare, and concealed below it is really cold survival rules. False impression, and the more the truth even more urgent reachs guesswork.
No matter what he Sy or... "as "happy mirror"-3 home, all of happiness in the illusion of survival. This is the dilemma, the plight of survival. The different individual in my own life, every minute, every second, are in the business of the emotions and out of, happiness of balance of payments. When he let his hand down happiness became the prey, "hard-pressed to" become a luxury, then "happiness" will be reduced to "everyday", and daily is to let people ignore, play, but also rely on depend on. Only when it has become the daily threat of happiness, happiness of ownership would go to serious defend-" defend "have become people to happiness the only thing to do. But fortunately, the loss of happiness, people still have at least "defend" the appeal and the enthusiasm. But the problem is that while people are prepared to defend happiness or "forced" to defend happiness, often in time to consider all the "happiness" is worth defending. Because people make it as daily for too long and too long, and the happiness in daily coat has evolved into the other kinds of things. So, in fact, even defending, the result will be a happy reconstruction.
That if happiness was missing? The natural cannot talk about "defend", only--back to the starting point-reached. That is better than "defend" pure much more things. This is our Sy.
Sy happiness to every bit of less happiness were all carefully collection, less to need to junk the flea market to "pick" a "dead mother", less to this little business happiness once be destroyed, even if is the happiness of the parties by internal damage, he shall take the destruction of your life to "teach" the danger of the happiness of destruction (the teaching method of puzzling and heartache).
If this is thriller, thriller that is life itself.
No matter it is Sy or the family that Sy chose to peep at as his happiness reflection, anyone of them is existed in the false impression of happiness. It is the dilemma, a problem of how to survive. There are several different selves living in the same physical body, everyday and everytime, operating the feelings, happiness and other “balanced assets”. When the well-being is within reach of the prey, it is luxuries to choose happiness over luxuries. Happiness "will be reduced to" normal “level and everyday people ignore these things, but they also need to rely on it. This has become a daily happiness which might be threatened, the happy possessor would become really serious in terms of defending, and which to "defend" it became the only thing they would be happy to do. However, we should feel glad that at least when it was the time to lose happiness, people are about to defend their aspirations and passion. But t he problem is that when people are ready to defend their well-being or are "forced" to defend their well-being, they often engage in a timely manner to began to think about "happiness" and the problems of whether it is worthwhile to defend it. Because people has been doing this for so long that this happiness has already evolved into the guise of something else. So, in fact, even defended, the result will be a happy reconstruction
The most surprising aspect of the film is, undoubtedly, Robin Williams’ performance. I’ve always seen him as an actor capable of anything, and my thoughts about him were verified by his strong and utterly creepy performance. He portrays a very lonely man in One Hour Photo, living vicariously through the images left by a family, slowly unraveling their secrets unknowingly before his eyes. He appreciates the family and longs to be significantly closer to them, rather than obsess over them from a distance. The open ending with the image leaves much to the imagination of the viewer. I feel like it was all in his mind. His past with his father implies that he was traumatized at such an early age, leading to him being obsessed with photography, but the beautiful side, not the broken side. While his father stole his childhood and fractured his memories, he wants to look into the images of people who don’t know the broken side, which is why he’s thrown off when he finds the husband of the perfect family isn’t so perfect after all. He’s trying to replace his tragic memories with new ones, which is why the open ending might be a part of his mind after all.
After watching "one hour photo" really want to find a clear version of the collection! Not because of how wonderful the film, the end of the film trying to express meaning. But thehero of something touched me. He loves the photos, not narcissistic, nor is it a love of photography, just becausepeople want a souvenir in the photographic record of the person or thing, he believed thatthe photos tell him something, he happy to dilute their loneliness. He said: "These photographs bear witness to the passage of time, as long as ashutter, flash light, so stop, though only a brief moment, but this photo some importantmessage from generation to generation handed down until the future. ..... " "Little things people do not take pictures, but these little things is what our lives a true reflection." "I have here ... I exist ... I was very young ... I'm very happy, but there are other people care about this world I care to captured my Photos ...... " Lonely life he did not know what is happiness, when 20 years of photo Members ofthis in a supermarket. Over the years, when he looks at who patrons, the family photos ofa beautiful mistress: from couples marriage, to the little guy was born to the ninth birthdayof the little boy ... full of warm affection photos let him determine if this is a happy family.He admired them, can not help but sneak a collection of hundreds of their photos, andfantasy is a family. The hero did not find is this: in modern society, the appearance of the sentimental willalways hide some of the state and stain. Everyone will camouflage, they just want toleave they want to stay or want to show the others to see, perhaps not even deliberate, in front of the lens, most people will be showing off the smile ... may lead to the finaloutcome of the hero's fatal to it!
“One Hour Photo” is a psychological thriller about a lonely man, Sy Parrish, who is obsessed with a family he sees as “perfect”. The film does an excellent job of bringing the viewer into Sy’s bizarre, solitary world. Sy’s world is painted with cool colors and lighting while the colors used around the family he wants to be a part of, the Yorkin family, are warm and earthy. There are many other contrasts used to depict the differences between Sy’s life and the Yorkins’ lives. Robin Williams pulled off the role of Sy very well. I ended up feeling profoundly sorry for Sy. The fantasies he has of joining the Yorkin family, doing simple things with them, being called “Uncle” were especially poignant. Of course there is a more sinister side to Sy which Williams pulls off equally well. Both sides combined to create a very real character. I liked the film because of its emotional impact. After witnessing Sy’s heartbreaking isolation I literally had to call my family and just say hi. “One Hour Photo” truly captures the essence of loneliness, both the pitiful side and the creepy side.
I absolutely loved One Hour Photo. It takes a hell of a lot of talent for comedic actors to pull off dramatic roles, but Robin Williams succeeds flawlessly. Williams plays Sy Parrish, a lonely photo-lab operator who overtime becomes obsessed with the Yorkin family, one of his regular customers, and eventually becomes a little too involved with their lives. Williams does a fantastic job of realizing the character of Sy. My heart was aching for the poor guy-- he was lonely, friendless, and simply misunderstood. The screenplay, coloring, and costuming of the film was brilliant, but I personally believe Williams' believable yet shocking performance was by far the best part.
I really enjoyed this movie. The start of the movie did not foreshadow any of what the movie ended up being. I was very surprised by the ending and loved how the movie had so many twists in it because it really captured my attention and made me excited to be watching it. Robin Williams exceeded my expectations for his acting performance in that certain role. Many people believe that he has a stigma around him and that he can only act in one certain type of film, but this movie completely blows that out of the water. He took on a role of an estranged, lonely, and disturbed man and really convinced the audience that he was that kind of person. The way that he stalked the family and even pretended that he was part of the family too added even more to the creepiness of the movie. I was shocked by the husband cheating on his wife and how Sy reacted to the problem. The naked picture scene was also very shocking to see but really had a huge impact in the movie. Lastly, the color schemes in the movie made it believable and interesting. Every time Sy was shown, or his belongings, the shot had an overtone of white or a pale blue, showing that Sy was very plain and did not have much excitement. On the opposite end, every time the family was shown the colors were extremely vibrant and colorful showing that the family was full of new life and love and care. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and would even watch it again.
I was really excited to see the movie One Hour Photo. The only time I’d ever seen Robin Williams act serious before was in the movie Good Will Hunting, and while his performance was amazing it still wasn’t a completely serious part. Because of this I was excited to see a movie where at no point was Robin Williams acting as the funny guy. This movie did not disappoint. The acting in this movie was great by all the characters. Each character fitting comfortably into the part they were given. Sy’s character was the mystery of the movie. The whole movie I asked myself; why does he act the way he does. His character clearly wasn’t just a sociopath that did what he wanted; he was clearly someone who experienced some kind of tragedy. This is all explained at the end when he tells about his abusive childhood. It is truly the story of a broken man. Something else I enjoyed in this movie was that they shot fantasy and imagination the same as reality. One scene I particularly liked was when Sy fantasizes about breaking into their house. While being creepy it was also funny in a way, especially when the family comes home and greets him warmly, letting the viewer know this is in fact a fantasy.
“One hour photo” is a psychological thriller that manages to create a strong reaction in the audience, or at least it did with me. I really liked this movie because of all the surprising events and the twists it had. I was always expecting something to happen but the movie found its way to astonish me. The end of it caught my attention cause of the way the characters design their destiny. I consider that this train of actions was certainly unexpected and surprising.
On the other hand, Robin Williams who plays the character of Seymour Parrish did an amazing job. It is not shocking that Williams always delivers and excellent work but in this movie he went beyond all parameters. He is the reason why the movie is so special and good.
I also couldn’t keep noticing the use of the lights and the effect these had on the whole scenario. I have a vivid memory of the scene where Seymour is on his knee facing the police and the light is facing the camera, it made that moment vital and impacting. I would really recommend this movie not only for all of its good technical uses but because it narrates a unique story.
I was surprised to have never heard of the movie "One Hour Photo" before this class. The character that Robin Williams portrays is anything but what a typical Williams film represents. Seymour, the bleach blonde, stocky and alienated character brings us into the world of a film a developer. One of my favorite, yet disturbing images, in the film is when Williams is dreaming and is in the middle of the store with white light surrounding him and the shelves of the store. As the camera moves closer to him Williams covers his eyes, as blood gushes out from them. This scene displays eccentric color with bright whites and deep reds. With great imagery and a unique story line I do recommend this creepy tale that leaves the audience not wanting to get their pictures developed!
The strangest part of this movie is also the best part of this film, and that’s having Robin Williams be not only serious but also a deranged bad guy. The reason I was interested in this movie was to see Robin Williams in a completely role and he performed it to perfection. He pulled off a lonely and sort of invisible character. The idea of this movie is a really good one because you really had to trust the people who developed your film because most people couldn’t do it themselves. You wouldn’t think in a million years that the person developing your film would be a crazy stalker. This movie made me forget that Williams is a comedian. He is so different in this movie that when his image of perfection in the Yorkin family is shattered, he goes to a level of disturbed I never could have imagined Robin Williams doing. There are other interesting parts of this film but seeing the same actor that played the genie in Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire and other hilarious characters blew my mind to the point that he is the main point that needs to be discussed in this film. I hope to see him in more roles like this in future because of how spectacular he was in this film.
When I first saw the trailer for One Hour Photo, I thought it was going to be a thriller/horror movie. I thought there would be chase scenes, and violent killing, and stuff along those lines. Instead, it turned out to be a drama revolving around a very intriguing main character. Robin Williams, who normally plays comedic roles, is Seymour, a photo technician at a placed called “SavMart.” He is a very lonely man who is obsessed with the Yorkin family, loyal clients of the one-hour photo at savmart. Sy longs to break his everlasting loneliness and wants nothing more than to be a part of their family. While at first he seems like a very creepy person, especially after the seen showing the collage of all the photos he has taken of the Yorkin family, as the film goes on you start to feel bad for him. All he wants to do is feel as though he is a part of a family, and doesn't want to be by himself for the remainder of his life. The Yorkin family is his idea of the perfect family, the one thing Sy wants more than anything in the world. That makes it all the more understandable when Sy goes crazy after he finds out the father is cheating on his wife. Sy does what he does because he wants to teach the father a lesson and shame him. Will had everything Sy had ever wanted, and he just threw it all away. He is a very sympathetic character. I believe deep down we all have a fear of having no one to care about us, no one to love us. One Hour Photo takes that fear, and makes it a reality for one unfortunate individual, who in the end, you cannot help but feel bad for.
Wow I don’t even know where to start. This movie reminds me of my childhood. I remember I saw it when I was about 11 years old and it stayed in my memory since. When I saw it in class I was amazed on how much I remembered from it because it really did mark me. I love this movie a lot. It’s a psychological thriller that was filmed in 2002 and directed by Mark Romanek. Sy is the photo technician from Savmart and was completely obsessed with the Yorkin family. During the movie I was nervous and intense even though I kind of knew what was going to happen. The movie catches people’s attention so much that you feel the thriller. The color white dominated a lot, especially when the scene was about Sy. I get scared to think there are people like that in the real world; even though people now use digital cameras you never know who is watching you. Sy definitely has a problem, his obsession with this family takes him to do a collage of all the pictures they have taken. It is very creepy to see how he manages to discover Will having an affair with Ninas friend by how much he as observed the pictures. I will see it again. The music plays well along with the scenes.
Lonely life he did not know what is happiness, when 20 years of photo Members of this in a supermarket. Over the years, when he looks at who patrons, the family photos of a beautiful mistress: from couples marriage, to the little guy was born to the ninth birthday of the little boy ... full of warm affection photos let him determine if this is a happy family. He admired them, can not help but sneak a collection of hundreds of their photos, and fantasy is a family.
He went into this, they lost the work he loves. But really let him complete collapse is he even found the man of the house the night of the dismissal, even having an affair! He is convinced that the so-called happiness - smile in the picture, behind even the hidden betrayal and hypocrisy! His dreams shattered, and he thinks this is all to blame this man of the house, he decided to revenge! But he looks very bizarre revenge, and left him in jail - or rescue him from the abyss.
I have been very fond of photos, likes and looked at pictures and try to figure out the scene at that time, guess which character's personality. Always aspire to have a camera, can record anywhere good things, retaining the time of a sec. Precisely because of this in common, will make the film has touched it! The hero to find pictures of a gentle woman in the old commodity markets and deliberately told the lady of the house of his mother's time for me to not help being moved. This is how lonely and vulnerable!
The hero did not find is this: in modern society, the appearance of the sentimental will always hide some of the state and stain. Everyone will camouflage, they just want to leave they want to stay or want to show the others to see, perhaps not even deliberate, in front of the lens, most people will be showing off the smile ... may lead to the final outcome of the hero's fatal to it!
I really enjoyed One Hour Photo. It was a joy to watch Robin Williams step outside of his usual role and play a character who is tortured by loneliness and a messed up childhood. Williams did an excellent job at earning sympathy from the audience. While his character was creepy and a very realistic nightmare, he had good intentions and had an almost child-like innocence to him. Even as he held a knife to Will Yorkin and his lover, the scare he evoked was not because he came off as a serial killer, it was because he seemed troubled, unsure and scared. He knew he wanted to punish Yorkin for his infidelity, but he did not actually want to hurt anyone because that's just who he is. His character sees the life of the Yorkin family through the photographs that he develops, and he longs to be a part of their seemingly perfect family. Composed of beautiful people and a house that looks like it came out of a magazine, the Yorkins are actually anything but perfect. Their seemingly perfect appearance is only a superficial cover to the marital problems this family struggles with. However, Sy (Robin Williams) doesn't realize these imperfections in the Yorkin family until he develops a roll of film revealing Will's infidelity. Obsessed with the idea of the Yorkin's being a perfect family, and put over the top by being let go from his job, Sy sets out to make the Yorkin family perfect again. There was one scene in the movie that I thought didn't fit- the nightmare sequence when Sy's eyes explode with blood. I'm not sure if this was included to try to make this movie hold truer to the thriller/horror genre, but I thought that scene held no significance to the rest of the film. Overall, it was an interesting movie that kept viewers engaged. I would recommend this film to a friend.
When I went to watch this movie I had no idea what it was about. However, this movie was awesome. I enjoyed it a lot. It was intense and very creepy. This movie really made me reflect on this world and think about how possible it is for this to occur in real life. Your local photo guy could be stalking you right now and you wouldn't even know. I always enjoy these types of movies and this one is one that I would want to watch again. Robin Williams was amazing and he fit the role of this creepy man perfectly. He was great when he would act perfectly normal and charming when people were around, especially the family that he was stalking, but when they weren't around he changed into a weird and crazy man. One of my favorite scenes was when he makes it obvious to the husband that he has been stalking him. I would recommend this movie to any horror/intense movie watcher. I know that I am going to be watching this one again.
One Hour Photo This was one of my favorite movies we have watched for this class. Robins Williams was an amazing actor in this and he was the perfect creepy guy. This was one of my more favorite roles he has been in. In a creepy way it makes you think about all the people around you and what they could be doing. This movie had my attention the whole way through, wondering what extremes would be taken. It almost brings you into Sy’s mind understanding the stalking of this “perfect” family. It makes you feel bad that someone is that lonely and crazy. I would definitely recommend this movie to people.
One Hour Photo was easily one of my favorite movies we viewed in class. Growing up, I was a big Robin Williams fan and enjoyed both his comedies and his more dramatic roles. However, I remember having no interest in seeing One Hour Photo when it came out as it looked creepy and weird. While that might be true, it was also a very riveting movie. The two main reasons for this from my perspective were Robin William’s performance and the way the film was shot. Williams, whose character’s name is Sy, plays a clerk at a one hour photo stand in a grocery store. They slightly altered his appearance in the film, and while it is easily recognizable as being Robin Williams, something about the transformation makes him look much creepier. Sy is a very quiet and meticulous person who basically learns the details of all of his customers lives through their photos, and becomes obsessed with one “perfect” family in particular, and Williams does a great job making that obsession feel real. Lastly, the way the film was shot, with extremely meticulous and clean-cut imagery and scenery, was almost mesmerizing to me. It seemed as if they were trying to show the film through Sy’s viewpoint, and for me it was a very powerful way of keeping my attention throughout the entire movie.
This has been one of my favorite films of the semester. The actor who played Sy did a wonderful job. I never thought about the guy who ran the photos back in the day when they were still on film. After a course of photography film in high school I can understand the work Sy put into his job due to the time consuming job of film development. His love for the family was a little creepy but necessary in order for the movie to work. The thing I thought was a little faulty was when the boy didn't accept Sy's gift in the park. Most kids, no matter how well mannered, always accept gifts. It was a great plot and if I understood the movie correctly then it turns out Sy was molested as a child by his father which gave Sy a great outlook on life and the value of love for kids.
I absolutely loved One Hour Photo. I'd heard of it before, but never really paid it much attention. Seeing such a dark side of Robin Williams really helped me appreciate the diversity that not many actors are capable of achieving. I enjoyed the sharp contrast of warm and cool colors throughout, namely during the scene where he leaves the shop. I remember thinking the vacuum cleaners were a bit out of place, but the bright and endless fires on the TV screens really got the point across without having to spoon feed it to the audience. I think the costuming was flawless, albeit a bit simple. A hair dye kind of made him a whole new person to me, so I ably watched his performance without bias or comparisons to his other work. I'm not one for suspense or thrillers, but One Hour Photo exceeded my expectations and made me love Williams even more. I also took a photography class in high school, so I highly agree with the aforementioned comment about relating to Sy's dedication to the craft.
One Hour Photo was a fantastic movie. To begin, the plot and general idea of the movie is just spectacular. The idea that your local photo developer may be actually searching and looking through your photos is creepy, and this movie captures this perfectly. You do not need a crazy horror flick to be genuinely scared, and this movie proves that. I believe that Robin Williams as an actor is underrated as he performs his role amazingly in this movie, this shows his other acting abilities that people tend to overlook. I absolutely loved the opening when Sy is speaking about photography, he basically says that if aliens or something came to our planet and saw our photos then they would think that we lived in a perfect society free of violence or sadness or pain and that everyone was always happy and was had fun; this is since nobody ever takes photos of anything bad in our lives. I thought this prospective on photography was so true and enlightening. Overall, I really liked this film. It is a different, simpler form of horror that is much more realistic than today's "horror" films.
The first thing I did before watching One Hour Photo was completely rid myself of the comedic image on Robin Williams. Although he normally features in comedies I didn’t want this to ruin the film, as I wanted to take him seriously. Robin Williams plays Sy, a Wal_Mart employee who works at a one-hour photo-developing lab. He learns about his customers through looking at their photos but is especially obsessed with the Yorkin family. Although Sy is clearly a modern day psycho the film is shown through his view and this made me sympathize with him. We see him by himself in his drab living room with only his pet hamster for company.
One of the greatest aspects of the film was the brilliant use of mise-en-scene. The recurring color was an off white color. For example his living room walls were white, his Toyota was white, Sy himself was a pale man. At times Sy would almost blend in with the surroundings and I feel the public would find him invisible. I feel this represented the boredom that Sy goes through. Wal-Mart has a pale white and blue color scheme as well which added to the mise-en-scene effect.
The film opened my eyes to how much people can learn about your lives. I never thought of how much even a photo developer can learn about you. I enjoyed this thriller because there was an eerie realness about the whole film.
I am really going to have to re-consider where I go next time I have to get my photos developed. Robin Williams, who deviates from his typical role as being the comical, witty funny man, to being an eerily creepy photo developer. Williams definitely delivers an impressive performance, but his notable acting was slightly overshadowed by the unevenness of the movie. It seemed as if the film was cut into two parts: the first part was like a study into the mind of an obsessive person isolated from the rest of society and the other half was essentially a thriller. One of the most frightening aspects of One Hour Photo is the realism of everything. It takes place in such an ordinary environment, with seemingly ordinary people. The movie really makes the audience wonder about how the average person working at your local supermarket can turn out to be a psychopath. One Hour Photo does an effective job in showing the dark side of people. Furthermore, the clever use of camerawork throughout enhances the creepy tone of the film.
One Hour Photo is a very creepy and weird movie. Robin Williams plays Sy, who develops photos. He loves his job, and it brings him the only joy in his life. Outside of work, he lives a very lonely and sad life. He has no family or anybody to keep him company, so he develops an unhealthy obsession with the Yorkin family. The obsession is so intense and psychotic, that I expect something horrible to happen, which eventually does. He is so deranged that he envisions himself as a part of their family, since he watches all of their life through their photographs. In a way, it’s sad that they mean so much to him, yet he is just the “photo guy” to them. The lighting and colors in the movie set the tone for a psycho movie in a way, because all of the white and brightness surrounding Sy in the store remind me of a mental institution.
I must first comment on Robin Williams acting in One Hour Photo. Robin Williams is one of those characters you never really see doing a serious movie, and when you think of him you think of Mrs. Doubfire, Night at the Museum, Flubber and Jumanji—he is a natural goofy character. So, when you see him acting as a lonely, isolated, creep you feel a little uneasy and weird. But fortunately he did a great job and conveyed the emotions the director was probably hoping he would. With his haircut and clothing, he already is illustrated as a creep. He always wears beige and neutral colors, kind of blending in with the background, as if he is nobody. Even the colors in his house match his blank and neutral style. His house seems empty, spacious and isolated, just like the character. The use of shots where his character is centered makes him seem even more distant to reality and social interactions. For example, in the scene where he gets fired and is leaving the department store, the camera centers on him walking through the isles, which are very contrasting to him since they are colorful and filled with products while he is neutral colored and empty. The movie deals with search for comfort, family and betrayal. All these themes are resolved at the end when the policeman who is interrogating him says that he understands why he did what he did. The format of the movie, where it starts with the end gives the movie the wrap up it needs. Since we see Seymour Parrish telling his story of why he did what he did since the beginning, we know we will come back to it at the end, which we do, and it helps us understand the movie better.
In my opinion, this is the best performance I’ve seen by Robin Williams. I was used to seeing him in comedies but he did an excellent job in getting rid of that stereotype during this film. Instead of being the funny guy that he usually is, he was creepy and sinister. The make-up and characterization made him look even scarier. One Hour Photo was one of my favorite films from the ones we watched during this class. I was emerged into the movie while I was watching it. Some parts were suspenseful but it helped to keep the audience’s complete attention. I was intrigued and wanted to know what was going to happen next. The mise-en scene, design, and composition of the film added to the suspense and scary feel of the film. They expressed the movie’s vision and mood. Also, one of the parts that was very creepy was when Robin Williams’ character, Sy, goes to get the knife while he was at the store. After a very tense moment I was relieved when I realized the knife was a mcguffin because it didn’t get used. I would definitely watch this movie again and recommend it to my friends and family. However, after watching this movie I will never see the people who work in the pictures section of stores as harmless ever again.
One Hour Photo Matthew Head Robin Williams was terrifying! One Hour photo was great, it was one of the creepiest movies i've seen in a while, granted I dont watch scary movies. Robin Williams had great performance, not only was Robin Williams good but the music and sets stood out to me. Everything was colorless in the movie including Robin Williams. the music was creepy built a lot of tension. My favorite scene was the scene where Robin Williams got fired and is walking through the store and gets the knife. I suggest you re watch that scene. The music reminded me of the music in tron legacy. For a lot of the movie however I was confused by Sy's motives. I had no clue what he was planning on doing the entire movie, which kept me interested. I think that the audience sympathizes a little too much with Sy, he's actually pretty creepy. Another scene that I loved was when he was driving back from work in the tunnel, I thought the cinematography was great. All around great movie.
In One Hour Photo, a thriller by Mark Romanek, Robin Williams, who plays Sy, puts on a flawless performance. Although the audience initially perceives Sy as being an older, creepy man, there is an underlying feeling of sympathy for Sy. Even though Sy obsesses over and essentially spies on the Yorkin Family, it is almost as if he means well and has the right intentions, but does not know how to properly act upon his feelings. The underlying emotional connection to Sy if further developed when the audience is able to imply that Sy was wrongly photographed as a child. This realization explains for the odd behavior and allows the audience to see the where the motives of Sy’s actions derived from.
In addition to the great acting by Robin Williams, I thought the way the sets were built were effective in conveying different feelings to the audience. I believe that the setting of SavMart, although it may seem subtle to some, played a key role in creating a creepy, eerie mood throughout the film. The store was organized perfectly to a point where the store looked too perfect, almost as if something was not right. This particular set created an eerie feeling within the mind of the viewer and ultimately, made the film feel more like a thriller.
One hour photo . It is not only a tragedy of a man, but a tragedy of a society, The major character loves the photos, not narcissistic, nor is it a love of photography, just because people want a souvenir in the photographic record of the person or thing, he believed that the photos tell him something, he happy to dilute their loneliness. Lonely life he did not know what is happiness, when 20 years of photo Members of this in a supermarket. Over the years, when he looks at who patrons, the family photos of a beautiful mistress: from couples marriage, to the little guy was born to the ninth birthday of the little boy ... full of warm affection photos let him determine if this is a happy family. He admired them, can not help but sneak a collection of hundreds of their photos, and fantasy is a family. He went into this, they lost the work he loves. But really let him complete collapse is he even found the man of the house the night of the dismissal, even having an affair! He is convinced that the so-called happiness - smile in the picture, behind even the hidden betrayal and hypocrisy! His dreams shattered, and he thinks this is all to blame this man of the house, he decided to revenge! But he looks very bizarre revenge, and left him in jail - or rescue him from the abyss.
This movie is a tensed, low-key thriller featuring Robin Williams. Williams run the photo-processing department of a large departmental store. He takes great pride in his work and his highly dedicated in his job. Nina and Will Yorkin are Williams favourite customer. They are an attractive couple with a nine-year-old boy. Since Jake- the young boy was born, the Yorkins would frequently drop off film for processing, and Williams dotes on Yorkins and their son. Nina and Will were kind to Williams attention, regarding him as a harmless eccentric. However, they were ignorant of the fact that William would make a copy of each of their photos and consider himself as an old member of the family. William-Sy, reality begins to collapse when he learns that Will is unfaithful to Nina. He reaches the breaking point when he loses his job.
I left the screening of One Hour Photo utterly frightened. I am never having my prints printed by the same place more than once. Not really, but that is how I felt right after seeing this movie.
I think that One Hour Photo is intended to make the audience reconsider how private they think their lives really are. You might think that you and your family are safe. But how do you really ever know for sure that someone like Sy is not actually watching your every move? And further more, how far does their obsession extend and how far are they willing to go?
I think Sy was so psychologically involved with the Yorks that he felt like he was part of the family. The last image of the film is a picture of Sy with the Yorks. So when he found the pictures of Will, Sy felt the need to punish him for not fully appreciating the life he has been given – a beautiful house, a loving wife, a nice son, and a good job. Why would anyone want to risk giving that up? Maybe One Hour Photo is trying to tell the audience that while temptation is always around us, if you give into it, karma will always come back to get you. Maybe not as severe as the events Sy puts Will and Maya through, but consequences nonetheless.
The plot of the movie is interesting, however I thing the pace is slow which bored me. I thing the theme of the movie is very psychological, because is showing you how sometimes the mind of a lonely man works. It's a tragedy how the character of Robin Williams, figure outs that "his perfect family" wasn't perfect at all, due to the affair that Will had with Maya, driving him even more crazy. It is interesting how Sy imagined himself in different scenarios though the photos he took for this family. Also in my personal opinion, this film made me realized that some people feel alone in this world, and is time to start carrying more for others. About the technical aspects, I thing the movie was well filmed, with the correct costume, production and set design, the only thing I would change was to made some shots shorter, or even make the pace much faster in order to have the attention of the spectators all the time. Then end is very unexpected for me, when he says that he is only taking a photo, but I thing that at that point Sy was doing very irrational things, this movie shows you the extremes of a society.
I didn't really enjoy this film. Then ending was very ambiguous, and didn't leave a finite ending; which is ok, but I didn't think it suited this film. There were times when I was disturbed by this film, like when Williams gets access to the families house, and just the thought of him creeping on the families photos is creepy.
Honestly the whole time I was just creeped out by williams character, it made it hard to pay attention to the rest of the movie.
I very much enjoyed One Hour Photo. Robin Williams did a superb job portraying an obsessive photo developer and his performance did much to enhance what wouldn't otherwise be a remarkable storyline. The fact that Robin Williams mostly plays in comedies made his role as a dysfunctional individual that much more powerful, as the audience felt uncomfortable not just because of the character he was portraying, but because of who was portraying him. Beyond Robin Williams, the coloring of the movie was quite good. Sy looks constantly faded out, sort of uninteresting and tired. This strongly improves his character and makes him very interesting to watch. Sy's apartment is similarly faded, with the exception of the wall of photographs he has collected. One Hour Photo creates a very eerie feel, drawing in the viewer and making them increasingly uncomfortable as the film progresses, until it ultimately reaches its conclusion.
In the introduction of the movie, I was very expecting the movie because Robin Williams is starring in the film. He is very famous as a comedy actor and usually take very naïve and fun characters. However, In this film, He took a part of character who is very creepy and lonely and finally end up arrested for a menace suspicion. Actually, It was released in Korea as the title of ‘Stalker’. I think this title just underestimate the base of Sy’s emotions and feelings toward Nina’s family which included the loneliness of middle aged man and eagerness of participating in the family as one of members. It started from his hobby which is collecting other’s pictures while working. However, Sy’s special attachment to Nina’s family made him stalk and intervene the family’s affair. I think If he approach them in a right way and express his wish that he wanted to get in touch with them, Sy’s obsession will be resolved happily. The entire atmosphere of the movie was very tense and creepy because of his obsession and sudden behaviors. However, these suspenseful scenes might catch people’s mind
In the movie One Hour Photo Sy is a lonely man with no family or friends, who lives by himself but works as a photo technician who develops pictures at the one hour photo center. Due to his past he became a depressing man and admires people with family and friends. Since his family was not so great he wanted to escape his past by having fantasies. He would collect pictures of the Yorkin family throughout the years they have been developing their pictures at the photo center. He grew an obsession of the Yorkin family happiness and wished he was a part of their happy family. When Sy found out that Will Yorkin, the husband, was cheating on his wife he hated Will and wanted to live his life. Sy felt as though Will was taking his family for granted. Even though in the movie the lonely man was weird I felt as though the movie had a good meaning behind it, family and friends are important and we should appreciate that because there are people out there who does not have a happy family or friends.
Happiness is like the candy in the hands of a poor kid. We tried to cherish happiness when we realize this, and I feel sad that someone is trying his best to cherish those moments. In fact, the woman and the old man in the film who developed photos were both aware of this - the woman is aware of the subconscious, who chose tolerance when the truth was exposed because of the fragile nature of a good woman. The old man is significant consciously aware of this, so he knew what he is doing. That is why he was easily excited and always strive to do something for any one of the three when he met them. The old man and the woman are both main character, but the woman's role is hidden, she was responsible for the burden of all keynote handed over to the old man, such a contradictory conflict can be more focused to the outbreak; reflect a step-by-step through the woman's indifference forced the old man eventually go "crazy" move. So that the story would be simple and neat, without losing strength.
One hour photo This film give me a enlightenment is that we don't think life is a unrealistic illusion, don't fantasy perfect life, because it doesn't exist, and don't fear the life is not perfect and regret, and can't put the real life, we have to do is to simply put into a real life, understand the essence of life, experience it's not perfect yet filled with the hope of life, live in the present moment, when we when u look back, we will not because our pain and made a mistake and regret, because we at least life... From my perspective, the hero of the film actually not a bad man. Instead, he is strict in his work, the people polite, for the good things full of expectations, but he was himself the paranoid personality and unrealistic visions of life destroyed, character is destiny, this is reasonable, when the film we saw the end of peace and dull character expression, we do not have the anger, some just little sour, I think this time he also finally from their own wake up, to understand what is life, originally fate he opened a with a joke... It's over, but real life and how many people are suffering from the same suffer, some people are walking in the same dangerous road, some people suddenly realize, began to examine yourself and look at your life, and some people although understand, but already too late...
One of the first things that pops out when you watch One Hour Photo is the style. Everything seems glossy and the colors are radiant as well as the overall layout being very clean. This sets the creepy tone that is require to picture Robin Williams as a one-hour photo stand manager that is very odd.
Indeed Sy is an odd character. Sy becomes attached when processing a woman Nina’s photos of her and her family. It is interesting that Sy gets an intimate look into the lives of this family and can tell what they are really like, while they do not know the real Sy. They think he is some friendly, enjoyable photo clerk. Sy longs to be part of a family, he is lonely which is why he produces the copies of the family photos to keep at his apartment. Sy becomes obsessed with the family and soon realizes it is not the perfect family that he thought it was. Once Sy realizes that Nina’s husband Will is not the perfect husband he thought he was, but is having an affair, Sy feels he must personally take it upon himself to expose it. It is on this mission that he is arrested and you find out Sy was a victim of child pornography.
My initial reaction to seeing the trailer for “One Hour Photo” was surprise. In my eyes, and the eyes of many others, the comedic genius Robin Williams seemed to be a weird fit for Sy’s “creeper” role. Having said that, after seeing the film I believe that director Mark Romanek made the perfect decision for the role. Williams’s performance is by far the most impressive aspect of the film. I specifically loved his use of subtle anxious mannerisms, which help the viewer understand Sy’s awkward nature. Perhaps the most impressive part of Williams’s performance was that as a viewer I still felt compassion for Sy, even as his behavior grew to be increasingly disturbing. Sy’s relationship with the Yorkin family develops from an innocent interest to brighten up his lonely life into a psychological obsession that leads him into a mental breakdown and eventually gets him arrested. Sy views the affluent Yorkin family as the representation of the “American dream” and he yearns to fill his empty life with the love that he imagines the Yorkin’s must feel for each other. As viewers we learn that Sy's obsession with the Yorkin family stems from damaging childhood trauma. His father took inappropriate pictures of him when he was a child which is a clear source of Sy's social and mental problems. After discovering that Will is having an affair he is shattered because he realizes that everything he dreamt of was a façade. Romanek’s choice for an ending left me very frustrated and unfulfilled because I think the film would have definitely benefitted from having a more conclusive ending rather than an ambiguous one. Overall I thought the film was decent but was mainly kept afloat by Robin Williams brilliant performance.
I was very impressed with how well this film kept me interested. Initially, it was a little uncomfortable accepting that the main character was such a creeper. But once I got beyond that, the beauty of the writing and the great acting of Robin Williams kept me inside the story.
It is your classic stalker drama, however, Robin Williams plays the stalker role in a way that makes the viewer sorry for him. I wanted to see Sy get his life together and connect with people. But he eventually ruins any chance at social sanity by becoming more disturbed, and forcing the Yorkin family to fulfill his strange fantasies.
I really enjoy movies that provide a different landscape for a well known actor or figure, that completely derails you as a viewer of what your expectations were of that actor. Robin Williams does that in this film. Instead of playing his usual over the top eccentric self, Robin commits himself very well to a shy, damaged, and possibly insane man, and performs the role extremely well. What one hour photo does really well is it gives you an image of a man that is damaged, but it also gives you sympathy to him. You see a man that is doing all these wrong and weird things, but it gives you a viewpoint into his life leaving you to understand more about why he is doing it and what his intentions behind it are. It also shows you his point of view of things, form the orderliness of the supermarket to other parts of his surroundings, you feel you are stepping into the psyche of a man who sees the world differently.
One Hour Photo C04997305 Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo is a psychological thriller that is steeped in mise en scene. In the film Robin Williams portrays Sy, a lonely photo technician who lives vicariously through the photos he develops. Williams performance is dark slightly unnerving, very different from the typical comedy roles audiences are accustomed to seeing him in. Throughout the film we see Sy’s obsession with a family unfold, as he becomes more involved his life begins to unravel with Sy eventually forcing his way into the lives of those he so admires. Mise en scene is an essential part of One Hour Photo. The store within Sy works gives the sense of your typical Target or Walmart. Everything is perfectly calculated and meticulously placed giving that bleached down feeling as you visually stroll through the store. It creates a sense of reality in the audience that this could be the supermart in your own town. This connection is vital in engaging members of the audience drawing them into the reality created by Romanek. I enjoyed One Hour Photo, I like to see actors take roles that others have deemed outside their niche. Robin Williams performance is what makes Sy such a captivating and intriguing character.
From a bunch of detail such as the amount of films we can see Robin Williams is trying to a sneaking prick in the movie. His life is like a guard in the prison, trying to take a look at other people's pivacy. His body is just a piece of flesh without soul inside. I mean it is very interesting to see something so depressing like this. The sympathy of the film is another big thing. Like a returing result, Robin finds his wife is cheating on him with someone else. The idea of sympathy is really deep-going in people's mind. I was thinking about this all time after the show.
Jason Koreen
ReplyDeleteFor being such a depressing and distraught film, I surprisingly enjoyed One Hour Photo. Although the pace of the movie was slow for the most part, there was never a dull moment, as I always found myself curious of what and when Robin Williams’ character would do something drastic. I did like how the movies pace picked up towards the end, but am still not fully sure of what Sy’s motives were, or why he took pictures of Yorkin and Maya. I would also like to know what the final verdict on Sy was, as I am a bit perplexed due to the threat officer’s reaction to saying that Yorkin was a poor father. I did notice and appreciate the nuances of the camera movement. For example, I liked the scene where Mrs. Yorkin and Sy came up the escalator and how the camera was positioned on the ground to appear as if they walked over the camera. I was also pleased with Robin Williams’ performance, as I felt he played a very convincing role. I have purposely not seen any of his films in numerous years because I disliked his older films that much. I was also impressed with the performance of the boy, as I felt he did a much better job than either of his parents.
One Hour Photo is a movie that draws you in through the mystery of Robin William's character. Since this isn't one of his typical comedic roles, it makes the audience that much more interested; it gives us the opportunity to see a side of him we have never known. The movie itself falls into a drama/thriller category, it's scary but not a horror film, it's drama but it's not overwhelmingly emotional. Williams seemed to be the perfect actor for this role, he conveyed a lonely and disturbed man surprisingly well. One Hour Photo is a movie that you don't want to take your eyes off of, it really keeps you on the edge of your seat. Although the ending leaves some things up to the imagination of the viewer to figure out, it doesn't make you feel like you're missing something, which is difficult to do. Robin Williams played his role so well that you no longer felt that it was Robin Williams as an actor, instead, I saw him as Sy, the mysterious film developer. This movie intrigued me to the point where I thought about the movie for a while after it ended.
ReplyDeleteRobin Williams really shines in One Hour Photo, a disturbing film about a Wal-Mart employee who takes pictures and kills men who are involved in adulterous affairs. In this film Williams takes pictures of Yorkin and Maya, a young couple who have one child. Sy has an empty life and tries to live vicariously through this young couple. This emptiness is illustrated when he collapses emotionally after being fired from his job. Sy prides himself in his photo producing skils and that is truly the only aspect of his life he is good at. He has not really taken the time to enhance his life further or build up contacts and some sort of social life. He is truly an empty shell. His emptiness can be shown in his clothing. He wears a white shirt and a blue vest, making him blend into the background. The creepiness of Sy is shown at the last part of the film where he tries to kill Yorkin and the girl he is with. It is scary that such an innocent looking man could actually commit such atrocious crimes. Williams’ portrayal of this fragile man as a cold blooded serial murderer is superb and really shows his strengths as an actor.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Robin Williams is normally seen as being casted in comedies, I tried not to let that interfere with how I saw him perform as “Sy the photo guy.” This movie, although psychologically creepy and suspenseful, really helped me understand the concept of mise-en-scene. I can agree that the movie was a perfect example of this concept as everything in the frame carried significant importance to the overall message itself. The very bland and stale mood created from the settings, design, and composition carries over to the viewer as our own moods become swayed. Out of all the settings, the one that I think carried the most importance was Sy’s apartment. The fact that it was very claustrophobic, minimalist and simplistic with almost too white of walls added to the creep factor that told us something wasn’t right about him. It almost seemed like his home was his prison that didn’t get any visitors as he was closed off from the world.
ReplyDeleteHowever I think the colors in the movie are carefully picked in order to fit each character. The idea that Sy tends to blend in with his surroundings really works in isolating him while keeping that low profile from everyone else. The only flashes of color we see are from the pictures of the family that he secretly printed. At first we think he is just a lonely man with a blank description but later when the colors transition into the bluish hues we see him in a different light. I thought it was interesting how the colors that he wore intertwined with all of the different locations.
The voice over parts really allowed you to get into Sy’s head and led us into what he was thinking. The music played a large role too as it fluctuated from strong siren-like and hectic sounds which kind of portrayed the stirred up the thoughts in his head. In the scene right after Sy gets fired from SavMart, the tension in the music builds up as he walks down the aisles of the store. Without music in this scene, it would have been hard to know what Sy was thinking because of his flat affect. In the end this movie classifies as a thriller but I think that it should be classified as a psychological character study.
One Hour Photo is one of the most interesting thrillers I’ve seen in awhile. It’s not your typical “slasher”-- blood and guts thriller. The main character is Sy the Photo Guy played by Robin Williams. Just the name “Sy the Photo Guy” is reminiscent of Bill Nye the Science Guy, so that was already a bit off-putting as a de-scare factor for me. In addition to the name, I grew up watching a lot of films starring Robin Williams. He will forever be the nice, funny man; even in What Dreams May Come, Robin Williams is still the nice guy. So when he is trying to be turned into the villain in One Hour Photo, I had to try and remove myself to really be able to be scared by him which in the end, was an epic fail. I left the movie feeling sorry for Sy. He’s just this misunderstood photo guy who idolizes this seemingly perfect family and wants very badly to be a part of it. It’s understandable that Sy goes crazy once he finds out through developing photos that the perfect family isn’t so perfect. I would highly recommend this film to any family that has had or thinks they will have problems with cheating spouses, just to show the cheater what could/will happen to them. I think that would be a more scare-able audience. It would either convince them never to cheat cause if they get caught.. well what happens to Will would be their comeuppance, or it would make them very careful about cheating. Or it could produce a third reaction, in the minds of those who would cheat, it gives an outsider’s perspective from Sy, “He has everything! Why would he just throw it all away?” Breaking from the seriousness of the movie, is the scene where Sy is “in” the Yorkin’s home. Completely imagined, he walks around, sees the picture of himself on the fridge, uses their bathroom, changes into Will’s clothes, grabs a beer and watches the football game with their dog. I think this fitting, yet somewhat random scene, is hilarious and adds some levity to the dark themes the movie deals with.
ReplyDelete“One Hour Photo” was the first film I watched in this class that I truly found entertaining. It not only confirmed the fact that Robin Williams is a superb actor for me, but it a developed an intriguing plot that was both engaging and disturbing. Williams delivers in both his performance and his appearance. His impeccable uniform, clunky glasses, and bleach blonde hair not only make his character seem to fade into the world around him, but underscores both his emotional instability and the disturbingly deliberate actions he takes to “right” the wrongs in the family he obsesses over. The sets, ranging from Sy’s apartment, to the Savmart, to the family’s home, each play a detailed and key role in developing the story. Sy’s stark white, bare apartment reflects his solidarity and isolation. The orderly shelves of the Savmart reflect the naïve view of perfection Sy has for his surroundings. The family’s large house filled with material belongings hints at the emptiness in their emotional bonds. All of the sets and props come together to drive the interesting and twisting plot to its conclusion. How the film ultimately succeeds is by making the viewer both pity and fear Sy. His actions are terrifying, but at the same time he does them out of a misguided sense of heroism. I for one believe he was truly trying to help the Yorkins, just not perhaps in the best manner by holding the cheating father at knifepoint. All in all, “One Hour Photo” is a well-developed (no pun intended) and engaging film.
ReplyDeleteOne Hour Photo tells a story that the world is filled with happy illusions. The clean supermarket in the movie (absolutely the most clean and tidy supermarket that I have ever seen) shines comfortable light, but what concealed below is the cold rules for surviving. The more illusions you get, the stronger eagerness or guess for truth you will have.Both Sy and the family of three that he “peeps” as the “happy image” live in happy illusions. This is a dilemma, a dilemma for surviving. Different individuals are experiencing capricious feelings and happiness. Sy losses his only way to peep the happy image, and he suddenly discovers the hidden illusions behind the family he once thought it nice, while the heroine has to cover her pains with silence. This is what the cruel reality and the movie bring for the audiences to think. Why not fight for her happiness? Is it a reconstruction for happiness, even to disclose the husband’s cheating behavior?Sy has so little happiness that he will collect every small piece; he will “pick” a “departed mother” in the fleamarket. So once such little happiness is broken, even by a person who involves in this happiness, he will adventure his life to “teach” that person who broke the happiness (the way of teaching is confusing and painful). Sy cannot bear women’s indifferent response, thus the photo of catching adulterers in the act can be interpreted as a kind of striking abreaction and photos (both in the beginning and in the end of the movie) give the audiences a clear event axis.If this is a horror movie, the horror comes from the life itself.
ReplyDeleteOne-Hour Photo:
ReplyDeleteI really like this story due to its new unpredictable idea. Sy is a solitary old man, who makes photos in Wal-Mart. He tries to enter a young couple’s life, because he has been looked so deeply into their photos and gets him involved in their lives. It is really interesting to see a comedy actor Robin William to act like a horror old man who is trying to kill Yorkin and his illegal girlfriend whom he has no relationship with. Because Sy has no personality or surrounding relationship, he is empty, so he tries to create a role for himself. He sees himself as a part of Yorkin’s family. He watches Yorkin’s kid grow up and really likes this happy family. As time goes by, he finds out that this happy family is not as happy as he thinks, then he tries to make everyone to follow his willingness to keep this family as happy as before. He thinks that he has ability to “help” this family out, that’s the cause why he hurts Yorkin and his girlfriend.
Actually I feel sad about this movie, the old man Sy who uses stranger’s photos and happiness to fill up his empty life, and also get him feel about what life is. That’s really woeful, and I think Sy just doesn’t want anybody know that he is alone, and living with empty world. The most successful thing in this movie is to use comedy actor Robin William to play this totally different and challenging role of Sy.
One Hour Photo was an extremely interesting film for me. Sy was a very dynamic and even disturbing character in this film. He was a very lonely man not really noticed by the rest of the world. I feel that the choice for his hair color, clothing, and demeanor reflect how Sy was supposed to blend into the rest of the world. All of these choices are bland and make very unoriginal and unnoticeable just as his character in the film is a secluded man. Also, the perfection seen throughout the scenes set juxtaposed with the imperfections Sy sees in the families. It was a very interesting role for well-known comedian Robin Williams. I can only remember him playing a very serious, almost creepy, role once before and that was for a Law and Order: SVU episode he was cast as a guest star for. Interestingly, in this episode he had a very similar look and persona about him. He had the same bleach blonde hair and perfectionist tendencies and mannerisms in both roles. This movie really kept me captivated from beginning to end and I thoroughly enjoyed the thought provoking film.
ReplyDeleteOne Hour Photo is an amazing film. It effortlessly combines elements of horror with film noir and familial melodrama. Although film developing is outdated, the leitmotifs of loneliness, infidelity, family, and societal degradation are universal to our culture. Furthermore, the character of Seymour Parrish is very well thought out. He is a believable “psycho” of the modern era.
ReplyDeleteI loved the film’s moral ambiguity. It is told predominantly through Sy’s perspective, allowing the audience to sympathize with him. In actuality, he is not much different from a typical American: a drone earning minimum wage with nothing to show for his clockwork labor except a meager employee of the month award. Of course, he exhibits traits of voyeurism, but his motives are relatable. He secretly loathes his lonely life, and instead lives vicariously through the imagined lives of the Yorkin family. Yet, the Yorkin family is far from perfection, plagued by infidelity and a chronic lack of communication and emotional connection. Interestingly, Nina Yorkin does not respond to her husband’s infidelity. It is Sy who fights for moral justice. Unlike the typical psycho, Sy’s pursuit is noble (he wishes to save the Yorkin family) but his modus operandi is corrupted. Sy is a kindhearted man driven into obsessive voyeurism by a heartless, consumer driven society that solely focuses on work and not on what’s important: family.
The mise-en-scene in the film is also superb. The set pieces are powerful, and propel the story more effectively than mere words. Sy’s wall of photos brilliantly expresses Sy’s demented obsession and his desire for companionship. I also enjoyed the experimental dream sequence in which Sy’s eye’s bleed out; it effectively expresses his horror, which is actually more profound than Nina’s. In addition, the SavMart setting is an extension of Seymour Parrish himself. Both he and the SavMart are drabbed in pale, lurid whites complemented with dead blues. The colors convey the spiritual deadness of society, and also have an eerie resemblance to WalMart’s color scheme.
I really love this film. It reminds me so much of Taxi Driver, one of my all-time favorite films. Both films depict monsters created by a corrupt society. The jarring actions of their tragic protagonists may help to shock society into reassessing its moral standards.
One Hour Photo
ReplyDeleteThis film was to me weird in almost every aspect, although it did entertain me. First of all, it is not a common movie for Robin Williams to be in it, and secondly, I was a little overwhelmed with all the white at the beginning, particularly the store. I didn’t like much the store; it seemed to me that it had a lot of space, empty space. It was really creepy Sy’s attitude the whole movie, the picture wall specifically. The music in the film is a major contributor to how the viewer perceiver the movie, because it is like a sad and filled-with-suspense music that fits with the theme of the film. In other words, it is very dramatic. Sy is very, very strange. I do not really understand why he cares that much about Nina and her family. When he was fired, I would argue that he felt awful and cried and everything primarily because he thought he was going to lose contact with her and her family. He loved Jake, but when he saw her husband kissing with the other woman, he turned against him. That part was the turning point in the film, it created all the trouble no only Sy, but also Nina and her husband, went through. Overall, I was really entertained with this film regardless of how weir it was and how creepy Sy turned out to be. It really kept me on the edge of my seat so to speak. At first I though Robin Williams was not really in his comfort zone, but I believe he pulled it off.
Before watching One Hour Photo, the only thing I could think of is Robin Williams in Flubber and Mrs. Doubtfire. I never realized Williams could play such a creepy/stalkerish role without being humorous. I really enjoyed this thriller. Williams did an amazing job playing Sy and pulled off this creepy character very well. As we learned about Mise-en-scene, I realized not only did Williams' acting portray a creepy character, but the setting, costuming, music etc. determined the mood too. Sy was always seen wearing shades of whites and light grays while carrying a blue bag. The store he worked at was unrealistic as every product was in perfect place and the only colors used were blues and whites. The only colors throughout the film were when the family Sy became obsessed with was shown. The colorful clothes the family would wear represented the liveliness and how much Sy wanted to be apart of this family. His disturbing character and obsessive nature shined through against the bland background of shades of white. There were also voiceovers during the film from Sy expressing his feelings which made the film even creepier knowing what went through his head. Even though the first scene of this film shows Sy getting arrested, this did not stop me from being on the edge of my seat throughout the film. The film is set up with you knowing what is going to happen at the end yet with all the creepy twists and turns of Sy's nature, it kept me glued to the movie.
ReplyDeleteMark Romanek’s “One Hour Photo” was a film that I almost found difficult to watch at times. The sheer awkwardness of the main character, Sy, who is played by Robin Williams, is stifling. The way the film is shot adds to this overwhelming sense of creepiness. Where Sy works, the photo development counter, at what looks like a generic version of a Wal-Mart shows just how odd Sy is. He talks about his dedication to giving people the best prints of their photos as if his job is of the utmost importance to the world. Sy’s obsession with the Yorkin family shows the viewer just how isolated and alone Sy is. Sy almost lives vicariously through the Yorkins by printing an extra set of their photos so that he can keep a set for himself. My initial reaction to Sy’s obsession was that it was odd, but not necessarily threatening. As the film progressed it seemed like I was watching Sy’s gradual progression toward insanity. The scene where Sy is visibly upset over the fact that he found out that Will Yorkin was cheating on his wife was almost difficult to watch. In my head I was thinking how can someone who the family hardly even knows really care that much? Robin Williams does an excellent job of playing this delusional wallflower type of person. He makes Sy seem like he would just be a face in a crowd, but Williams gives the viewer insight into what it is like to go inside the mind of someone who is so isolated like he is. Overall I enjoyed the film because of how well Romanek stylized the film and how well Williams portrayed the role of Sy.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the slow and steady pace of this movie, One Hour Photo was surprisingly good. Upon seeing that Robin Williams was going to be cast as a seriously deranged and dangerous human being, I was not sure if he would be able to to pull it off convincingly. He not only was convincing, but totally shattered his Flubber niche, and proved that he can be talented on multiple levels. From a movie standpoint, One Hour Photo was at times, painfully slow...but so is the photo making process. This apparent intertwinement of themes such as Sy's obsession, not only with making good photo prints, but also the family that he was terrorizing and stalking. Unlike a photo; which captures emotion and life, Sy is a dull person in the crowd, giving no one a clue about himself. This juxtaposition also propels his obsession with photos. It almost seems as if Sy is so obsessed with the photos because he can live vicariously through the family, replacing his dull life with memories/photos of the life he wish he had. Sy realizes he cannot live their life, and this leads him to obsess, stalk, and eventually kill. Robin Williams was able to keep me interested in the film through the slow times, because I wanted to see how he would end up. Overall a good movie that gives you a chance to see a different side of Robin Williams.
ReplyDeleteOne Hour Photo is a spectacular suspenseful thriller. I'm really happy that there is a movie about this because the plot is very realistic, we never really think about the people who develop our photos and videos and how much of our private lives are exposed to them. Once when I was shopping at my local drugstore, where my family get their photos developed, the man behind the photo counter recognized me...so it is very realistic.
ReplyDeleteThe element of the film that stuck out most to me, was the mise-en-scene. The mise-en-scene choices were very thematically significant. For instance, the car he drives is a white Toyota Echo. This is significant because Robin William's character is very pale with white hair, almost albino looking, and the way he stalks the family makes him an echo of sorts. His entire life is mainly colored off-white, which is meaningful because it takes on the metaphor of his life being “bleached.” The only other color that we really see in his life is a blue at the store. I found that component of the setting to be really intuitive in fully developing his character.
One Hour Photo
ReplyDeleteThe movie One Hour Photo was particularly creepy yet real to me. I never really though about how easy it is for the person developing your personal photos to duplicate copies for themselves. This whole notion is very creepy and disturbing, yet very real. The creepy theme instilled in One Hour Photo makes the movie extremely intriguing and interesting. Robin Williams (Who plays the main character Sy), who I, and most people consider a very humorous, silly actor plays this serious, disturbing character extremely well. I was very surprised to see him play such a serious role and excel at it so much. Sy develops a woman named Nina and her son Jake’s photo very frequently. They have a very friendly customer to worker relationship. The irony is that Jake and his mother think Sy is very happy and not lonely when in reality he is. In fact, he is so lonely that he obsesses over this family, duplicates their pictures and has created a collection of them in his home. At first Sy envies this family because he believes they are “perfect” but later realizes they are anything but. He ends up discovering that Nina’s husband is having an affair and goes through great heights to reveal this to her. The movie overall is actually very sad because of Sy’s desperation and sad life. I thought that the actors in the film played all played their role pretty well and that you were able to tell from the beginning (from the characters actions) that not all was right. The movie created a depressing and disturbing mood but was overall interesting to watch.
Erik Rueckle-c10166645
The plot of One Hour Photo attracts the audience so well because of its intense, creepy, yet realistic nature. I usually tend to enjoy horror/action movies, however, the plots usually tend to lack the realistic aspect. The plot for One Hour Photo is disturbingly realistic. It reminds me of one of those really disturbing stories that comes up in the news every once in a while, where the suspect has some mental issues. Robin William’s appearance and persona in the movie creates the perfect fit for a creepy stalker type person. The fact that he knew all about that family, posted their pictures to his own wall, and actually pretended he was in their family was extremely disturbing this sort of plot appeals very well to horror/mystery genre lovers. The aspect of Robin Williams character that I liked the most in the movie was how he was so nice and caring around the family but when they weren’t there, he was extremely eerie and weird. I also really liked how there were two stories going on at once in the film. Along with the central plot of Sy taking the family’s photos and stalking them, Sy also catches the husband In the act of cheating on his wife with another women when he sees him in another woman’s photos when they are being developed.
ReplyDelete“One hour photo“ is fascinating and disturbing at the same time. It showed me how easily people can be overlooked when they just adapt themselves to the society. With this strategy, they can hide their “sick” desires, and nobody would be suspicious. But, when they show their abnormal desires everyone else wonders about it, as no “normal” person could ever do this. Robin Williams shows this transformation in “One Hour Photo” perfectly.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t like Robin Williams before because he usually is famous for his delightful and charming roles. But, in “One Hour photo” his acting was superb. I believe him that he is the lonely worker at the super market, who is desperate to become a part of a perfect pictured family, the Yorkin’s family. This is the reason why he calls himself as the uncle Sy, and why he’s highly overreacting when Nina is thinking of buying herself a digital camera (as this would mean that they wouldn’t come to see him at his photo desk anymore). The sudden and radical change in Sy’s personality of the “likeable guy” to a psychopath (yes, he was this before too, because no “normal” person would admire an unknown family that much; however, to threaten someone with a knife and force him to take porn photos is something different) was surprising. But, this change was still believable due to the acting.
Another great aspect of the movie is the mise-en-scene. Everything related to Sy looked normal with the potential to be overlooked. He wears ordinary uniforms of the supermarket and the supermarket itself looked dull and common. However, the beautiful Yorkin’s family has a bright house with colorful and wears eye-catching clothes. The contrast of reputed perfectness and ordinary life and their crashes is pictured well in the movie.
So, I enjoyed the movie because it was remarkably different from what I expected from a movie where Robin Williams is acting in. In addition, the cinematography was excellent.
“One Hour Photo”
ReplyDeleteWhen I watched “One Hour Photo” trailer in class, I thought it was kind of thriller movie. So, I expected that someone would be killed and pursued. However, after seeing this film, I just realized it was not kind of thriller movie but drama. Some people could feel nasty to see Seymour’s stocking of Nina’s family. However, I felt different way with those people. While I watched this movie, I’ve never thought Seymour is scary and obsess too much. I just think that the person such as Seymour who never get loved from others don’t know how to love with someone. Also, this kind of person has different way compared with others to express emotion to people. For me, Seymour is pathetic, pure and good man. He is just lonely guy who have never got love from people. In our society, people usually don’t care how other people live and not even saying hello to them. Seymour is too weak to live such cold-hearted society. Perhaps, Seymour wants to live as ordinary member in a warm family. He always takes picture for other people but no one take picture for him. I was sad when I watched Seymour being happy to see pictures police take to upload to criminal list. Police officer is the only one person in his life who takes picture for him
The film “One Hour Photo” was an interesting play on an everyday situation in which ordinary information and everyday transactions can turn into nightmares for others. Aside from the paranoia it may cause the audience, the movie does have some great aspects to it. First, one can’t deny the greatness of Robin Williams in this movie. He usually plays roles of happy and uncontroversial characters. This role was much darker, and forced him to act as a psychopath who has managed to adapt to the society he lives in.
ReplyDeleteThere are other aspects of the film that jumped out at me. The fact that Jake, the son, is the one to first notice Sy’s social awkwardness is significant. It plays on a similar theme that many movies touch on, which is that children have a sense for things that can’t easily be inferred by adults, as seen in the movie “The Sixth Sense.” Lastly, the fact that Sy chooses to follow and exploit Will shows that he does not only want to be part of the love and affection that his family has, but that he wants to be Will. Will has intimate relationships with multiple women, which is something that Sy would kill for, and he almost does. The character of Sy is a play on the problems of complacency and not daring to strive from the normal until it eats you up inside.
I enjoyed watching “One Our Photo”. There wasn’t a single second were I didn’t felt the suspense rising and rising. I felt scared for some little parts but at the end I ended up feeling attached to Seymour, I just wanted to hug him.
ReplyDeleteThis movie threw my expectations away. When it started I thought that Seymour was going to be unlikable to say the least. We can all agree in something, he was creepy, creepy as hell. But at the end of the movie I just ended up feeling compassion, and pity for him. He obviously had daddy issues to be resolved, and he was clearly not mentally stable. But his motifs weren’t evil, he was overprotective of what he though was his family, the “picture-perfect family” he choose for himself. And this was kind of sweet. Even though, I wouldn’t desire to have someone like that in my life, I understand why Nina was terrified and feared for his family, because as I said earlier, he was clearly mentally unstable.
I thought that overall, the cast presented excellent performances. I imagine that as an actor, playing the role of a kind of likable creepy CREEPY guy most be hard, but a master like Robin Williams pulled it off.
I thought this film was surprisingly good. Robin Williams’ performance was excellent; the implied revelation of his abusive childhood at the end of the movie really brought the entire movie together and essentially explained to the audience why this serious psychopath seemed to almost be the “good guy” in terms of his motives. Overall, the movie explored really interesting ideas about morality and obsessions. At the end of the movie, with the history of abuse exposed and the disclosure that Sy did not actually kill Will or Maya, Sy almost comes off as a sympathetic character who was just trying to make up for what happened to him. But Sy was a dangerous psychopath with a complete misunderstanding of family and love, and the perceived sympathy for him really shows how successful Robin Williams was as an actor in that role. Furthermore, the director and crew did a great job of setting up the three main settings of the movie. The SavMart looked appropriately soulless and sterile and Sy’s apartment, with the wall of pictures and the framed pictures, was appropriately creepy. However, the best setting, to me, was the Yorkins’ house; it looked appropriately comfortable and suburban, but with an emptiness that foreshadowed the underlying problems in the Yorkin family. Overall, I thought that it was an excellent film and a really interesting, unique examination of family and family values.
ReplyDeleteJohn David Agliano
C05580571
One Hour Photo was not the greatest movie I have ever seen and will never be in my top ten favorites, but it is a picture that I am glad that I watched. It is movies like One Hour Photo that show the versatility of great actors like Robin Williams. I feel like if the film had any other actor in the lead role, the movie would have been absolutely terrible. People sometimes envision actors in certain roles and can not think of them as any other character. Elijah Wood has been constantly struggling to get rid of the moniker of Frodo ever since Lord of the Rings. It is too often that Robin Williams is only known for Flubber or Mrs. Doubtfire. One Hour Photo shows Williams can play a very dark role well. However, I feel like an episode of Law and Order SVU he did showed his serious acting ability better. He played a sexual deviant who outsmarted the police perfectly. My opinion of Williams maybe flawed though because I have never seen Good Will Hunting, and I have been told I am really missing out on a classic, but certain parts of One Hour Photo, such as the final scene where Williams breaks down in front of the interrogator, show how good of an actor he really is. Williams does a great acting job, but the viewer likes the character Sy so much because of the way the movie is filmed. The editing makes the viewer feel dull and dreary as Sy feels in the boring and almost too perfectly set up SavMart. Furthermore, excellent methods of suspense make the viewer share Sy’s rush of adrenaline as he steals a knife from SavMart. I don’t think the movie was an amazing film, but Robin Williams and the editing make it one worth seeing.
ReplyDeleteSy has how much patient to be in the cold darkroom for 11 years.In this 11 years he has seen so many happy family, so many cute pussy, and so many baby faces.How poor Sy is,even little Jack thinks so, when he and his mom prayed for him Sy was touched, he might was thinking of what if he has his own family. Then he pretended that he has a family,buying a photo of a old women as his mother's and bringing a same novel book with him to feel the feeling of HOME.
ReplyDeleteRobin Williams has been a good doctor, good teacher, good father for so long time on the screen.It's big challenge for both him and the audiences this time,but he did great! Many people would regard it as a crime film but in my opinion,I think the point is on how a husband protect his family and how a father protect his son.The only thing different is they are fake.The wife and son are the role Sy regards them as.This is also the reason to make is become a tragedy.
I like the ending of the movie,I really wanna see how would the "wife" and "son" trade this "stranger".Sy was not in a life, he was in a photo of life.
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ReplyDeleteOne Hour Photo
ReplyDeleteThis film took me by complete surprise. Robin Williams' character Sy was unlike any of the characters I had seen in his other films. Having grown accustomed to seeing him in roles such as Mrs. Doubtfire, I was slightly unnerved to see him playing an isolated psychopath. The movie was incredibly creepy and the suspense just kept growing as the film progressed.
What really impressed me about the film was the attention to details. Everything in the store Sy worked as was lined perfectly and brightly colored. While, in contrast, Sy wore his drab uniform, oversized glasses, and had bleach blonde hair. All of this caused him to fade into the scenery and made him almost invisible to the people around him. It is because he has managed to fade into the back that his obsession with the family is able to foster and he is able to live through their family photos.
Although it was probably a risk for the director to cast such a well known actor for the role; casting Robin Williams most definitely paid off. The character that he was able to create held so much mystery, while at the same time Sy appeared almost innocent and fragile. Harmless, in other words. This is definitely the best film that I have watched for the class.
This movie is a movie full of suspense and creepy moments. It is a thriller that shows Semour "Sy" Parrish works in a store processing photos and he is really dedicated to his job; this job is his life. He has no one go to back home and he is a very lonely person. He loves the Yorkin family, and has several times processed the photos for them. Nevertheless, this loves turns into an obsession. Sy has always acted as a harmless man in front of them and has gained the love of this family. The creepy part of the movie is when we learn that Sy is really memorizing every detail of this family’s life and is secretly making his own copy of the Yorkins' photos so that he can make a collage in his room. I extremely got scared in the scene were we see Sy bloodshot eyes in one of his dreams. Sy had physiological problems and a seen that help me realize me was when he imagined himself going in into the Yorkins house and drink beer while watching tv and at the same moment the family comes in and even though I thought that they were gonna be scared because the audience does not realize this is just a thought of Sy, the family greets him as an uncle. This latter scene helps build up suspense. His reality collapses when he learns that the husband is being unfaithful to the wife and even more when he gets fired from his job. We learn later in the movie that Sy’s father took dirty pictures of him when he was a child, or at least I deducted that information out of the movie. Also, I did not understand the meaning of the pictures Sy took of the different stuff in his hotel room by the ending of the movie and I thought this was creepy. It was really awkward for me to watch Robin Williams, who I have the image of being this funny and happy character in comedies such as Mrs.Doubtfire, in a thriller where he is the psychopath. It is amazing how they change Williams physical appearance to resemble that of a crazy and lonely man. He got fatter, stopped working out and dyed his hair blonde so that he could look creepy and as a lonely man who doesn’t care for his physical appearance. I also loved how the director blended William into the scenes. For example, the store where Sy works is blue and he is wearing a blue uniform and it seems as if he were one with the store, symbolizing that the store is his life. Even though printing photos in a store is not so popular nowadays, it really scared me out the fact that some of the workers might actually use some of my pictures or anyone’s picture against them. Even though the plot of this move is very simple, I felt as if the movie was ambiguous in the sense that we never really now what happened to Sy or the Yorkins or Maya. The ending made me feel that the director intended for this movie’s ending to be open and subject to any audience imagination.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this movie is an example of how a trailer can give you a wrong impression about what to expect from the movie. I remember when this movie came out, and I saw a trailer for it, I interpreted it as following. Robin Williams character works at a one hour photo place where he develops the film, but makes a second copy for himself of all these photos. Then he basically goes out and murders these people that he has stalked via photograph.
ReplyDeleteWhile the film is not quite as creepy as that, it is extremely creepy. I think though that a lot of this comes from the casting. Robin Williams is known for being a funny-man. To take him, and move him from not only being funny to a very serious role, but to a creepy psychopath is such a huge step. I think that even though Robin Williams is not typecast as one particular character, him as a funny-man is the typecast we associate. When we move him from this, the audience is taken out of their comfort zone. They no longer know what to expect, and as a result, things tend to look stranger.
In addition, I love the attention to detail that goes into this movie. Every detail is so meticulous that it adds to the feeling that Sy's reality is not actually reality. Although, not extraordinary in any way the details at Savmart create this setting which we know is fake. We cannot even relate to it in our own lives as in real life, stores like this are often messy, and not so sanitized clean looking.
Robin Williams really surprised me in this movie. I had no idea that he did a movie outside of his regular nice/funny guy persona. As soon as I saw the trailer for the movie, I was immediately interested and eager to see it. The ending was not what I expected, but at least Robin's character did not physically hurt anyone. I was expecting him to be the guy who went off the deep end and kill because his life fell apart. Even though Sy did a lot of creepy things, it was all out of good intentions. All he wanted was a family and to be loved and accepted. His revelation of being sexually abused as a child by his father was sad. It explained his actions and why he did what he did. I felt for him the same way that I felt for Benigno in Talk To Her. They both did things that were wrong, but their thought process that lead them to their decisions gave them a pass.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I felt like Sy was doing the same thing that John, the mastermind in Saw, was doing. John took people who took their life for granted and tried to teach them a lesson. Sy did not do anything extreme that would hurt anyone, but I felt like he did try to teach Will a lesson. Will had everything that Sy wanted. He had a beautiful family. The fact that Will was willing to jeopardize his family for his mistress really upset Sy because he did not have that. I thought that he was going to kill Will and his mistress in the hotel room. I expected the worst case scenario. I thought for sure that the cops were going to find Will and Maya's body parts in that hotel room.
Throughout the movie, I thought of Sy as a creeper but the ending changed my perspective of him. The atmosphere in the movie was eerie. The store was too perfect. The blue and white colors made it looked washed out and odd. All of that added to Sy being creepy. Even his blonde hair made Sy like a possible killer. It did not show the aftermath of the hotel drama, but I hope that the Yorkin family got a chance to work out their issues. This movie did a good job of putting meaning into every scene. From the deliberate colors that were used to the costuming, I enjoyed this movie. One Hour Photo is one of my favorite movies I have seen this semester.
One hour Photo was a difficult movie for me to digest at first. It is important to consider that I kind of created a bias, since I thought of Robin Williams in movies such as Hook and Patch Adams. This one was completely different where a technician in a Wal Mart type of place is developing films for families. He has some type of crush for a family, knowing who each person is, with the fantasy of being part of this family and being loved deeply. The character is difficult to identify with since he is creepy and creates a type of college with additional prints at his home. This main character, Sy Parrish is an utterly lonely man, which is represented through his fixation on this family and his lifeless apartment. In addition, he gets fired from his job because his boss found out he was taking pictures, and Sy knows that Nina’s husband is cheating on her. This causes a profound effect on him, which leads him to taking pictures of Bill’s daughter and ultimately of Will and his mistress. It is extremely difficult to identify this man whatsoever, all throughout the movie. Overall, this movie was one of my favorites in the semester.
ReplyDeleteSarit Benatar
C10202193
One Hour Photo
ReplyDeleteThe movie that showed me that Robin Williams has more range than the slapstick, over-the-top romp was extremely compelling. It is creepy, and William’s character was creepy. The sense of isolation, loneliness, and a deep-seeded pain was amazingly portrayed by Williams who isn’t really well known for that kind of subtly that the character required. This movie was shown to highlight the mise-en-scene aspects that depicted the story of William’s character and his interactions with the family he’s stalking. The large aviator glasses and bleached, buzzed hair instantly gave away the fact that Sy is a troubled individual with problems. The lighting and sets of the store and the photo hut led to this eerie feeling and the whiteness of Sy’s house portrayed a sense of sterility. His wall of photos was the ultimate point of awareness. Here you could really tell that this man was psychologically unhinged and close to breaking point. His getting fired and constantly trying to insert himself into the lives of the family led him to the point of violence. William’s acting ultimately compelled to feel sympathy for this character. The interrogation scene sticks out in my mind as one of the best scenes in the film. There was so much emotion, and it just poured out. You couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, and you come to realize why he behaved the way he did. That’s the kind of parallel that I could draw from Talk to Her, but in that movie you ultimately didn’t get a conclusive answer to why Beningo did what he did. Here, all the psychological trauma that Sy endured in his life came out, and it makes complete sense. Overall, this movie is about someone who is deeply disturbing, and the fact that Williams did a great job in that role was very impressing. That alone made me appreciate this film.
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ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, One Hour Photo was one of the best films we have watched this semester. As we have discussed in class, it is really hard for a star to expand to a completely different type of movie role. Robin Williams completely transformed his typical goofy character in many comedies including Mrs. Doubtfire and Flubber. Although this performance did not compare to his performances in Good Will Hunting or Dead Poet Society, this was up there as one of his best.
ReplyDeleteThe film itself is extremely haunting and sad. For the first half of the movie you almost feel bad for Sy. All he has in his life is his job at the one hour photo. You feel sad for Sy, and want him to find the connection and love that he desperately seeks. As the story progresses he becomes hauntingly more psycho and takes extreme measures. His craziness appears to begin after he losses the one thing he loves, his job developing film. It goes further after he learns that her husband is cheating on her with another woman. The movie begins and ends with the same scene of Sy trying to explain to the interrogator why he did what he did to Will Yorkin and his mistress. We learn that a lot of his craziness and anger came from his terrible upbringing as a child and the things that happened to him when he was younger. This movie does a good job having the audiences switch off between rooting for Sy and rooting against him. Overall, I really enjoyed viewing this movie and would definitely recommend it to everybody.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie, "One Hour Photo." I think that Robin Williams did an exceptional job as portraying Sy. I was expecting the character of Sy to come across as completely crazy before I watched the movie, but his character was almost very subtle. I found myself feeling bad for him throughout the movie even though a lot of his actions were very creepy. It is sad to think of someone who works at a photo place and sees tons of happy looking photos all day long when they themselves are completely alone. I found it interesting that at the end of the film it is revealed that Sy had an awful childhood and even though he held Will Yorkin and Maya at gunpoint, I still felt sad for his character. It was interesting to watch his obsession with the family from a psychological standpoint.
ReplyDeleteI also found the use of white throughout the film to be done well. That was definitely the dominating color, which makes sense because photo labs are always white. Sy spent his days in a white photo lab and would come home to his stark white apartment. I liked how the only signs of life within his apartment were the pictures on the wall of the Yorkins. This really showed how emotionally disturbed and alone Sy was. The only thing he lived for was this happy family who turned out to be pretty messed up themselves. Sy getting fired and him finding out that Will was cheating were definitely his emotional breaking points. I was almost waiting for him to kill Will, so it was interesting that although he had snapped he didn't really use much violence. I also found it interesting that his pictures in the end were just of random objects throughout the hotel room. That kind of brought back the sense that Sy never grew up and was taking sort of child-like pictures as Jacob had. So, all in all I enjoyed "One Hour Photo" and would recommend it. The movie was one of my favorites from class this semester.
One Hour Photo
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion "One Hour Photo" was an okay movie. Although, this movie was not to my liking, I felt that Robin Williams did a great job playing the character; Sy. To me he came off a bit creepy; he wore the same type of clothing each day, he was always to himself, and had a hamster as his only friend. You can tell he was not very happy about his life and would fantasize a lot to take him to a better place. Working in the photo clinic for many years, he got to see the inside of peoples lives. His favorite photos to develop were from the Yorkin's family. He thought they were absolutely perfect and wanted to be a part of the family. In the movie he makes copies of the families photos. At this point is when I start to think that Sy was definitely crazy. It was not normal how he he started posting the pictures in his house and started to feel love for the family when he really did not know them. Overall I felt that he did his job in playing Sy's character very well; a lonely, sad, obsessive, psycho being.
Robin Williams does an excellent job taking a drift away from his usual comedic roles. I particularly liked this movie and appreciated the many instances that left me in suspense as to what was going to happen next. At the beginning of the movie we are presented with an ordinary character- a man who simply works film development at a savings club and takes pride in his job. But not soon after, we find out that this man who puts on an ordinary facade by his day job, recedes to his boorish apartment at night where he has fixated an obsession with the Yorkin family. Sy, a lonely man, has dedicated a portion of his apartment into making a sort of shrine wall with duplicates of all the photos that Mrs. Yorkin has brought into develop. Sy, a lonely man, yearns to be a part of a family (the Yorkins) and often fantasizes (with the aid of photos) about it. But one day, after losing his job he decides that this isn't enough and Sy slowly starts to interject himself into the families lives. I think the director does an excellent job commentating on the facades the we are forced to put on in a society and the evil that unseeingly prevails us. The ordinary clerk at the 'SAMs club' like store who one would think is just an ordinary man happily developing photos is not really who everyone thinks. It makes us wonder how many people have anterior motives they show behind closed doors- beyond the smiling facade they show in public. As a photographer, I find the use of photographs in this movie fascinating. Sy lives his 'fantasy life' through that of photos. Photos that capture only the brightness in the Yorkins life. And at one point- Robin Williams even commentates on how we typically use photos only to capture the brightness and happy moments in our lives and never the sad. We like to use photos to keep us from aging and to have something to look back on and remember only the good. Towards the end of the movie, Sy finds out the Nina's husband is having an affair. And the way he takes care of this is the only way he knows how, through photos.
ReplyDeleteI was pleasantly surprised by this film. Robin Williams, unlike most other actors who try to do what he did, made a great transition from his usually funny role into this role. He played the role perfectly and I honestly couldn't have pictured a better person for the role after seeing his performance. This movie depicted mise-en-scene extremely well. Everything in the scene had a reason to be there and everything was organized the way it was in order to help the film. For example, the meticulous detail and cleanliness of the store plays towards Sy's perfectionist attitude towards his job. The lighting in the film really helped with the suspense because it created very eerie atmospheres. Also, it seemed as though as the film progressed, the suspense built, creating for a more entertaining and exciting experience. Sy was played tremendously and even with his psychological issues, he has able to win the audience over. I felt myself feeling sorry for him and understanding why he does what he does. Finally, the colors of the film are very important. The store has such vibrant colors and Sy wears white and has such blonde hair that it makes him almost transparent within the store. Overall I enjoyed this movie and was most struck by how well Robin Williams played his role.
ReplyDeleteOne Hour Photo is a very peculiar type of movie, and it is difficult to identify, or even feel pity for the main character. The main character is Robin Williams, who has a very lonesome and depressing like. He works at a department store, where everything looks perfect, in the sense that he likes his job, takes great care in offering the best service to his customers, and is always on time. However, when he gets home, the audience gets to know who he truly is, since he just sits down on his plain sofa on his plain living room watching television, depicting his depressing and lonely life. It is a bit gruesome to see how he feels about the Yorkin family. At first, it looks as if he cares for them in a normal and familiar type of way. As if he were an old acquaintance. These feelings for this family become distorted, until the point that he is completely obsessed about them. There are scenes that further demonstrate his depression when he imagines that he is part of the family. His feelings turn to being envious, angry and explosive once he finds out that Will is having an affair. The turn of events throughout the movie, especially when Sy takes pictures of Will in the hotel room are not predictable whatsoever. I first thought it would be an easygoing movie.
ReplyDeleteHiram Aparicio
ReplyDeleteC06979667
One Hour Photo
In One Hour Photo, we get to see the diversity of skill with which Robin Williams can deliver a role. His performance is among one of the creepiest I have seen, which I believe is not possible without a certain degree of actual insanity in the actor himself. I think one may not be inclined to disagree with me after watching just a few of Robin Williams' other movies or even just his stand up comedy. In One Hour Photo, Williams plays Sy, A very calm and quiet employee of a photo shop who has no friends whatsoever. He is very lonely and becomes obsessed with the idea of family and so begins to stalk a family. This film incorporates mis-en-scene cinema very thoroughly often reflecting moods through color and objects, and paying attention to every single aspect of every detail in every scene, from the arrangement of cereal boxes to the font with which signs are written. Robin Williams dresses in blue and white throughout the movie and at times almost disappears into the surroundings of his photo shop. He blends in to the surroundings; this reflects his isolatedness from the world, for no one really knows him or anything about him. Even his name reflects his loneliness, the most obvious interpretation to me being the semblance to the word "sigh". I normally do not like suspenseful movies such as this one but I must say it had me quite involved throughout the entirety of the film. I saw this film also as a child and it left quite an impression on me. Robin Williams with his creepy bleached hair and quiet attitude have haunted me for many years.
Christian Casas
ReplyDeleteC10592802
I truly disliked One Hour Photo due to the plot and its choice of characters. I am usually accustomed to seeing a cheery Robin Williams, which is probably a misconception of mine, where I think about movies such as Mrs. Doubt fire and Patch Adams. I think this is the issue with characters that play similar roles. At the beginning I was interested, but when Sy arrived to his home and demonstrated what a lonely and crazy person he was, I realized this movie would have a lot of twists and turns. It was gruesome to see how he felt about the family, and how he took picture at the hotel with the husband and the mistress. This is the kind of movie that I would not see again since it is complicated and lacking motivation.
One Hour Photo told the story of the mid-age man Seymour Parrish, a weird, lonely man who lives in an apartment that doesn't even have all the necessities. He was obsessed with the Yorkin's family, especially on Nina (the wife) and his teenage sons. And Seymour delusionaly see himself as part of the Yorkin family as "Uncle Sy". I think one of the most creepy moment in the movie was when he bought toys to the sons and never actually give them, because the sons don't even know him much.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as he see himself as part of the family, he decided to revenge after he finds out that will is cheating on his wife. Normally when people have the fantasy about something they are aware it's unreal and won't do anything to let the others know in real life. Symour did, however, kept all of Torkin's family photos by himself which made him fired by his boss. I think that when people are desperate about something they would become unconscious. The creepiness of Seymour was caused mainly by his loneliness, and Yorkin's family became his fantasy on the kind of life he wants. I think it's kind of sad for Seymour to be so desperate that his life was ruined. And the story of this movie reflect the real life problem that lots of people - especially in their mid-late stage of life, became lonely and loveless thus caused some mental problems. So by looking at the movie in this point, I don't think Seymour is truly creepy, however a victim of the modern society issue of social separation.
One Hour Photo
ReplyDeleteNate Jennings
I really enjoyed this movie overall and I thought the past academy winner Robin Williams had a respectable performance. I thought the director did a spectacular job with the use of making such simple scenes being filmed in a house and a photo developing store into a fascinating movie. Trhoughout the entire film, it was difficult to not feel bad for Sy, including learning about his childhood and his lonely existence working at a one hour photo. It’s really interesting how this movie almost forces you to be on Sy’s side by making you feel sympathy for him. At times it was difficult to watch this movie due to Robin William’s very awkward and creepy character. It was also very interesting to see him take on this very controversial character, while I see him as someone who usually is comedic and happy in many of his past movies. I thought it was the a little crazy that he would drive over to their house and attend Jake’s soccer practice to just satisfy a fantasy he was dreaming. There were many scenes throughout the movie that radiated creepiness to the extreme, however near the end of the movie I felt a lot of sympathy towards him because all he wanted was a perfect family that cared about him. One of the characters was Will who had a lifestyle with multiple intimate women partners that Sy is desperate to have. The little boy pointed out right away that Sy seemed depressed and there was something wrong with him, while his mom remained clueless to this fact and that he desperately wanted people in his life to love him. This led into his decision to ruin Nina and Will’s relationship by informing Nina about her husband’s affair. While knowing this fact, I was almost certain that he would kill will, and his obsession with his family became obvious with the showing of pictures at the end of the movie in the hotel room. The movie also focuses on the idea that the most ordinary seeming individuals in society could be totally mentally unstable and it would be difficult to even realize it. This concept is somewhat very relatable to our culture now, where many loneliness, along with family pressures are very common. Overall though, the filmmakers painted a fascinating movie through the eyes of psychopath, who seemed harmless until he couldn’t handle being alone anymore or living such a boring life without purpose.
Gaurav Dhiman
DeleteOne Hour Photo
Entering this movie, the trailer had not impressed me too much. Although the film seemed like a horror film, it also seemed like a hammy, poorly-assembled film. However, the film was much better than I had expected. I found it a realistic exploration of the life of lonely, misunderstood, and wounded man. Creepiness aside, he is far from a bad guy. He wants what many want: a stable job, a loving family, a comfortable livelihood, and a decent social life. He has none and lives vicariously through seeing the photos of others when they bring them into his one-hour photo. Ultimately, I feel like that man's intentions are very noble and yet sad. I am glad that the detective at the end of the film seems to understand the main character, who is named Sy. The film works well because of the lighting and music. It has a calm, mellow, yet sinister ambience. Additionally, the music amplifies the overall creepiness and emotionality of a movie bereft of much action or explosive plot. I found two things interesting. One is how the superstore looks like Wal Mart and has all of the shelf products lined up by neatly and by color, which never happens in a real store. Additionally, most of the scenes that are not at the store or when Sy is watching a lovely family tend to be grainier and looking more decayed, reflecting the emptiness and disenchantment that Sy feels while at work and in the "real world" compared to a world where he "has" everything that he wanted. The cinematography works very well in this case.
Gaurav Dhiman
ReplyDeleteOne Hour Photo
Entering this movie, the trailer had not impressed me too much. Although the film seemed like a horror film, it also seemed like a hammy, poorly-assembled film. However, the film was much better than I had expected. I found it a realistic exploration of the life of lonely, misunderstood, and wounded man. Creepiness aside, he is far from a bad guy. He wants what many want: a stable job, a loving family, a comfortable livelihood, and a decent social life. He has none and lives vicariously through seeing the photos of others when they bring them into his one-hour photo. Ultimately, I feel like that man's intentions are very noble and yet sad. I am glad that the detective at the end of the film seems to understand the main character, who is named Sy. The film works well because of the lighting and music. It has a calm, mellow, yet sinister ambience. Additionally, the music amplifies the overall creepiness and emotionality of a movie bereft of much action or explosive plot. I found two things interesting. One is how the superstore looks like Wal Mart and has all of the shelf products lined up by neatly and by color, which never happens in a real store. Additionally, most of the scenes that are not at the store or when Sy is watching a lovely family tend to be grainier and looking more decayed, reflecting the emptiness and disenchantment that Sy feels while at work and in the "real world" compared to a world where he "has" everything that he wanted. The cinematography works very well in this case.
This film was incredible in every way. First of all the story was different then all the movies we see recently, where you can just guess the ending. This movie was not like this, it kept you on the edge of your seat the whole time. It is a mix between horror and family drama which i thought went great together, especially with Williams as Sy. He did an excellent job and really went out of his comfort zone and gave his all, we could really see that and even though i had my doubts before watching the movie, he ended up being the perfect character, making people not only fear him but pity him, which is another reason the film worked this well. One thing i kept noticing throughout the movie was the colors and the open spaces. There were many empty spaces and the colors were always the same. Sy would always wear shades of whites and light gray while carying a blue bag, the store was completly unrealistic as everything was perfect and the colors seemingly the same. Yet the colors change when you see the family, everything suddenly becomes colorful, as to show how lively they are compared to Sy's emptiness. Overall i believe this movie was really great.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed One Hour Photo. I thought it was cool to see Robin Williams playing a creepy character when he normally plays a funny family man. The weird thing is that it really worked; he was able to play Sy perfectly. I thought it was really sad that although Sy was very weird, I don’t think he was a bad man; he just wanted to belong to a family and be loved. Collecting all the pictures was a complete invasion of privacy and was very obsessive of him, but I think that’s what was keeping him somewhat sane. He was able to fantasize, pretending that he was a part of their family. I don’t think he meant anyone harm. Although he stalked Nina and admired her beauty, I don’t think he would have ever sexually assaulted her; he thought of himself as Uncle Sy rather than a replacement of her husband. When he realized that her husband was having an affair, his fantasy of this perfect family was ruined and he was crushed. He was so mad at her husband for having an affair, but even then he didn’t harm him or his mistress. I understand that his actions were extremely out of line but it is sad that he wasn’t actually a bad person but he will have to pay the consequences of his actions when all he ever really wanted was to have a family.
ReplyDeleteONE HOUR PHOTO – ERICA GOTTFRIED
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about this movie now as I did when I first saw it. I had seen One Hour Photo many years ago, and it was one of those films that gave one impression in the trailer and other promotional material, and then didn’t so much come off that way in the actual film. This was not in a good way either. Ironically, I didn’t find those feelings to change much, even when I knew what I was going into the second time seeing it for class. It was made to look like a thriller. That’s not to say it didn’t have thriller-like film elements, but I just felt then as I did this time as well that the film as a whole was somewhat misrepresented all around. I felt as though a lot of the content, particularly the sexual content and nudity, was entirely unnecessary. I also kind of felt like the whole film ended up feeling like one big choo-choo train to nowhere, which I again kind of blame on the representation of it in the trailer, though if the trailer hadn’t given off the impression that it did, I probably never would have wanted to see the film and my expectations would have likely been different or altered in some major way. As to how this applies to the second time seeing it, I feel like that misrepresentation and resulting feelings toward the film lingered into the second viewing as well. As it stands, I found it slow, and I don't think in the way the creators or the director necessarily intended. Overall, I didn’t quite like it.
In regards to the performances, I did think Robin Williams gave an interesting one. However, he seemed to be the only one. If I remember correctly, and I might be leaving out a few more minor characters here and there as a result of my feelings towards the film as a whole, none of them really stuck out to me. I found the husband and wife of the family he was stalking nothing special, which I don’t blame on the actors, but more the characters they were given to play.
One hour photo
ReplyDeleteThis is a full of happiness assumptions about world, as the white supermarket, reflects the comfort of glare, and concealed below it is really cold survival rules. False impression, and the more the truth even more urgent reachs guesswork.
No matter what he Sy or... "as "happy mirror"-3 home, all of happiness in the illusion of survival. This is the dilemma, the plight of survival. The different individual in my own life, every minute, every second, are in the business of the emotions and out of, happiness of balance of payments. When he let his hand down happiness became the prey, "hard-pressed to" become a luxury, then "happiness" will be reduced to "everyday", and daily is to let people ignore, play, but also rely on depend on. Only when it has become the daily threat of happiness, happiness of ownership would go to serious defend-" defend "have become people to happiness the only thing to do. But fortunately, the loss of happiness, people still have at least "defend" the appeal and the enthusiasm. But the problem is that while people are prepared to defend happiness or "forced" to defend happiness, often in time to consider all the "happiness" is worth defending. Because people make it as daily for too long and too long, and the happiness in daily coat has evolved into the other kinds of things. So, in fact, even defending, the result will be a happy reconstruction.
That if happiness was missing? The natural cannot talk about "defend", only--back to the starting point-reached. That is better than "defend" pure much more things. This is our Sy.
Sy happiness to every bit of less happiness were all carefully collection, less to need to junk the flea market to "pick" a "dead mother", less to this little business happiness once be destroyed, even if is the happiness of the parties by internal damage, he shall take the destruction of your life to "teach" the danger of the happiness of destruction (the teaching method of puzzling and heartache).
If this is thriller, thriller that is life itself.
Feng Yang
ReplyDeleteC06087996
ONE HOUR PHOTO (2002)
No matter it is Sy or the family that Sy chose to peep at as his happiness reflection, anyone of them is existed in the false impression of happiness. It is the dilemma, a problem of how to survive. There are several different selves living in the same physical body, everyday and everytime, operating the feelings, happiness and other “balanced assets”. When the well-being is within reach of the prey, it is luxuries to choose happiness over luxuries. Happiness "will be reduced to" normal “level and everyday people ignore these things, but they also need to rely on it. This has become a daily happiness which might be threatened, the happy possessor would become really serious in terms of defending, and which to "defend" it became the only thing they would be happy to do. However, we should feel glad that at least when it was the time to lose happiness, people are about to defend their aspirations and passion. But t he problem is that when people are ready to defend their well-being or are "forced" to defend their well-being, they often engage in a timely manner to began to think about "happiness" and the problems of whether it is worthwhile to defend it. Because people has been doing this for so long that this happiness has already evolved into the guise of something else. So, in fact, even defended, the result will be a happy reconstruction
One Hour Photo
ReplyDeleteThe most surprising aspect of the film is, undoubtedly, Robin Williams’ performance. I’ve always seen him as an actor capable of anything, and my thoughts about him were verified by his strong and utterly creepy performance. He portrays a very lonely man in One Hour Photo, living vicariously through the images left by a family, slowly unraveling their secrets unknowingly before his eyes. He appreciates the family and longs to be significantly closer to them, rather than obsess over them from a distance. The open ending with the image leaves much to the imagination of the viewer. I feel like it was all in his mind. His past with his father implies that he was traumatized at such an early age, leading to him being obsessed with photography, but the beautiful side, not the broken side. While his father stole his childhood and fractured his memories, he wants to look into the images of people who don’t know the broken side, which is why he’s thrown off when he finds the husband of the perfect family isn’t so perfect after all. He’s trying to replace his tragic memories with new ones, which is why the open ending might be a part of his mind after all.
After watching "one hour photo" really want to find a clear version of the collection! Not because of how wonderful the film, the end of the film trying to express meaning. But thehero of something touched me.
ReplyDeleteHe loves the photos, not narcissistic, nor is it a love of photography, just becausepeople want a souvenir in the photographic record of the person or thing, he believed thatthe photos tell him something, he happy to dilute their loneliness.
He said: "These photographs bear witness to the passage of time, as long as ashutter, flash light, so stop, though only a brief moment, but this photo some importantmessage from generation to generation handed down until the future. ..... "
"Little things people do not take pictures, but these little things is what our lives a true reflection."
"I have here ... I exist ... I was very young ... I'm very happy, but there are other people care about this world I care to captured my Photos ...... "
Lonely life he did not know what is happiness, when 20 years of photo Members ofthis in a supermarket. Over the years, when he looks at who patrons, the family photos ofa beautiful mistress: from couples marriage, to the little guy was born to the ninth birthdayof the little boy ... full of warm affection photos let him determine if this is a happy family.He admired them, can not help but sneak a collection of hundreds of their photos, andfantasy is a family. The hero did not find is this: in modern society, the appearance of the sentimental willalways hide some of the state and stain. Everyone will camouflage, they just want toleave they want to stay or want to show the others to see, perhaps not even deliberate, in front of the lens, most people will be showing off the smile ... may lead to the finaloutcome of the hero's fatal to it!
“One Hour Photo” is a psychological thriller about a lonely man, Sy Parrish, who is obsessed with a family he sees as “perfect”. The film does an excellent job of bringing the viewer into Sy’s bizarre, solitary world. Sy’s world is painted with cool colors and lighting while the colors used around the family he wants to be a part of, the Yorkin family, are warm and earthy. There are many other contrasts used to depict the differences between Sy’s life and the Yorkins’ lives.
ReplyDeleteRobin Williams pulled off the role of Sy very well. I ended up feeling profoundly sorry for Sy. The fantasies he has of joining the Yorkin family, doing simple things with them, being called “Uncle” were especially poignant. Of course there is a more sinister side to Sy which Williams pulls off equally well. Both sides combined to create a very real character.
I liked the film because of its emotional impact. After witnessing Sy’s heartbreaking isolation I literally had to call my family and just say hi. “One Hour Photo” truly captures the essence of loneliness, both the pitiful side and the creepy side.
I absolutely loved One Hour Photo. It takes a hell of a lot of talent for comedic actors to pull off dramatic roles, but Robin Williams succeeds flawlessly. Williams plays Sy Parrish, a lonely photo-lab operator who overtime becomes obsessed with the Yorkin family, one of his regular customers, and eventually becomes a little too involved with their lives. Williams does a fantastic job of realizing the character of Sy. My heart was aching for the poor guy-- he was lonely, friendless, and simply misunderstood. The screenplay, coloring, and costuming of the film was brilliant, but I personally believe Williams' believable yet shocking performance was by far the best part.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this movie. The start of the movie did not foreshadow any of what the movie ended up being. I was very surprised by the ending and loved how the movie had so many twists in it because it really captured my attention and made me excited to be watching it. Robin Williams exceeded my expectations for his acting performance in that certain role. Many people believe that he has a stigma around him and that he can only act in one certain type of film, but this movie completely blows that out of the water. He took on a role of an estranged, lonely, and disturbed man and really convinced the audience that he was that kind of person. The way that he stalked the family and even pretended that he was part of the family too added even more to the creepiness of the movie. I was shocked by the husband cheating on his wife and how Sy reacted to the problem. The naked picture scene was also very shocking to see but really had a huge impact in the movie. Lastly, the color schemes in the movie made it believable and interesting. Every time Sy was shown, or his belongings, the shot had an overtone of white or a pale blue, showing that Sy was very plain and did not have much excitement. On the opposite end, every time the family was shown the colors were extremely vibrant and colorful showing that the family was full of new life and love and care. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie and would even watch it again.
ReplyDeleteAlexandra Ball
C07809270
Michael Lerer
ReplyDeleteI was really excited to see the movie One Hour Photo. The only time I’d ever seen Robin Williams act serious before was in the movie Good Will Hunting, and while his performance was amazing it still wasn’t a completely serious part. Because of this I was excited to see a movie where at no point was Robin Williams acting as the funny guy. This movie did not disappoint. The acting in this movie was great by all the characters. Each character fitting comfortably into the part they were given. Sy’s character was the mystery of the movie. The whole movie I asked myself; why does he act the way he does. His character clearly wasn’t just a sociopath that did what he wanted; he was clearly someone who experienced some kind of tragedy. This is all explained at the end when he tells about his abusive childhood. It is truly the story of a broken man.
Something else I enjoyed in this movie was that they shot fantasy and imagination the same as reality. One scene I particularly liked was when Sy fantasizes about breaking into their house. While being creepy it was also funny in a way, especially when the family comes home and greets him warmly, letting the viewer know this is in fact a fantasy.
One hour photo
ReplyDelete“One hour photo” is a psychological thriller that manages to create a strong reaction in the audience, or at least it did with me. I really liked this movie because of all the surprising events and the twists it had. I was always expecting something to happen but the movie found its way to astonish me. The end of it caught my attention cause of the way the characters design their destiny. I consider that this train of actions was certainly unexpected and surprising.
On the other hand, Robin Williams who plays the character of Seymour Parrish did an amazing job. It is not shocking that Williams always delivers and excellent work but in this movie he went beyond all parameters. He is the reason why the movie is so special and good.
I also couldn’t keep noticing the use of the lights and the effect these had on the whole scenario. I have a vivid memory of the scene where Seymour is on his knee facing the police and the light is facing the camera, it made that moment vital and impacting. I would really recommend this movie not only for all of its good technical uses but because it narrates a unique story.
I was surprised to have never heard of the movie "One Hour Photo" before this class. The character that Robin Williams portrays is anything but what a typical Williams film represents. Seymour, the bleach blonde, stocky and alienated character brings us into the world of a film a developer.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite, yet disturbing images, in the film is when Williams is dreaming and is in the middle of the store with white light surrounding him and the shelves of the store. As the camera moves closer to him Williams covers his eyes, as blood gushes out from them. This scene displays eccentric color with bright whites and deep reds. With great imagery and a unique story line I do recommend this creepy tale that leaves the audience not wanting to get their pictures developed!
The strangest part of this movie is also the best part of this film, and that’s having Robin Williams be not only serious but also a deranged bad guy. The reason I was interested in this movie was to see Robin Williams in a completely role and he performed it to perfection. He pulled off a lonely and sort of invisible character. The idea of this movie is a really good one because you really had to trust the people who developed your film because most people couldn’t do it themselves. You wouldn’t think in a million years that the person developing your film would be a crazy stalker. This movie made me forget that Williams is a comedian. He is so different in this movie that when his image of perfection in the Yorkin family is shattered, he goes to a level of disturbed I never could have imagined Robin Williams doing. There are other interesting parts of this film but seeing the same actor that played the genie in Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire and other hilarious characters blew my mind to the point that he is the main point that needs to be discussed in this film. I hope to see him in more roles like this in future because of how spectacular he was in this film.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first saw the trailer for One Hour Photo, I thought it was going to be a thriller/horror movie. I thought there would be chase scenes, and violent killing, and stuff along those lines. Instead, it turned out to be a drama revolving around a very intriguing main character. Robin Williams, who normally plays comedic roles, is Seymour, a photo technician at a placed called “SavMart.” He is a very lonely man who is obsessed with the Yorkin family, loyal clients of the one-hour photo at savmart. Sy longs to break his everlasting loneliness and wants nothing more than to be a part of their family. While at first he seems like a very creepy person, especially after the seen showing the collage of all the photos he has taken of the Yorkin family, as the film goes on you start to feel bad for him. All he wants to do is feel as though he is a part of a family, and doesn't want to be by himself for the remainder of his life. The Yorkin family is his idea of the perfect family, the one thing Sy wants more than anything in the world. That makes it all the more understandable when Sy goes crazy after he finds out the father is cheating on his wife. Sy does what he does because he wants to teach the father a lesson and shame him. Will had everything Sy had ever wanted, and he just threw it all away. He is a very sympathetic character. I believe deep down we all have a fear of having no one to care about us, no one to love us. One Hour Photo takes that fear, and makes it a reality for one unfortunate individual, who in the end, you cannot help but feel bad for.
ReplyDeleteMichelle Yidios
ReplyDeleteOne hour photo
Wow I don’t even know where to start. This movie reminds me of my childhood. I remember I saw it when I was about 11 years old and it stayed in my memory since. When I saw it in class I was amazed on how much I remembered from it because it really did mark me. I love this movie a lot. It’s a psychological thriller that was filmed in 2002 and directed by Mark Romanek. Sy is the photo technician from Savmart and was completely obsessed with the Yorkin family. During the movie I was nervous and intense even though I kind of knew what was going to happen. The movie catches people’s attention so much that you feel the thriller. The color white dominated a lot, especially when the scene was about Sy. I get scared to think there are people like that in the real world; even though people now use digital cameras you never know who is watching you. Sy definitely has a problem, his obsession with this family takes him to do a collage of all the pictures they have taken. It is very creepy to see how he manages to discover Will having an affair with Ninas friend by how much he as observed the pictures. I will see it again. The music plays well along with the scenes.
Lonely life he did not know what is happiness, when 20 years of photo Members of this in a supermarket. Over the years, when he looks at who patrons, the family photos of a beautiful mistress: from couples marriage, to the little guy was born to the ninth birthday of the little boy ... full of warm affection photos let him determine if this is a happy family. He admired them, can not help but sneak a collection of hundreds of their photos, and fantasy is a family.
ReplyDeleteHe went into this, they lost the work he loves. But really let him complete collapse is he even found the man of the house the night of the dismissal, even having an affair! He is convinced that the so-called happiness - smile in the picture, behind even the hidden betrayal and hypocrisy! His dreams shattered, and he thinks this is all to blame this man of the house, he decided to revenge! But he looks very bizarre revenge, and left him in jail - or rescue him from the abyss.
I have been very fond of photos, likes and looked at pictures and try to figure out the scene at that time, guess which character's personality. Always aspire to have a camera, can record anywhere good things, retaining the time of a sec. Precisely because of this in common, will make the film has touched it! The hero to find pictures of a gentle woman in the old commodity markets and deliberately told the lady of the house of his mother's time for me to not help being moved. This is how lonely and vulnerable!
The hero did not find is this: in modern society, the appearance of the sentimental will always hide some of the state and stain. Everyone will camouflage, they just want to leave they want to stay or want to show the others to see, perhaps not even deliberate, in front of the lens, most people will be showing off the smile ... may lead to the final outcome of the hero's fatal to it!
I really enjoyed One Hour Photo. It was a joy to watch Robin Williams step outside of his usual role and play a character who is tortured by loneliness and a messed up childhood. Williams did an excellent job at earning sympathy from the audience. While his character was creepy and a very realistic nightmare, he had good intentions and had an almost child-like innocence to him. Even as he held a knife to Will Yorkin and his lover, the scare he evoked was not because he came off as a serial killer, it was because he seemed troubled, unsure and scared. He knew he wanted to punish Yorkin for his infidelity, but he did not actually want to hurt anyone because that's just who he is. His character sees the life of the Yorkin family through the photographs that he develops, and he longs to be a part of their seemingly perfect family. Composed of beautiful people and a house that looks like it came out of a magazine, the Yorkins are actually anything but perfect. Their seemingly perfect appearance is only a superficial cover to the marital problems this family struggles with. However, Sy (Robin Williams) doesn't realize these imperfections in the Yorkin family until he develops a roll of film revealing Will's infidelity. Obsessed with the idea of the Yorkin's being a perfect family, and put over the top by being let go from his job, Sy sets out to make the Yorkin family perfect again. There was one scene in the movie that I thought didn't fit- the nightmare sequence when Sy's eyes explode with blood. I'm not sure if this was included to try to make this movie hold truer to the thriller/horror genre, but I thought that scene held no significance to the rest of the film. Overall, it was an interesting movie that kept viewers engaged. I would recommend this film to a friend.
ReplyDeleteWhen I went to watch this movie I had no idea what it was about. However, this movie was awesome. I enjoyed it a lot. It was intense and very creepy. This movie really made me reflect on this world and think about how possible it is for this to occur in real life. Your local photo guy could be stalking you right now and you wouldn't even know.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy these types of movies and this one is one that I would want to watch again. Robin Williams was amazing and he fit the role of this creepy man perfectly. He was great when he would act perfectly normal and charming when people were around, especially the family that he was stalking, but when they weren't around he changed into a weird and crazy man. One of my favorite scenes was when he makes it obvious to the husband that he has been stalking him.
I would recommend this movie to any horror/intense movie watcher. I know that I am going to be watching this one again.
One Hour Photo
ReplyDeleteThis was one of my favorite movies we have watched for this class. Robins Williams was an amazing actor in this and he was the perfect creepy guy. This was one of my more favorite roles he has been in. In a creepy way it makes you think about all the people around you and what they could be doing. This movie had my attention the whole way through, wondering what extremes would be taken. It almost brings you into Sy’s mind understanding the stalking of this “perfect” family. It makes you feel bad that someone is that lonely and crazy. I would definitely recommend this movie to people.
One Hour Photo was easily one of my favorite movies we viewed in class. Growing up, I was a big Robin Williams fan and enjoyed both his comedies and his more dramatic roles. However, I remember having no interest in seeing One Hour Photo when it came out as it looked creepy and weird. While that might be true, it was also a very riveting movie. The two main reasons for this from my perspective were Robin William’s performance and the way the film was shot. Williams, whose character’s name is Sy, plays a clerk at a one hour photo stand in a grocery store. They slightly altered his appearance in the film, and while it is easily recognizable as being Robin Williams, something about the transformation makes him look much creepier. Sy is a very quiet and meticulous person who basically learns the details of all of his customers lives through their photos, and becomes obsessed with one “perfect” family in particular, and Williams does a great job making that obsession feel real. Lastly, the way the film was shot, with extremely meticulous and clean-cut imagery and scenery, was almost mesmerizing to me. It seemed as if they were trying to show the film through Sy’s viewpoint, and for me it was a very powerful way of keeping my attention throughout the entire movie.
ReplyDeleteThis has been one of my favorite films of the semester. The actor who played Sy did a wonderful job. I never thought about the guy who ran the photos back in the day when they were still on film. After a course of photography film in high school I can understand the work Sy put into his job due to the time consuming job of film development. His love for the family was a little creepy but necessary in order for the movie to work. The thing I thought was a little faulty was when the boy didn't accept Sy's gift in the park. Most kids, no matter how well mannered, always accept gifts. It was a great plot and if I understood the movie correctly then it turns out Sy was molested as a child by his father which gave Sy a great outlook on life and the value of love for kids.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved One Hour Photo. I'd heard of it before, but never really paid it much attention. Seeing such a dark side of Robin Williams really helped me appreciate the diversity that not many actors are capable of achieving. I enjoyed the sharp contrast of warm and cool colors throughout, namely during the scene where he leaves the shop. I remember thinking the vacuum cleaners were a bit out of place, but the bright and endless fires on the TV screens really got the point across without having to spoon feed it to the audience. I think the costuming was flawless, albeit a bit simple. A hair dye kind of made him a whole new person to me, so I ably watched his performance without bias or comparisons to his other work. I'm not one for suspense or thrillers, but One Hour Photo exceeded my expectations and made me love Williams even more. I also took a photography class in high school, so I highly agree with the aforementioned comment about relating to Sy's dedication to the craft.
ReplyDeleteJeffrey Kaminski - C09409163
ReplyDeleteOne Hour Photo was a fantastic movie. To begin, the plot and general idea of the movie is just spectacular. The idea that your local photo developer may be actually searching and looking through your photos is creepy, and this movie captures this perfectly. You do not need a crazy horror flick to be genuinely scared, and this movie proves that. I believe that Robin Williams as an actor is underrated as he performs his role amazingly in this movie, this shows his other acting abilities that people tend to overlook. I absolutely loved the opening when Sy is speaking about photography, he basically says that if aliens or something came to our planet and saw our photos then they would think that we lived in a perfect society free of violence or sadness or pain and that everyone was always happy and was had fun; this is since nobody ever takes photos of anything bad in our lives. I thought this prospective on photography was so true and enlightening. Overall, I really liked this film. It is a different, simpler form of horror that is much more realistic than today's "horror" films.
The first thing I did before watching One Hour Photo was completely rid myself of the comedic image on Robin Williams. Although he normally features in comedies I didn’t want this to ruin the film, as I wanted to take him seriously. Robin Williams plays Sy, a Wal_Mart employee who works at a one-hour photo-developing lab. He learns about his customers through looking at their photos but is especially obsessed with the Yorkin family. Although Sy is clearly a modern day psycho the film is shown through his view and this made me sympathize with him. We see him by himself in his drab living room with only his pet hamster for company.
ReplyDeleteOne of the greatest aspects of the film was the brilliant use of mise-en-scene. The recurring color was an off white color. For example his living room walls were white, his Toyota was white, Sy himself was a pale man. At times Sy would almost blend in with the surroundings and I feel the public would find him invisible. I feel this represented the boredom that Sy goes through. Wal-Mart has a pale white and blue color scheme as well which added to the mise-en-scene effect.
The film opened my eyes to how much people can learn about your lives. I never thought of how much even a photo developer can learn about you. I enjoyed this thriller because there was an eerie realness about the whole film.
Nicholas Sando
C10186082
One Hour Photo:
ReplyDeleteI am really going to have to re-consider where I go next time I have to get my photos developed. Robin Williams, who deviates from his typical role as being the comical, witty funny man, to being an eerily creepy photo developer. Williams definitely delivers an impressive performance, but his notable acting was slightly overshadowed by the unevenness of the movie. It seemed as if the film was cut into two parts: the first part was like a study into the mind of an obsessive person isolated from the rest of society and the other half was essentially a thriller. One of the most frightening aspects of One Hour Photo is the realism of everything. It takes place in such an ordinary environment, with seemingly ordinary people. The movie really makes the audience wonder about how the average person working at your local supermarket can turn out to be a psychopath. One Hour Photo does an effective job in showing the dark side of people. Furthermore, the clever use of camerawork throughout enhances the creepy tone of the film.
One Hour Photo is a very creepy and weird movie. Robin Williams plays Sy, who develops photos. He loves his job, and it brings him the only joy in his life. Outside of work, he lives a very lonely and sad life. He has no family or anybody to keep him company, so he develops an unhealthy obsession with the Yorkin family. The obsession is so intense and psychotic, that I expect something horrible to happen, which eventually does. He is so deranged that he envisions himself as a part of their family, since he watches all of their life through their photographs. In a way, it’s sad that they mean so much to him, yet he is just the “photo guy” to them. The lighting and colors in the movie set the tone for a psycho movie in a way, because all of the white and brightness surrounding Sy in the store remind me of a mental institution.
ReplyDeleteI must first comment on Robin Williams acting in One Hour Photo. Robin Williams is one of those characters you never really see doing a serious movie, and when you think of him you think of Mrs. Doubfire, Night at the Museum, Flubber and Jumanji—he is a natural goofy character. So, when you see him acting as a lonely, isolated, creep you feel a little uneasy and weird. But fortunately he did a great job and conveyed the emotions the director was probably hoping he would.
ReplyDeleteWith his haircut and clothing, he already is illustrated as a creep. He always wears beige and neutral colors, kind of blending in with the background, as if he is nobody. Even the colors in his house match his blank and neutral style. His house seems empty, spacious and isolated, just like the character. The use of shots where his character is centered makes him seem even more distant to reality and social interactions. For example, in the scene where he gets fired and is leaving the department store, the camera centers on him walking through the isles, which are very contrasting to him since they are colorful and filled with products while he is neutral colored and empty.
The movie deals with search for comfort, family and betrayal. All these themes are resolved at the end when the policeman who is interrogating him says that he understands why he did what he did.
The format of the movie, where it starts with the end gives the movie the wrap up it needs. Since we see Seymour Parrish telling his story of why he did what he did since the beginning, we know we will come back to it at the end, which we do, and it helps us understand the movie better.
In my opinion, this is the best performance I’ve seen by Robin Williams. I was used to seeing him in comedies but he did an excellent job in getting rid of that stereotype during this film. Instead of being the funny guy that he usually is, he was creepy and sinister. The make-up and characterization made him look even scarier. One Hour Photo was one of my favorite films from the ones we watched during this class. I was emerged into the movie while I was watching it. Some parts were suspenseful but it helped to keep the audience’s complete attention. I was intrigued and wanted to know what was going to happen next. The mise-en scene, design, and composition of the film added to the suspense and scary feel of the film. They expressed the movie’s vision and mood. Also, one of the parts that was very creepy was when Robin Williams’ character, Sy, goes to get the knife while he was at the store. After a very tense moment I was relieved when I realized the knife was a mcguffin because it didn’t get used. I would definitely watch this movie again and recommend it to my friends and family. However, after watching this movie I will never see the people who work in the pictures section of stores as harmless ever again.
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ReplyDeleteMatthew Head
Robin Williams was terrifying! One Hour photo was great, it was one of the creepiest movies i've seen in a while, granted I dont watch scary movies. Robin Williams had great performance, not only was Robin Williams good but the music and sets stood out to me. Everything was colorless in the movie including Robin Williams. the music was creepy built a lot of tension. My favorite scene was the scene where Robin Williams got fired and is walking through the store and gets the knife. I suggest you re watch that scene. The music reminded me of the music in tron legacy. For a lot of the movie however I was confused by Sy's motives. I had no clue what he was planning on doing the entire movie, which kept me interested. I think that the audience sympathizes a little too much with Sy, he's actually pretty creepy. Another scene that I loved was when he was driving back from work in the tunnel, I thought the cinematography was great. All around great movie.
In One Hour Photo, a thriller by Mark Romanek, Robin Williams, who plays Sy, puts on a flawless performance. Although the audience initially perceives Sy as being an older, creepy man, there is an underlying feeling of sympathy for Sy. Even though Sy obsesses over and essentially spies on the Yorkin Family, it is almost as if he means well and has the right intentions, but does not know how to properly act upon his feelings. The underlying emotional connection to Sy if further developed when the audience is able to imply that Sy was wrongly photographed as a child. This realization explains for the odd behavior and allows the audience to see the where the motives of Sy’s actions derived from.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the great acting by Robin Williams, I thought the way the sets were built were effective in conveying different feelings to the audience. I believe that the setting of SavMart, although it may seem subtle to some, played a key role in creating a creepy, eerie mood throughout the film. The store was organized perfectly to a point where the store looked too perfect, almost as if something was not right. This particular set created an eerie feeling within the mind of the viewer and ultimately, made the film feel more like a thriller.
One hour photo
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It is not only a tragedy of a man, but a tragedy of a society,
The major character loves the photos, not narcissistic, nor is it a love of photography, just because people want a souvenir in the photographic record of the person or thing, he believed that the photos tell him something, he happy to dilute their loneliness. Lonely life he did not know what is happiness, when 20 years of photo Members of this in a supermarket. Over the years, when he looks at who patrons, the family photos of a beautiful mistress: from couples marriage, to the little guy was born to the ninth birthday of the little boy ... full of warm affection photos let him determine if this is a happy family. He admired them, can not help but sneak a collection of hundreds of their photos, and fantasy is a family.
He went into this, they lost the work he loves. But really let him complete collapse is he even found the man of the house the night of the dismissal, even having an affair! He is convinced that the so-called happiness - smile in the picture, behind even the hidden betrayal and hypocrisy! His dreams shattered, and he thinks this is all to blame this man of the house, he decided to revenge! But he looks very bizarre revenge, and left him in jail - or rescue him from the abyss.
This movie is a tensed, low-key thriller featuring Robin Williams. Williams run the photo-processing department of a large departmental store. He takes great pride in his work and his highly dedicated in his job. Nina and Will Yorkin are Williams favourite customer. They are an attractive couple with a nine-year-old boy. Since Jake- the young boy was born, the Yorkins would frequently drop off film for processing, and Williams dotes on Yorkins and their son. Nina and Will were kind to Williams attention, regarding him as a harmless eccentric. However, they were ignorant of the fact that William would make a copy of each of their photos and consider himself as an old member of the family. William-Sy, reality begins to collapse when he learns that Will is unfaithful to Nina. He reaches the breaking point when he loses his job.
ReplyDeleteHolly Bensur
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I left the screening of One Hour Photo utterly frightened. I am never having my prints printed by the same place more than once. Not really, but that is how I felt right after seeing this movie.
I think that One Hour Photo is intended to make the audience reconsider how private they think their lives really are. You might think that you and your family are safe. But how do you really ever know for sure that someone like Sy is not actually watching your every move? And further more, how far does their obsession extend and how far are they willing to go?
I think Sy was so psychologically involved with the Yorks that he felt like he was part of the family. The last image of the film is a picture of Sy with the Yorks. So when he found the pictures of Will, Sy felt the need to punish him for not fully appreciating the life he has been given – a beautiful house, a loving wife, a nice son, and a good job. Why would anyone want to risk giving that up? Maybe One Hour Photo is trying to tell the audience that while temptation is always around us, if you give into it, karma will always come back to get you. Maybe not as severe as the events Sy puts Will and Maya through, but consequences nonetheless.
One hour photo,
ReplyDeleteThe plot of the movie is interesting, however I thing the pace is slow which bored me. I thing the theme of the movie is very psychological, because is showing you how sometimes the mind of a lonely man works. It's a tragedy how the character of Robin Williams, figure outs that "his perfect family" wasn't perfect at all, due to the affair that Will had with Maya, driving him even more crazy. It is interesting how Sy imagined himself in different scenarios though the photos he took for this family. Also in my personal opinion, this film made me realized that some people feel alone in this world, and is time to start carrying more for others. About the technical aspects, I thing the movie was well filmed, with the correct costume, production and set design, the only thing I would change was to made some shots shorter, or even make the pace much faster in order to have the attention of the spectators all the time. Then end is very unexpected for me, when he says that he is only taking a photo, but I thing that at that point Sy was doing very irrational things, this movie shows you the extremes of a society.
Nathanael Skinner
ReplyDeleteI didn't really enjoy this film. Then ending was very ambiguous, and didn't leave a finite ending; which is ok, but I didn't think it suited this film. There were times when I was disturbed by this film, like when Williams gets access to the families house, and just the thought of him creeping on the families photos is creepy.
Honestly the whole time I was just creeped out by williams character, it made it hard to pay attention to the rest of the movie.
I very much enjoyed One Hour Photo. Robin Williams did a superb job portraying an obsessive photo developer and his performance did much to enhance what wouldn't otherwise be a remarkable storyline. The fact that Robin Williams mostly plays in comedies made his role as a dysfunctional individual that much more powerful, as the audience felt uncomfortable not just because of the character he was portraying, but because of who was portraying him.
ReplyDeleteBeyond Robin Williams, the coloring of the movie was quite good. Sy looks constantly faded out, sort of uninteresting and tired. This strongly improves his character and makes him very interesting to watch. Sy's apartment is similarly faded, with the exception of the wall of photographs he has collected.
One Hour Photo creates a very eerie feel, drawing in the viewer and making them increasingly uncomfortable as the film progresses, until it ultimately reaches its conclusion.
In the introduction of the movie, I was very expecting the movie because Robin Williams is starring in the film. He is very famous as a comedy actor and usually take very naïve and fun characters. However, In this film, He took a part of character who is very creepy and lonely and finally end up arrested for a menace suspicion. Actually, It was released in Korea as the title of ‘Stalker’. I think this title just underestimate the base of Sy’s emotions and feelings toward Nina’s family which included the loneliness of middle aged man and eagerness of participating in the family as one of members.
ReplyDeleteIt started from his hobby which is collecting other’s pictures while working. However, Sy’s special attachment to Nina’s family made him stalk and intervene the family’s affair. I think If he approach them in a right way and express his wish that he wanted to get in touch with them, Sy’s obsession will be resolved happily.
The entire atmosphere of the movie was very tense and creepy because of his obsession and sudden behaviors. However, these suspenseful scenes might catch people’s mind
In the movie One Hour Photo Sy is a lonely man with no family or friends, who lives by himself but works as a photo technician who develops pictures at the one hour photo center. Due to his past he became a depressing man and admires people with family and friends. Since his family was not so great he wanted to escape his past by having fantasies. He would collect pictures of the Yorkin family throughout the years they have been developing their pictures at the photo center. He grew an obsession of the Yorkin family happiness and wished he was a part of their happy family. When Sy found out that Will Yorkin, the husband, was cheating on his wife he hated Will and wanted to live his life. Sy felt as though Will was taking his family for granted. Even though in the movie the lonely man was weird I felt as though the movie had a good meaning behind it, family and friends are important and we should appreciate that because there are people out there who does not have a happy family or friends.
ReplyDeleteWephnirva Nonord
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One Hour Photo
ReplyDeleteHappiness is like the candy in the hands of a poor kid. We tried to cherish happiness when we realize this, and I feel sad that someone is trying his best to cherish those moments. In fact, the woman and the old man in the film who developed photos were both aware of this - the woman is aware of the subconscious, who chose tolerance when the truth was exposed because of the fragile nature of a good woman. The old man is significant consciously aware of this, so he knew what he is doing. That is why he was easily excited and always strive to do something for any one of the three when he met them. The old man and the woman are both main character, but the woman's role is hidden, she was responsible for the burden of all keynote handed over to the old man, such a contradictory conflict can be more focused to the outbreak; reflect a step-by-step through the woman's indifference forced the old man eventually go "crazy" move. So that the story would be simple and neat, without losing strength.
One hour photo
ReplyDeleteThis film give me a enlightenment is that we don't think life is a unrealistic illusion, don't fantasy perfect life, because it doesn't exist, and don't fear the life is not perfect and regret, and can't put the real life, we have to do is to simply put into a real life, understand the essence of life, experience it's not perfect yet filled with the hope of life, live in the present moment, when we when u look back, we will not because our pain and made a mistake and regret, because we at least life...
From my perspective, the hero of the film actually not a bad man. Instead, he is strict in his work, the people polite, for the good things full of expectations, but he was himself the paranoid personality and unrealistic visions of life destroyed, character is destiny, this is reasonable, when the film we saw the end of peace and dull character expression, we do not have the anger, some just little sour, I think this time he also finally from their own wake up, to understand what is life, originally fate he opened a with a joke... It's over, but real life and how many people are suffering from the same suffer, some people are walking in the same dangerous road, some people suddenly realize, began to examine yourself and look at your life, and some people although understand, but already too late...
One of the first things that pops out when you watch One Hour Photo is the style. Everything seems glossy and the colors are radiant as well as the overall layout being very clean. This sets the creepy tone that is require to picture Robin Williams as a one-hour photo stand manager that is very odd.
ReplyDeleteIndeed Sy is an odd character. Sy becomes attached when processing a woman Nina’s photos of her and her family. It is interesting that Sy gets an intimate look into the lives of this family and can tell what they are really like, while they do not know the real Sy. They think he is some friendly, enjoyable photo clerk. Sy longs to be part of a family, he is lonely which is why he produces the copies of the family photos to keep at his apartment. Sy becomes obsessed with the family and soon realizes it is not the perfect family that he thought it was. Once Sy realizes that Nina’s husband Will is not the perfect husband he thought he was, but is having an affair, Sy feels he must personally take it upon himself to expose it. It is on this mission that he is arrested and you find out Sy was a victim of child pornography.
My initial reaction to seeing the trailer for “One Hour Photo” was surprise. In my eyes, and the eyes of many others, the comedic genius Robin Williams seemed to be a weird fit for Sy’s “creeper” role. Having said that, after seeing the film I believe that director Mark Romanek made the perfect decision for the role. Williams’s performance is by far the most impressive aspect of the film. I specifically loved his use of subtle anxious mannerisms, which help the viewer understand Sy’s awkward nature. Perhaps the most impressive part of Williams’s performance was that as a viewer I still felt compassion for Sy, even as his behavior grew to be increasingly disturbing. Sy’s relationship with the Yorkin family develops from an innocent interest to brighten up his lonely life into a psychological obsession that leads him into a mental breakdown and eventually gets him arrested. Sy views the affluent Yorkin family as the representation of the “American dream” and he yearns to fill his empty life with the love that he imagines the Yorkin’s must feel for each other. As viewers we learn that Sy's obsession with the Yorkin family stems from damaging childhood trauma. His father took inappropriate pictures of him when he was a child which is a clear source of Sy's social and mental problems. After discovering that Will is having an affair he is shattered because he realizes that everything he dreamt of was a façade. Romanek’s choice for an ending left me very frustrated and unfulfilled because I think the film would have definitely benefitted from having a more conclusive ending rather than an ambiguous one. Overall I thought the film was decent but was mainly kept afloat by Robin Williams brilliant performance.
ReplyDeleteI was very impressed with how well this film kept me interested. Initially, it was a little uncomfortable accepting that the main character was such a creeper. But once I got beyond that, the beauty of the writing and the great acting of Robin Williams kept me inside the story.
ReplyDeleteIt is your classic stalker drama, however, Robin Williams plays the stalker role in a way that makes the viewer sorry for him. I wanted to see Sy get his life together and connect with people. But he eventually ruins any chance at social sanity by becoming more disturbed, and forcing the Yorkin family to fulfill his strange fantasies.
One hour photo
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy movies that provide a different landscape for a well known actor or figure, that completely derails you as a viewer of what your expectations were of that actor. Robin Williams does that in this film. Instead of playing his usual over the top eccentric self, Robin commits himself very well to a shy, damaged, and possibly insane man, and performs the role extremely well.
What one hour photo does really well is it gives you an image of a man that is damaged, but it also gives you sympathy to him. You see a man that is doing all these wrong and weird things, but it gives you a viewpoint into his life leaving you to understand more about why he is doing it and what his intentions behind it are. It also shows you his point of view of things, form the orderliness of the supermarket to other parts of his surroundings, you feel you are stepping into the psyche of a man who sees the world differently.
One Hour Photo
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Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo is a psychological thriller that is steeped in mise en scene. In the film Robin Williams portrays Sy, a lonely photo technician who lives vicariously through the photos he develops. Williams performance is dark slightly unnerving, very different from the typical comedy roles audiences are accustomed to seeing him in. Throughout the film we see Sy’s obsession with a family unfold, as he becomes more involved his life begins to unravel with Sy eventually forcing his way into the lives of those he so admires.
Mise en scene is an essential part of One Hour Photo. The store within Sy works gives the sense of your typical Target or Walmart. Everything is perfectly calculated and meticulously placed giving that bleached down feeling as you visually stroll through the store. It creates a sense of reality in the audience that this could be the supermart in your own town. This connection is vital in engaging members of the audience drawing them into the reality created by Romanek. I enjoyed One Hour Photo, I like to see actors take roles that others have deemed outside their niche. Robin Williams performance is what makes Sy such a captivating and intriguing character.
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ReplyDeleteFrom a bunch of detail such as the amount of films we can see Robin Williams is trying to a sneaking prick in the movie. His life is like a guard in the prison, trying to take a look at other people's pivacy. His body is just a piece of flesh without soul inside. I mean it is very interesting to see something so depressing like this. The sympathy of the film is another big thing. Like a returing result, Robin finds his wife is cheating on him with someone else. The idea of sympathy is really deep-going in people's mind. I was thinking about this all time after the show.
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