Robert Lee Zemeckis

Auteur Study

About Zemeckis

Robert Lee Zemeckis - (born May 14, 1951)First came to public attention after Directing “Back to the Future Part 1” in 1985

"the truth was that in my family there was no art. I mean, there was no music, there were no books, there was no theater....The only thing I had that was inspirational, was television—and it actually was."

Auteur Theory“Auteur Theory suggests that a director can use the commercial apparatus of film-making in the same way that a writer uses a pen or a painter uses paint and a paintbrush. It is a medium for the personal

artistic expression of the director. The film theorotician, André Bazin, explained that: auteur

theory was a way of  choosing the personal factor in artistic creation as a standard of referencce, and

then assuming that it continues and even progresses from one film to the next.”

Some of Zemeckis’s Films

"Marty [McFly] is [also] in a land where he's isolated. He's in another time zone," the director explains.

My Problematic

How does Robert Zemeckis portray isolation and loneliness within his films?

The Films I’am going to Study

• Cast Away

• Back to the Future 1

• Forrest Gump

Cast Away (2000)

Back to the Future 1 (1985)

Forrest Gump (1994)

Linking his life to problematic

• Did not have a lot of ways of expressing himself as a child

• Viewed the world through a TV screen.

• When they first got a video camera he would use it all the time.

Cast Away

• Chuck is stranded on the island completely isolated from civilisation

• Shown also to feel lonely as he misses Kelly the love of his life

Analysis of scene

• 30.02 - 36.40 minutes

Sound

• There is no non-diegetic sound throughout this sequence or any time on the island

• The ambient sounds are amplified

• Almost no dialogue in this sequence

Camera Work

• Starts with close ups revealing more with each shot

• 360 degree pan from where he is standing

Editing

• Very long shot timings

• Slow paced

Mise-en-scene

Significant points in the film

• Creation of Wilson

• Maths equation

• Whale

• Opening packages

• Top of the cliff

• Getting angry at wilson

• Quote from near the end “I couldn't even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing”

Back to the future

Forrest gump