Amelie Characters

Amelie Poulain - a young woman who had grown up isolated from other children as she was believed to have a heart disease. Her mother died at a young age and her father became very unsociable. Feeling lonely pushed Amelie to have a very active imagination. Now she is 23 years old, and lives alone in a flat, working as a waitress in a cafe in Montmartre. She finds a treasure box and makes herself a promise: if she finds the owner of treasure box and he is happy, then she will devote her life to help bring happiness to others.  

Nino (Amelie's love interest) - he was also an outcast as a child and got bullied at school.

Amandine (Amelie’s Mother) - A mother to Amelia and a teach who died at a young age due to a tourist committing suicide and landing on top of her from the roof of a church. 

Raphael (Amelie’s Father) - A lonely widow who is very unsociable and spends all his time at home, he sorts out his garden and gnome.

Suzanne (Café Owner) - The manager of the cafe and Amelies boss.

Georgette (Tobacconist) - She is a hypochondriac who is constantly ill.

Gina (Waitress) - A coleage of Amelie who is constantly being stalked by her ex boyfriend, Joseph. She is known as being very tough.

Hopolito (Writer) - another regular at the cafe who is a struggling poet.

Joseph (Regular at Café) - The ex boyfriend of Gina who is always at the cafe, recording her every move. He give a sense of creep to the cafe but brings humour to the movie as a whole.

Philomene (Stewardess) - Amelie looks after her cat for her, as she is always travelling due to her job.

Raymond Dufayel (Glass Man) - Amelie's neighbour who paints the same picture by Renoi every year. He says there is one girl in the picture who's facial expression and emotion he can never get right and that it's like the girl has never played with other children. Amelie then responds with maybe the girl is different to other children. (this is a reference to Amelie's childhood) He is known as the glass man because of his brittle bone condition and seems quite gruff. 

Madeleine Wallace  (Concierge) - the concierge/land lady for the flats where Amelie lives. Amelie goes to her to find out who used to live in her apartment 50 years ago (so she can find out who owns the treasure box) and ends up finding out a lot about Madeleine. She is a divorcee who's husband left her for another woman. He then fled to America with the woman and died. Madeleine talks about how her name has meaning of water and tears and seems quite depressing while reading Amelie a letter from her husband. 

Collignon (Grocer) - he has been living in that area for a long time and knows many people. He is quite a mean and rude boss to his assistant, Lucian. Collignin's mother is the one who tells Amelie the name of the person who lived in her flat 50 years ago (the owner of the treasure box).

Lucien  (Grocer’s Assistant) - Collignon's assistant who is very quiet and soft spoken. He gets bullied by his boss.

Blind Man - Amelie finds him and sees him confused. She helps him cross the road and explains to him what's happening at that moment in time.

Bretodeau (Boy with the treasure) - Amelie finds a hidden treasure box, behind a tile in her bathroom when she is shocked by hearing the news of princess Diana's death and drops a bottle cap. The cap hits a tile which then falls, and Amelie finds the box hidden behind the tile. She goes on a search for Bretodeau and says to herself that if she can return the treasure box to it's origional owner then she will always do good things for other people. She returns the treasure box without Bretodeau knowing it was her.

Amelie Altruism

Amelie did many good deads throughout the movie such as:

• She returened Bretodeau's treasure box that he had hidden as a child.
• She helped a blind man cross a road and explained what is happening around him.
• Amelie got Joseph and Georgette together.
• Helped Lucien by changing Collignin's alarm so he became very tired and fell asleep so Lucien didn't have to put up with him. She also confused Collignin by switching his slippers with a different size which make collignin go crazy.
• Returned Nino's scrapbook of photo booth photographs.
• Helps Nino to figure out who the man in the reccuring photographs is (repair man).
• Got pictures of her father's gnome in different countries to encourage him to go away on holiday.
• She also wrote Hopolito's quote on a wall, which made Hopolito known people are reading and enjoying his stuff.
• She sent video's to Dufayel to make him laugh and encourage him to record other things rather than just the clock.

Mise-en-Scene

Lighting and Colour:
-Use of lighting and colour impacts the most on other elements of Mise-en-Scene. A simple shot of a church can be made threatening by flooding it with deep red light. Props such as statues and crucifixes become frightening and thus the Gothic Horror genre is signalled.

Colour:
-Colour has a big impact on our emotions and therefore on our understanding of a scene. These colours can be used symbolically, for example red symbolises love. Your understanding of the symbolism behind a colour may be influenced by our cultural background as different cultures have different associations with colour.

-Tints of colour can be added by film-marked when editing to create effects. The film Amelie has increased the colour saturation in order to give the film a more fantasy/animated feel/ In contrast the opening sequence from Saving Privet Ryan has de-saturated the colour. It's not quite black and white but the colour levels have been decreased.

Lighting:
Lighting help convey mood or atmosphere. Often our attention is drawn to a particular object or gesture that is important within the film's storyline. The film-maker can also use shadows to hide elements of the scene and create suspense.

If a film is shot in a studio, lights usually come from three different kinds:

• A back light
• A filler light
• A key light

High Key Lighting:
-Refers to a scene where lots of lights are included to create a colourful and/or bright environment. The key light is the main light used in a scene. This is a large light placed at the front, by the cameras. This is because lighting a subject from any other angle (back, side) will create a silhouette or deep shadow across the subject. Filler lights refers to the other lights used in a scene which removes any shadows.


Low Key Lighting:
-Is created by using only key and back lights, creating areas of both light and darkness. This lighting will/is used to create a specific atmosphere. For example the suspense of a thriller or the terror of a Horror. Furthermore it may be used a 'mood' lighting for a romantic scene.

Setting:
-A specific design or choice of location can be very important in/to a film. The setting is able to contribute to the narrative and furthers the audience's understanding of the film. In Thelma and Louise (1991),the two main protagonists are on the run across America, trying to avoid the Police.Eventually they arrive at the Grand Canyon which,in the context of the film's story,serves as a symbol of their quest of freedom. Setting also creates time and place. If set in a historical period, a certain amount of accuracy would be important to the audience.

Costume Props and Make-Up:
In everyday life we often judge people on first impressions.These impressions are formed by what people wear, what they carry, their make-up and hair. In media texts these things are important ways of telling us about different characters. These can change throughout a narrative to show us that things are changing for the characters.

Costume:
-Costume refers to the clothes worn by a character, this could mean mean the armour of Predator or a glamorous dress. It can tell us what people do or a job, if they are rich or poor and even gives us clues as to what type of person they are, for example the symbolic use of colour.

-For some characters, costume is essential both to the genre and the narrative. Spider man uses costume both to mask his identity and to work with his special powers. Superman switches from the business clothes of his day job, to his superhero clothes when he's about to use his powers.

-Costumes also works alongside setting to establish the historical setting of a text and aspects of individuals' characters within that place. Changes in the costume may be used to tell us about personality changes but also about time passing. In films like 'Titanic' costume initially portrays the glamour of the voyage. However when the disaster strikes and the characters have to fight to survive, costumes are torn and indicate the distress faced by the characters. In 'Titanic', Rose's costume is important in showing her social class but also how restricted she feels. At the beginning of the film she moves stiffly and seems to hide her clothes and hat. As the film goes on her clothes become less formal, she is even naked at one, signifying how she is shedding her old life.

Make Up:
-Make-Up is not simply used to make female characters look glamorous. It could also be used to make characters seem grotesque or much older than they are in real life. It can also be used to change a character from one gender to another as in White Chicks or Mrs Doubtfire.

-Make-Up can also be used to create characters from fantasy worlds and aliens from other planets. Furthermore it can also be used to create scars and injuries following action sequences.

Character Positioning within the Frame:
-A characters position within the frame is significant for various reasons. If a character is in the foreground and in focus, then we can be sure that there is something very important about them.We may be listening to a character in the background but the character that is in the foreground grabs our attention.

-Often the director/photographer will 'balance' the screen by carefully positioning characters within the frame. They may position them at different heights to show their various positions in terms of power and importance. Characters can be positioned to show their relationship with each other. For example if an argument has taken place characters may be positioned far apart, in contrast a loving pair will be positioned in close proximity to one another.

Body Language, Expression and Movement:
-Body Language tells us about the relationship between different characters on screen. The hero in an action film will have a strong stance whereas a weaker character may be fidgeting to suggest they are nervous. Film Posters or adverts also use body language to immediately demonstrate to the audience the relationship and status between characters. A good example is the film poster to Mean Girls where the main protagonist has her back turned away from the gang of girls whose body language suggests they might be the aggressors.

Amelie opening sequence

Amelie Happiness

Amelie Outsiders

Amelie Childhood

Some aspects of Amelies childhood were very similar to every child's:

• Every child has that phase where they put hula hops on each finger and eat them off, one by one. Amelie does the same but instead of using hula hops she uses strawberries.
• Also the magic hand trick (finger on each side).
• The upside down face, using your chin as a face by drawing eyes, eyebrows, nose and eyelashes.
• Squeezing your face into a window so that the people can see you pulling a weird face.
• Using cherries as earrings. 
• Laying out a path of dominions and knocking one down and watch the rest fall with it.
• Using different variation of props e.g. trying on glasses.
• Drawing a face on your thumb and finger and creating a face.
• Making sound using crystal glasses.
• Drinking from a straw.
• Making Paper strips of men and women.
• Blowing into a leaf and creating a high pitched sound.
• Putting PVA glue on your fingers, and peeling the glue off.
• Flicking a penny and watching it spin.
• Having a coil of ribbon all neat in a circle, and blowing it to make it unfold and create a pattern.

Due to her heart problems she has to be creative on her own and not interact with any other children as she is home schooled, this is all lead due to her wanting to interact with her dad, and when she does(every month, check up) her heart beats fast which makes the father think that Amelie has a heart problem, she does other thing to entertain her such as:

• Amelie plays doctors with an imaginary alligator, just like her father does to her(check up).
• Sees her fish as a friend, due to no friends. 
• Fish attempts to commit suicide due to home environment, due to this they put him in a lake. Amelies imaginations create a scene in which the fish looks at her for a second then swims away, just as if he's saying goodbye. 
• Amelie is given a second hand camera at a  young age which illustrates the trust Amelie has with her parents. Amelie goes out and takes pictures of the sky, but it isn't no ordinary sky. It's clouds shaped like rabbits and teddies bears.Whilst she is taking a photo of the teddy bear shaped cloud a car crash happens in front of her and a neighbour fools her into thinking she caused the accident with her camera. This put Amelie into shock due to her actions, she watches the TV and everything that is on the TV is about accidents such as fire, two deraliments and a jumbo jet crash. As she has been taking photos all day she thinks she caused all of them incidents.
• She figures out that her neighbour fooled her and for her revenge she sits on this roof and pulls the antenna plug whilst the football gets into the good bits(goal scoring). She repetitively does this through the game and this makes the neighbour insane.
• Amelie goes to church with mother, lights a candle to pray for baby brother. They leave the church and  a tourist on top of the church is committing suicide and lands on top of Amelies mum in which leading her to die in front of Amelie.
• Amelie swings her teddy on the swing, where as its usually the parents swinging the child.
• Due to the tragedy Amelie forgets about leaving her teddy outside and it stays outside through sun,rain and snow(through all the seasons).