THA 2304 - Introduction to Cinema

Running Head: INTRODUCTION TO FILM STUDIES
Introduction to Film Studies
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1INTRODUCTION TO FILM STUDIES
The movies, Searching for Sugar Man (2012), and Coco (2017) are films that took artistic
understandings and perceptions to new heights by addressing to perfection formal and realist
elements in their narratives and depictions. Searching for Sugar Man is particularly well known
for its portrayal of real life while Coco remains one of the best made movies of all time, largely
because of its conventional tone.1 This essay attempts to compare the realist elements that are so
prominent in Searching for Sugar Man with the so called formal or conventional elements of the
movie Coco, pointing in turn to how innovative and creative film making can be.
Searching for Sugar Man is a well made movie that is primarily about a South African
cultural phenomenon that took South African society by storm, breaking many boundaries and
showing life for what it is. The movie captures and portrays realistically, the efforts that were
undertaken by two very obsessed fans of a South African musician by the name of Rodriguez,
whose music was hugely popular in the decade of the 1970’S but who suddenly died of a heart
attack, leaving fans perplexed as to what had become of him. The fact that fans to be passionate
and obsessed with the stars that they idolize is a fact that is relatively well known, but what
Searching for Sugar Man really succeeds in doing is to showcase how tireless fans can be in their
efforts to express or reveal the truth and nothing but the truth about the people they admire.
Famous people, be it musicians, film stars, singers and song writers tend to lead unconventional
lives and they are often depicted by the media for who they are not. When Rodriguez died, most
of the world had accepted that this had happened largely due to the fact that he was addicted to
drugs and alcohol and that it was because of this addiction that he had lost his life so early.
Searching for Sugar Man shows that two of his most dedicated fans refused to accept this truth
about him and undertook as many measures as it was possible to do so, to divulge that Rodriguez
1 Kolker, R.P., 2015. Film, form, and culture. Routledge.

2INTRODUCTION TO FILM STUDIES
did not deserve to die so early and that there was perhaps foul play associated with his death, a
realistic angle that resonates with what usually happens in real life.
The realistic portrayal of characters and events in Searching for Sugar Man is something
that is definitely noteworthy. The element of detail is well addressed in the movie and those
who watch the movie with care and attention, can see for themselves what it is that the South
African music scene was all about in the nineteen seventies, how the hippie or the flower
movement was one that turned out to be more damaging than good and how drugs including
cocaine was claiming the lives of so many young people who showed signs of promise and who
had everything that was needed to make it big on the world stage. The element of transparent
language is addressed by keeping the narrative restricted to the use of simple words and phrases.
Searching for Sugar Man, is in essence a documentary film as what it manages to do is to
encapsulate the life of Sixto Rodriguez, the type of music he would make that brought him the
kind of popularity he received and the lifestyle he led and the company he kept. The movie is
highly informative in nature with an element of mystery dominating the movie from the very
beginning right up to the end. The movie for instance points to a number of realistic issues that
are often responsible for the demise of artistic careers in the world as we know it. The movie
portrays how bad career management led to Sixto Rodriguez suffering financially, in spite of
being a musician whose songs and records were doing so well in the South African market.
While royalties accumulated in large sums, none of this money was ever received by Rodriguez,
leading him to become obscure in the bargain. The element of social critique and the element
of class can be witnessed as the film also depicts the various reasons that led to Rodriguez’s rise
in the South African music scene as well, such as his Latino identity and also the fact that his
songs portrayed the oppression of black and colored people living in South Africa at the time.