...The first time we saw each other after seeing Spike Lee's movie Do the Right Thing, my sister and I had a fight over lunch. It was one of those things you do with a lover, or sometimes with a close friend about politics, where the terms you disagree on are too buried to perceive or even to guess, at the time, that they're there. You can be agreeing about all the superficial details and about the largest of generalizations all along--my sister and I both found the film powerfully moving--and still wind up fighting about ... something--one of those disagreements that leave you dissatisfied and unexplainably angry. Her arguments weren't unfamiliar. I had run into very similar concerns, interpretations, and vocabulary in some of the mainstream criticism on the film. But it was only after stewing about our lunch for a couple of days that I began to figure out how completely at odds with the movie I saw was the one she--and those critics--had seen. The more I thought about it, the more I could see that these were no idiosyncratic subjective responses. Rather, our differences were bound up with Spike Lee's mix of styles of representation, which my sister and I responded to selectively and from very different perspectives. While Lee's representation of the Italians was moving and meaningful to her, she could find nothing in his portrayal of the black community that would provide for the same feelings. For, I came to see, while Lee uses to elaborate his white characters methods and narrative...
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...This week we learned about developing cultural intelligence in a global world. One way a person can develop cultural intelligence is by spending more time in a foreign country because that will most likely guarantee cross-cultural experiences. If a person can not afford to travel to a foreign country, they can go to a public area that people from all cultures visit and try to befriend them. A person also needs to educate themselves by reading more books like the textbook we use in this class. They need to put into practice what they have been learning about cultural intelligence. In the film “Do the Right Thing” a character who was culturally intelligent was Mookie. He was culturally intelligent because he would avoid throwing racial slurs. In one scene,Buggin Out argues with Sal about not having photos of African Americans. They start offending one another and Mookie feels forced to intervene. Instead of taking sides, Mookie decides to tell both parties to calm down. This shows that he is culturally intelligent because his is being mindful that if he gives preference to one side, Buggin Out’s, he will seem biased since he is African American too. He is trying to be in the shoes of both sides so that he can make a better judgment of the situation. Mookie understands that his employer is Italian and might have different customs to him. He tries to understand him the best he can, since he wants to keep his job at the pizzeria. He respects...
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...ESSAY A film is good. There are many elements to it that are enjoyable to the audience and to those who are in charge of making it. There are characters and drama and things like that that are really cool to watch. A film is good. There are many elements to it that are enjoyable to the audience and to those who are in charge of making it. There are characters and drama and things like that that are really cool to watch. A film is good. There are many elements to it that are enjoyable to the audience and to those who are in charge of making it. There are characters and drama and things like that that are really cool to watch. A film is good. There are many elements to it that are enjoyable to the audience and to those who are in charge of making it. There are characters and drama and things like that that are really cool to watch. A film is good. There are many elements to it that are enjoyable to the audience and to those who are in charge of making it. There are characters and drama and things like that that are really cool to watch. A film is good. There are many elements to it that are enjoyable to the audience and to those who are in charge of making it. There are characters and drama and things like that that are really cool to watch. A film is good. There are many elements to it that are enjoyable to the audience and to those who are in charge of making it. There are characters and drama and things like that that are really cool to watch. A film is good. There...
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...Choosing a film to watch can be very personal and emotional. When I choose a film I always go with how I am feeling that day, whether I am sad and want to cry, happy and want to laugh, have a lot of energy and want to see an action film it all depends on how I am feeling at the moment. Other than how I am feeling, there are also a lot of different things that make a film enjoyable for me and very unenjoyable. When I go to see a movie I will take a fair amount of time to decide what movie to see, with the prices of a movie ticket I don’t want to choose something that I will not really enjoy. Some of the things that really make a film enjoyable for me are the plot, the music and actors. As I said before I am a very emotional person and the right kind of film can make me really happy, one thing that I really enjoy about certain movies is when there is a well thought out plot. I appreciate when someone has taken the time to really think about the plot of a film. When the plot has substance the film is usually a pretty successful and enjoyable film to watch. The right music can make a film very enjoyable. I think music can convey many different emotions and with the right soundtrack you are able to really feel what is going on in the film. The last thing that makes a film enjoyable for me is the actors in the film, when I find an actor that I really love I will be more likely to see a film they are in. Most of the actors I really like are able to be very versatile and can play several...
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...watching Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do The Right Thing, it is very clear to me why this film is considered an independent film. By using Michael Z. Newman’s article Indie Cinema Viewing Strategies it was easy to break up the film into three slogans: characters as emblems, form as game, and read as anti-Hollywood. Do The Right Thing uses a mixture of these three slogans through character, narrative structure, and theme to open our eyes to racism and violence and let us decide what really is doing the right thing. Although this film was distributed by a major Hollywood studio, it still keeps within the styles and techniques of independent cinema. Beginning with the characters in Do The Right Thing, each character is interesting and contributes to the narrative structure of the film. When discussing characters as...
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...Compared to the novel Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson the film version was different from the novel. It wasn't as good as the novel in most places, but it had some good qualities, and scenes. For example, in the novel when Jess, Leslie, and the rest of the boys were racing you could see what Jess was thinking, and feeling. Where as in the film you could not tell what they were thinking, and feeling. This took away some of the beauty of the scene. In the film Bridge to Terabithia one thing that was captured effectively was the visual of Terabithia, and how they saw compared to what it really was. In the film they showed Terabithia, and gave you a visual of what it looked like, however in the book you had to imagine, and guess what it might look like. Another thing that the film effectively captured was when Leslie was reading her paragraph about S.C.U.B.A. diving. In the film it showed bubbles rising from her mouth, and it also changed the paragraph a little so it had more descriptive words. While in the novel, it didn’t use as many descriptive words for her paragraph....
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...In the film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, directed by Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook, Asbury and Cook made it very clear that the theme of the film was freedom. It gave the movie an overall theme of “My spirit can never be broken.” This was one of the things that made the movie great. It showed this theme through it’s storyline. The storyline followed the steps of a typical movie but with it’s own spin, and the viewers loved this. The use of music and narration also made the film enjoyable. The music matched each scene perfectly, making it seem much more realistic. The narration, told from the perspective of Spirit (Matt Damon), gave the audience the chance to understand Spirit. It made the viewers feel a special connection with Spirit, as...
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...Faisal Amjad 11/01/15 Film Appreciation The Film and novel I decided to do on is the classic To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), which had a legendary cast starring Gregory Peck as Atticus and Mary Badham as Scout, this adaption of the book is as much a classic as the novel itself in my opinion which can be backed up by any person who is in American theater. The film received eight Academy Awards nominations and netted awards for Best Actor, Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, and Best Art Direction — Set Decoration, Black and White. This film was a critical adaption of the book. Fans and critiques alike rank this among the best movies of all time, it is ranked #84 top rated movie of all time on IMDB.com, (rated by the people and critiques alike) the production was very extensive and expensive for its time, the budget for the film was about 2 million dollars and made well over $15 million at the box office and it was filmed on 35mm role of film. It was directed by Robert Mulligan, Written by Harper Lee (based on her novel "To Kill a Mockingbird"), and Horton Foote (screenplay) the movie was produced by universal international pictures....
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...Reflecting on the film Through Deaf Eyes The film Through Deaf Eyes is an enjoyable movie that makes an audience stop and think about Deaf culture and Deaf history. My experience with this film has been great because it showed me that there is more to the way a deaf person interacts with the world than I thought. Watching this film put things into perspective for me. I had learned several things such as how deafness was misunderstood earlier on in history. As an example out of the film, Christian missionaries thought that those who were deaf would not be able to receive the messages of the Bible. The mentality that being deaf made a person unreachable in terms of teaching and learning information had emerged for a time. As someone who finds the history of languages very interesting, I was excited to learn where the American Sign language...
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...in West Virginia, where he stated that he had a list of over 220 confirmed communists living in the US. The numbers of this statement dropped over the years as people began to watch him more closely. However this didn’t stop him from rising to more power, after the Republicans regained a majority in the senate, McCarthy took control of a subcommittee, and performed investigations on government agencies. Other Cold War “activists” consisted of Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey, union leader Walter Reuther, men who spoke out against McCarthy's tactics, but still agreed with a lot of his core beliefs. While this led to a divergence of tactics between activists, it still led to a growth in Anti-Communist sentiments through “Public Education” films and propaganda to increase the fear in the people of the new red menace. Anti-Communism continued into the 1960s, but after 1954 it lost a large...
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...When asked, most people would say the book is better than the movie but film brings a clearer image to a story. The Tell Tale Heart is a story about a man who claims he has a disease but implies that because it has not dulled his senses, he cannot be called mad. He also points out his mental disorder actually caused his senses to become more acute. When he claims that he has heard things from heaven and hell, it gives away that his super human sensory is an illusion. He seems insane, he talks about an old man who he loves, but he can’t stand his eye or his heart beat. Before the end of the story he kills the old man. In the film there are characteristics that add to this story. The visualization, since you don’t have to imagine it, gives a greater impact. Film has the ability to add a lot of emphasis that make certain scenes stick out from the rest. This grabs attention. Some elements in film can’t be put into literature, an obvious one is actual sound. There are many different similarities in film and literature adaptions, but film brings unique qualities to a story that literature cannot. Film adaptation provides a physical visual for the events in the story. The film begins with a scene of the killer standing in a dark room while in a straightjacket. It's an erie start for the film. The killer is breathing heavily and opens his eyes slowly. This scene gives evidence that he is mad mentally and emotionally. This also makes it seem like the killer has objective. The killer...
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...great dancing partner, therefore Fred and his dancing partner, Judy Garland can break out in dance and the logic would not be questioned. This specific type of musical is very important in the history of American musicals. Like everything else in life, things change and mature and this form of musical is no exception to this. A lot of the movies in this genre started like a straight forward love story with singing and dancing but as time went on the plots for more complicated and mature. They also experimented with different idea and themes as time went on. As time went on the backstage musical changed. While there was a lot of change, one interesting thing that doesn't really change are the people behind these movies. Fred Astaire, Busby Berkeley, Judy Garland, Arthur Freed, and many more seem to have been the go to people for these type of movies. Understandably, they are all unbelievably talented and great at what they do. Also it seemed like MGM was the production company of most of these types of films from that time. These are some of the things that I found haven't changed during the time in which these films prospered. This week we watched two films, A Star is Born and The Bandwagon. Both of these films are backstage musicals from the 1950's. These are great examples to show how this type of movie...
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...When it comes to films and novels there is always a translation of information between the two. The difference between the two is that with a film it gives the viewer a visual aspect of a story, and as for the novel, it gives a verbal description of a story. In novels you are able to read the character's mind and understand who they are. A novel gives the meat of a story such as background information, and things that occur throughout the story. When it comes to film, there is are some things that may be added to a film which may give viewers a different take on how they may view the original novel. I will analyze the novel, and film and I will discuss how I viewed the film vs the novel of No Country for an Old Man, and compare the two together....
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...Film Review Barbara Rushing ARTS/100 December 10, 2012 Brenda Durden Do the Right Thing was produced and directed in 1989 by Spike Lee (The IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute, 2012). Spike Lee is known for creating controversy with his movies. Lee was a pioneer of capturing and bringing attention to societal issues. Lee’s primary focus for many of his movies is to address racial stigmas, stereotypes, and issues between races. Consequently, Do the Right Thing is debatable for its portrayal of the racial tensions in Brooklyn, New York (Smith, Turner Classic Movies Film Articles, 2012). The major themes Lee tries to convey through this film are the day-to-day lifestyles of people in Brooklyn, a community struggling without leadership, and the ethnic tensions within the community. Lee effectively relays these themes to the audience through realism by depicting the period, showing the lack of leadership and community togetherness through a host of scenarios, which leads to the destruction of the neighborhood pizza shop that had been a part of community for technically three decades. Lee also mastered the art of demonstrating the lifestyles and attitudes of the community through music specific the era and the ethnic upbringing, by using prompts that give the illusion of how hot the temperatures were, which lends itself to the mounting tension among racial divide. An overview of the film or performance Do the Right Thing is a movie that takes place...
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...beautiful colors and creatures call home. The purpose of this film was to touch base on the political issues going on in society today such as Imperialism and Anti-Americanism. As I analyzed the film, I focused solely on the plot, visual effects, characters, and sound quality. I realized that without a good plot, viewers would not engage too much into the film nor has no interest in it. I also tried to understand the science fiction and fantasy aspect of the film for it includes both genres. With both genres put into the film, Avatar blends the two by exploring a new world where things just seem so perfect and having to choose whether...
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