In today’s society many different forms of art constantly surround us. The music blaring through your headphones, the advertisements we come across, and even the buildings peering high above the New York skyline can all be considered art. One of the most popular mediums of art in the present time is filmmaking. Film uses moving photographs to narrate a story, express emotions and convey ideas. The unique aspect of the art of film is that it allows the viewer to become its subject or characters and experience their situations as they are occurring. Gus Van Sant uses this characteristic to his advantage in the 2003 film “Elephant”. Elephant tries to capture the actual and unseen events of the tragic Columbine Massacre in attempts to make sense of a senseless act, while at the same time being true to its senselessness.
On April 20th, 1999, two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, launched a deadly assault on Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado. Armed with a rifle, shotguns, and numerous explosives they wreaked havoc on their school. In the end twenty-four people were injured and fifteen, including the shooters, were dead. It was a tragedy that echoed around the country and will be remembered as the worst school shooting in American history. Gus Van Sant took this incident and decided to interpret it in his own artistic vision. “Elephant” is not a drama; it is not a documentary. It is just a free-floating meditation on the tragedy. The film puts you right in the moment, in real time, with the victims and the killers while doubling back on itself, making chronological jumps and repeating its narrative from different perspectives. It is purposely made to be vague so as to leave the viewer perplexed but, at the same time, st...
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...gh school student who is friend to all, even the shooters. The next character we come across is a photographer, Elias, who spends much of his time taking photos of his student subjects and scrutinizing his pictures in a darkroom; Elias can be depicted as the “artsy” kid. Then it's on to the attractive couple, Nathan and Carrie and then to a trio of materialistic cute girls, Brittany, Jordan, and Nicole, who gossip, complain about their parents, and make their ritual pleasure trip to the girls' room to vomit up their lunch. Michelle, a plain, slightly overweight girl, who won't wear shorts in gym class and is sadly alienated from her peers, is later introduced. Last, but certainly not least, Alex and Eric come on screen. They are the outcasts who are bullied and later show up at the school with giant duffel bags full of automatic weapons, ammunition, and explosives.
In the essay “The Man at the River,” written by Dave Eggers is about an American man who does not want to cross the river with his Sudanese friends because of the fear of getting his cut infected.
Andy goes back to school and talks to his basketball coach about how he feels about Rob's death and how his fiends and family feel about the accident. In addition, they discuss Andy's sentence because Andy keeps punishing himself for Rob's death. Everybody at school was crying during Rob's memorial service. Grief Counselors from downtown come to the school to try to get the kids to share their feelings.
The fundamental characteristic of magical realism is its duality, which enables the reader to experience both the character’s past and the present. In the novel, Monkey Beach, Eden Robinson uses this literary device to address the the trauma and mistreatment of the Haisla community in Canada by unveiling the intimate memories of the protagonist, Lisamarie, and the resulting consequences of this oppression. Monkey Beach illustrates how abuse in the past leads to another form of self-medication in the future - a neverending, vicious cycle for the members of the Haisla community. Many characters in Monkey Beach are scarred from childhood sexual abuse and family neglect, and resort to drug and alcohol abuse as a coping mechanism. These appalling memories are an account of the impact of colonization on the Haisla territory which continues to haunt the Aboriginal community throughout generations.
A long, long time ago, God decided to punish the wicked people, but before he did that, he instructed Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal he can find along with his family. Animals and humans. The book I would like to use throughout this essay is “ Crossing ,” by Gary Paulsen. This book took place in Juarez, Mexico, where a bridge could mean so much. Each character in this book was being compared to an animal, to make us more understand about each of them. Each of them are also different. From the shape of their eyes, the way they react to something, and those are what made each of them different and special. Paulson compares animals and humans by their simliar characteristics and their behaviors.
In the documentary “Bowling for Columbine” directed by Michael Moore there are two scenes that share the same idea of questioning the laws they have in the U.S.A. The first documentary that captivated my attention was the Columbine High School massacre, where Michael Moore examines the culture of guns and violence in America. He used archival footage, camera techniques and sound to give authenticity and strength to the disturbing event. Michael Moore uses specific techniques enabling the audience to empathize with the survivors and their loved ones in order for the viewers to feel their emotions.
Having to take your anger out on someone isn’t fair or good, especially if you’re being killed with frozen lamb. Based on everyone’s understanding, when you kill someone you’ll have to pay the price and consequences. Apparently this lady didn’t. But are we sure she’s going to marry another man and kill him too? In “Lamb to the slaughter”, I’m going to be talking about Mary Maloney and how madly crazy she is.
Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver Six thousand years ago in Northern Europe, a teenager named Torak woke up with his shoulder throbbing in pain. His father lies next to him, bleeding from an open wound. The two have been attacked by an enormous demon bear, which is bound to come back at any moment. As he bleeds out, Torak’s father can only bear to say a few more words. He says that the demon bear will only grow stronger with each kill it makes, and he also tells Torak that he has to go to the Mountain of the World Spirit in order to defeat the bear.
Justin Torres Novel We the Animals is a story about three brothers who lived a harassed childhood life. There parents are both young and have no permanent jobs to support their family. The narrator and his brothers are delinquents who are mostly outside, causing trouble, causing and getting involved in a lot of problems and barely attending school, which their parents allowed them to do. The narrator and his brothers were physically abused by their father, leading them to become more violent to one another and others, drinking alcohol and dropping out of school. Physical abuse is an abuse involving one person’s intention to cause feelings of pain, injury and other physical suffering and bodily harm to the victim. Children are more sensitive to physical abuse, they show symptoms of physical abuse in short run and more effects in the long run. Children who sustain physical abuse grow up with severely damaged of sense of self and inability. The narrator and his brothers were physically abused by their father and showed long run symptoms of Antisocial behaviors, drinking problems and most importantly they becoming more violent themselves. Many psychological and sociological studies such as “Childhood history of abuse and child abuse potential: role of parent’s gender and timing of childhood abuse” and “school factors as moderators of the relationship between physical child abuse and pathways of antisocial behavior can be used to prove the argument that children who sustain physical abuse grow up with criminal and antisocial behaviors.
Since the creation of films, their main goal was to appeal to mass audiences. However, once, the viewer looks past the appearance of films, the viewer realizes that the all-important purpose of films is to serve as a bridge connecting countries, cultures, and languages. This is because if you compare any two films that are from a foreign country or spoken in another language, there is the possibility of a connection between the two because of the fact that they have a universally understanding or interpretation. This is true for the French New Wave films; Contempt and Breathless directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and contemporary Indian films; Earth and Water directed by Deepa Mehta. All four films portray an individual’s role in society using sound and editing.
Bang! Bang! Little children running and screaming; terrified that they are going to die. The shooter walks into the room heavily armed, with a crazed look in his eye. There’s a women near a closet and small group of 1st graders behind her. He starts to go toward the little room to finish what he started. Then the young woman steps in front of the unstable gunman to shield the students from harm. A fatal shot is fired and the young teacher lies dead. That woman was Victoria Soto, a hero in the Sandy Hook Shooting, who risked her life to save her students from that delusional man, Adam Lanza. The horrific incident that took place on December 14, 2012 took the innocent lives of 26 students and teachers. Lanza did have a mental illness, but that isn’t all to blame. The shooter was known to play and watch violent movie and games (Aliprandini and Finley). This shows that media violence can be linked to aggressive behavior and that violent media can affect the minds of some young children and teens. Studies in the past decade have helped prove that sometimes the media can be bad for kids. The outcome of playing first-person shooter games could end up in innocent lives dying like in Newtown.
“School can be a tremendously disorienting place… You’ll also be thrown in with all kind of kids from all kind of backgrounds, and that can be unsettling… You’ll see a handful of students far excel you in courses that sound exotic and that are only in the curriculum of the elite: French, physics, trigonometry. And all this is happening while you’re trying to shape an identity; your body is changing, and your emotions are running wild.” (Rose 28)
Animals can be a man's best friend; however, they can also be ones worst enemy after passing certain boundaries. Peter Singer who wrote Animal Liberation gave valid points in my opinion because animals do have a right to live and we should give them their space. Humans take everything for granted and never seem to learn until it too late. Today slaughterhouses are abusing animals in disturbing ways which has to change. I will agree with Singers concepts on animals because they have a right to live a peaceful life like humans; they have a life ahead of them once they are born. Singer argues that animals should have their interests considered throughout their lives. Singer wants to eliminate speciesism from our thoughts which is, a human discriminatory belief that all other animals are not as good as them therefore they do not have rights and we could do what we want to them. We should not be the only types of "animals" in this earth who has a set of rights we should abide.
The book, Into the wild, takes us into the world of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless. He travelled across the western United States from 1990 to 1992, and on April 28, 1992, he started his last adventure and walked into the wilds of Alaska. About 112 days later, he died of starvation. Unsurprisingly, public opinion polarized on his behavior. Some may admire his courage and noble ideals, though some regard him as an idiotic and arrogant narcissist. Although he died on his way to find the truth and back to nature, I believe that Chris McCandless should be considered as a hero, but I cannot completely approve of all his behaviors.
An estimated six million Jewish people were killed during the Holocaust, and many were thought to have survived due to chance. Vladek in Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus, is one of the few Jewish people to survive the Holocaust. Though Vladek’s luck was an essential factor, his resourcefulness and quick-thinking were the key to his survival. Vladek’s ability to save for the times ahead, to find employment, and to negotiate, all resulted in the Vladek’s remarkable survival of the Holocaust. Therefore, people who survived the Holocaust were primarily the resourceful ones, not the ones who were chosen at random.
“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine, some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.” - David Fincher. David Fincher is the director that I am choosing to homage for a number of reasons. I personally find his movies to be some of the deepest, most well made, and beautiful films in recent memory. However it is Fincher’s take on story telling and filmmaking in general that causes me to admire his films so much. This quote exemplifies that, and is something that I whole-heartedly agree with. I am and have always been extremely opinionated and open about my views on the world and I believe that artists have a responsibility to do what they can with their art to help improve the culture that they are helping to create. In this paper I will try to outline exactly how Fincher creates the masterpieces that he does and what I can take from that and apply to my films.