Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball
Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball is a depiction of one man’s journey to overcome his lifelong ignorance, but this seems to be the film’s only accomplishment. The grisly drama attempts to address pressing racial issues, but instead it creates a monstrous web of unanswered questions and unfulfilled plotlines cleverly masked by brilliant acting and cinematic beauty.
The first half of Monster’s Ball revolves around a family of executioners responsible for the last days of a black death-row inmate. Billy Bob Thornton is striking as Hank Grotowski, a native Georgian who has spent his life following in his father’s footsteps both as a corrections officer in the state penitentiary and as a racist. Peter Boyle plays Thornton’s retired father and delivers a gritty performance that is a welcome change from his role as the wise-cracking Frank Barone on CBS’s Everybody Loves Raymond. Heath Ledger is Sonny Grotowski, Thornton’s son, a third-generation corrections officer who never lives up to the family’s tough-guy standards and dares to have black friends. Hank and Sonny are part of an execution team assigned to Lawrence Musgrove, a cop-killer skillfully portrayed by Sean Combs, whose impressive performance suggests that his acting career may have as much earning potential as P. Diddy’s current line of work.
Thornton’s portrayal of Grotowski is flawless—his best since 1996’s Sling Blade—and helps one forget such disappointments as 1998’s A Simple Plan. He becomes Hank and leaves no trace of Billy Bob on the screen. Grotowski’s dialogue is limited and purposely lacks profundity, forcing Thornton to convey meaning through action. When Hank descends his front porch to meet his son’s two black friends with a s...
... middle of paper ...
...m—when the “monster” himself, Lawrence Musgrove, is awaiting death. Chesse creates depth and parallelism between Lawrence and Leticia, bouncing back and forth between the activities on death row and in Leticia’s home. The scene is reminiscent of Dead Man Walking, but Combs’ Musgrove is a welcome departure from Sean Penn’s Matthew Poncelet in that Musgrove accepts his fate and doesn’t fight death. This allows him to be fully effective in conveying what is the film’s best line of dialogue as well as its main theme: “It truly takes a human being to really see a human being.”
Monster’s Ball had the potential to be a gripping tale of love lost and love found, but that potential is lost in a sea of subplots that drowns the main narrative. Forster is left with a film that is little more than a star vehicle for Berry’s and Thornton’s most compelling performances to date.
Interestingly, the book does not focus solely on the Georgia lynching, but delves into the actual study of the word lynching which was coined by legendary judge Charles B Lynch of Virginia to indicate extra-legal justice meted out to those in the frontier where the rule of law was largely absent. In fact, Wexler continues to analyse how the term lynching began to be used to describe mob violence in the 19th century, when the victim was deemed to have been guilty before being tried by due process in a court of law.
The main protagonist of the film, Scotty Smalls, is introduced as a straight-A, friendless young boy who has just moved into a new neighborhood in new state. While
The novel narrates the story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist, who obsessed with ‘unfolding to the world the deepest mysteries of creation’, achieves to animate a creature made of dead bodies (p. 38). Nevertheless, terrified by his own work, Frankenstein abandons the monster to his fate. Consequently, the being embarks on a journey in search of human acceptance and affection. Unable to satisfy his yearning, the creature seeks for revenge and turns Frankenstein’s life into one marked by destruction and death.
Frankenstein is the story of an eccentric scientist whose masterful creation, a monster composed of sown together appendages of dead bodies, escapes and is now loose in the country. In Frankenstein, Mary Shelly’s diction enhances fear-provoking imagery in order to induce apprehension and suspense on the reader. Throughout this horrifying account, the reader is almost ‘told’ how to feel – generally a feeling of uneasiness or fright. The author’s diction makes the images throughout the story more vivid and dramatic, so dramatic that it can almost make you shudder.
Shelley’s Frankenstein does an excellent job at demonstrating the ideas and accomplishments of the enlightenment period. Shelly expresses these ideas and thoughts through the character of Victor Frankenstein who is an aspiring scientist seeking an intellectual challenge. Victor Frankenstein live s his hometown of Geneva and leaves in quest of a valued education in Ingolstadt. When Victor arrives at college he is lonely and finds himself in a new world in which he lives by himself. He than meets Mr. M. Waldman who is a chemistry professor. We can tell the Frankenstein is a representation of the Enlightenment and scientific period because he just like the earlier theorist Who is a Each character represents an important part of history such as the ideals of the scientific revolution, the embodiment of non- European ideals, and the scientific path that the Europeans would be taking in the future. The creation of Frankenstein itself is a symbolization of the progress of the enlightenment period. During this time the Europeans had just witnessed the scientific revolution where simple devices like the microscope and better telescopes were invented along with the advances of knowledge.
John Singleton’s view of social problems in South Central Los Angeles happens in a tale of three friends growing up together. Doughboy and Ricky Baker are half-brothers and have opposite personalities. Ricky is a football player who hopes to win a scholarship and spends most of his time playing football. On the other hand, Doughboy is a young man who looks upon his environment for guidance. He is involved in violence, abusing drugs, and participates in violence. In between is their friend Tre, who actually has a father to teach him what is right from wrong. Furious Styles, who is Tre’s father in the film does everything in his strength to keep his son from becoming another startling statistic. As you can see, it is always important for parents to be a part of their child’s life because it can make a big difference not only in their life but also their child’s future.
Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is impressive, entertaining, and fascinating so is it no surprise there have been so many films and artworks influenced by her novel. Many of which have put their own spin to the horror novel, especially the character of the creature that remains one of the most recognized icons in horror fiction. However, there have been critics whom argue modern versions and variations have lost the horror and passion that is an essential to the creature. The start of the Creature is bound to one book. However, public impression of the Creature has changed severely since the publication of the original novel, leading to diverse styles and plot lines in its diverse film adaptations. People’s impression of the Creature have become so twisted and turned by time and decades of false film posters and article titles that most use the name “Frankenstein” to refer to the Creature itself, rather than the scientist who created him! It’s a shame! An understanding of literary history is a necessity to comprehend the truth of the Creature’s tragic history and how decades of film adaptations changed him into the hulking beast most people know him as today.
Lynching is when a mob of people gather in one place to hang a person is a general idea. However, lynching is just an execution of an accused person by a mob (Lynching). A lynching could happen for many reasons including severe crimes like murder or theft, simple custom violations, or to make a simple example to strike fear into the “other” population. According to the article, “Lynching in America,” over 4,000 African Americans were lynched between 1877-1950. Though majority of the African Americans lynched were men, there were some women that were lynched, too. Lynching has become illegal within the United States today, but it was a difficult time coming to the end of “legal” lynching. This essay discusses how several factors led to the
Black Panther party member, Assata Shakur, is another instructive example of high-tech lynching. In 1973 police arrested Shakur, born JoAnne Chesimard, as an accomplice to the murder of a white state trooper. In her book, Assata: An Autobiography, Shakur chronicles the way she was “lynched” by the media before the murder trial had even begun: “Evelyn had brought some newspaper clippings and it was obvious the press was trying to railroad me, to make me seem like a monster.
This act of violence sets the events for the rest of the novel, but also shows the differences between humans and the monster. It shows how the monster’s reactions and ways of thinking are so different from those of ordinary humans. The monster acts rashly, solely on his first thoughts and feelings; “ ‘Urged by this impulse, I seized on the boy as he passed and drew him towards me’ “ (Shelley 282). A human would not be as quick to act, if they decided to act at all. This act of violence shows the monster’s desperation and irrationality. The violence used by the monster in William’s death scene is necessary to show the contrasts between the monster and
This piece of criticism has strengthened my arguments as to who the real monster is. It has given me a new way to look at things in the novel. I have since then re-read part of the novel and can now read it much more clearly. It will help me greatly in strengthening my argument for the final paper.
However, one cannot lose sight of the humanity within the film. The spectacles of the balls themselves intimately show a mirage of human emotions including passion, desire, joy, humor, grace, and delight. The featured men willingly share the pleasure they feel through participation in the balls with us, the watching audience. They attempt to describe the exhilaration of being able to "become anything and do anything." (1.)
At the moment of his birth, the creature is entirely innocent; he affectionately reaches out to Frankenstein, which is interpreted as a hostile movement, only to have the latter violently abandon him. Despite his appalling appearance, his “wrinkled” grin is as guiltless as a newly-born child which, in a sense, is precisely what he is to Frankenstein (61). With the rejection of his monster based solely on a personal appearance that epitomizes everything Frankenstein fears in his life, the reader begins to recognize the profoundly unethical character of Frankenstein's experiment and of Frankenstein himself.
In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley uses the motif of monstrosity to convey the theme that a person’s outward appearance is not what makes them a monster but rather their actions or inactions that classify true monstrosity. Despite the fact that the monster Victor Frankenstein creates is a literal example of monstrosity in the novel there are many parts that give meaning to monstrosity within character’s actions. Although Victor appears normal, since he is human his ambitions, secrets, selfishness, and inaction makes him a monster himself. Along with monstrous characters the pursuit of knowledge that is seen in Victor, his monster, and Walton in Frankenstein prove that knowledge can be a monstrosity. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is created using the life stories of different characters in the novel. The novel itself could be seen as a monster created similarly to Victor’s monster.
...n (Director) mistakenly seems to believe can carry the whole film. On the strength "based on a true story", he has rejected attention-grabbing characters, an imaginative plot, and unforgettable villains.