1) Bicycle Thieves is a film is able to show all the characteristics of Italian Neorealism. Italian Neorealism is different from classical Hollywood cinema because of the style and how the film is produced. A significant difference lies with the casting for an Italian Neo realism film. With these films non-professional actors are usually casted for the all roles, without any famous actors or Hollywood stars playing a part. The director for bicycle thieves chose to use a non-professional actor for the lead role to give this movie more of an authentic feel in comparison to Hollywood cinema films that hire well known trained actors. The lead role for bicycle thieves is played by Lameberto Maggiorani, who was a typical engineer before getting this …show more content…
Daniel Plainview goes from a hardworking honest man to a complete lunatic who only cares about money and oil. With the use of film techniques like composition, setting and camera movement Thomas is able to show this change in character clearly to the audience. The climax of this change in character can be scene in one of the very last scenes of the movie. The setting of the scene is in Plainview’s huge mansion with is in shambles and the lights in the house are off. Making the house look dark and uninhabited, which was just like the first scene of the movie where you see Plainview in a dark hole by himself. The house being dark can be reference to that Plainview is now all alone again since his son H.W has decided to get married and make his own path. In this scene the shots are important because Plainview and H.W aren’t seen in the same shot and the proximity of the camera to Plainview face. As Plainview speaks he completely disowns his son and use very offensive language to disrespect H.W while he is doing this the camera does not switch over to H.W to show his reaction to this. This implies that Plainview in fact does not care about his son or what his son thinks about him, and without his son Plainview is really by himself again like in the first scene of the movie. The composition of the scene also adds to this idea of Mr. Plainview being alone because this …show more content…
With the opening scene spike lee was able to show me something that was different from all the movies we watched this semester. A woman was dancing in the opening scene to diegetic sounds and was moving in rhythm to this sound as the credits for the movie played. Most movies open up with a scene that drops the audience to the movie instead the audience watched an actor dance for almost five minutes. Another technique that was used by spike lee was camera angles. In the scene where a black man was trying to buy batteries for his speakers from an Asian man. Spike lee was able to use camera angles to show each actors view on the other one. When the black man is speaking or yelling the camera is looking down at the Asian man. This shows that the black man looks down on the Asian man. When the Asian man speaks to the black man the camera is pointed up looking towards him. Another scene that caught my eye is when spike lee showed different shots of the people. Each close up of a person was followed by them saying racist remarks about the previous person shown. Once again showing racism or how each culture views the other
The setup of the film really allowed the viewer to imagine the social issues such as racism, homophobia and AIDS that African-American gay men were facing at
This film represents our indigenous culture and regardless of what happens we can find good in a situation. Together the black and white community can come together and achieve more than they could ever do by themselves.
This week’s readings of the reviews of Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’ and Marilyn Fabe’s “Political Cinema: Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’, raised a number of questions regarding not only the moral issues the film addresses but also the intention of the artist. This dialectical opposition, which Pamela Reynolds suggests “challenges the audience to choose” (Reynolds, p.138) between the narrativized hostility shown between that of the hero and villain. More specifically Lee’s portrayal of violence vs passive opposition. This can be perceived through Lee’s technical employment of contradictory quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcom X at the conclusion of the film, which not only highlights this concern but also deluges further into themes of political opposition. Marylin Fabe discusses this where she states that Spike Lee’s film carries a “disturbing political message” (Fabe, p.191). Arguably, ‘Do the Right Thing’ acmes themes of racism (Black vs White); with underlining motifs of imperialism (colonisers’ vs colonised), psychoanalytic (power vs powerlessness) and even Marxist theory (ownership vs public space/consumption), with Clarence Page stating that Lee provides a “public service… (not trying) to provide all the answers, but raising the questions.” (Reid, P.144). In saying this we explore this concept of the role of the artist, with Georgopulos stating that the role of the artist is to create a consciousness within the audience by revealing a fraught set of truths about the human condition. Thusly, the reactions and responses to the films reveal Lee to be successful in conveying his intentions, which back in its zenith, explored this issue of racism in a way that had rarely been seen, and presented the ways in which t...
The myth of American(USA) superiority and exceptionalism has existed since the early foundation days. The rush towards the Pacific provided an easy way to sustain this theory, and for a long time it was assumed that westward growth was the best sign of success. In fact, some of the earliest films to hold captive the American citizens were spectacles of U.S. positivism, where good always triumphed over evil.
Regardless of that, he continued to make films that spoke of the true nature of the lives of African Americans and the struggles the face .One of his most successful films Do The Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989), the film that solidified his place as the leading African American director, explores racism in a neighbourhood in New York. ‘Spike Lee had done an almost impossible thing. He 'd made a movie about race in America that empathized with all the participants,’ (Ebert, 2001 cited in Leopold, 2009). Lee heavily exaggerates stereotypes of all the races shown within his film as a way to show the audience just how ridiculous stereotyping is. Although, another theme throughout the film is the representation of all the races relations with each other rather than the stereotypes given to
Spike Lee is brand name when it comes to the film industry. When you try to ask any group of people their opinion about this man, you will probably receive numerous positive responses from the film community as well as the African American community. Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) is a film that illustrates how racial conflict can become a reality while showing the repercussions that come with racial segregation. Spike Lee uses a number of tools to write and produce the film in order to ensure the message reaches his intended audience in the best way possible. The use of location, soundtrack, and dialogue is abundant in this film. Therefore, this film analysis paper is for Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989). It is a film in which racial segregation ignites riots in a neighborhood dominated by the black population. The heightened scene of this film analysis is where Spike Lee throws a trash can and it is from this that hell breaks loose and riots begin.
In actuality, both people are black, one just happens to be of a lighter complexion. Race and racism, the film shows limits one’s ability to experience new individuals and ideas. The first being to not race to judgment because most likely they are not true. By not taking the time to get to know the person, one is only looking at a person at face value.
Firstly, the movie showed physical violence against someone because of their race. This is portrayed when the combined teams arrived at Gettysburg College for camp. One black man puts a poster on his wall above his bed. Another white man says to take down the poster. When the black man refuses, tension rises, and a fight breaks out. If another white man had put a poster above their bed, there wouldn’t be a problem. When the black man did it, it was not accepted. Another time physical violence was displayed because of someone’s race was when a brick was thrown into Coach
Spike Lee is a filmmaker who has generated numerous controversial films that unapologetically bring delicate social issuest o the media forefront. He honestly portrays life's societal obstacles. He challenges the public to cogitate on the world's glitches and disunion. Spike Lee created a name for himself with films such as Do the Right Thing (1989) and Malcolm X (1992), and with documentaries such as 4 Little Girls (1997) and When the Levees Broke (2006). Lee’s goal was to portray African Americans in a more accurate light.
Before we get into the movie specifically, we should first talk about representation and how race is represented in the media in general. Representation is defined as the assigning of meaning through language and in culture. (CITE) Representation isn't reality, but rather a mere construction of reality and the meaning behind it. (CITE) Through representation we are able to shape how people are seen by others. Race is an aspect of people which is often represented in the media in different ways. Race itself is not a category of nature, but rather...
The first social issue portrayed through the film is racial inequality. The audience witnesses the inequality in the film when justice is not properly served to the police officer who executed Oscar Grant. As shown through the film, the ind...
Many of the readings we had this semester has given me a better outlook on the society I know today. Mainly, the most obvious characteristics of people, race. Race: The power of an Illusion, allowed me to understand the construction of a complex distinction of people. These distinctions and classifications created a divide in humanity, and re-enforced a system that not only favored the white race, but embedded a virus of hatred for colored people to succumb for future generations. The man made term and meaning of race is a important tool that the white elite used to oppress non-whites. It 's in this film, which provides us with there ridiculous claims of black bodies inferiority and theorized inevitability of extinction. False scientific theories
Later one, two young African Americans males leaving a diner walking passed a white couple and the woman clutches the man’s arm and move closer. So, Some of the diversity dimensions that I found were related more to characteristics such as age, gender, race, religion, education, income, language within the movie and portrayed the social class discrimination, as well as gender discrimination. Throughout the film, there were some racial lines of tension between all races and against each other such as White on Persian, White on Black, Black on Black, White on Hispanic, Hispanic on Asian, Asian on Black, and White on Asian, Persian on Hispanic.
This movie does provoke a dialogue on race that, according to author and journalist Jeff Chang, "has been anathema to Hollywood after 9/11." During the first viewing of
Do the Right Thing is a dramatic comedic film that was directed by Spike Lee. The movie was released in 1989. Lee served in three capacities for the film: writer, director and producer of the movie, Ernest Dickenson was the cinematographer and Barry Alexander Brown was the film’s editor. For this film, Lee garnered together some notable actors and actresses, including Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, Rosie Perez, Samuel L. Jackson, John Tuturro and Martin Lawrence. The setting of the movie is in Bedford-Stuyvesant; which is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. This particular neighborhood is made up of several ethnic groups that include African Americas, Italians, Koreans, and Puerto Ricans. The movie takes place on a particularly hot day during the summer time. The extreme heat causes tensions between the different races in the neighborhood. In this paper, I will attempt to show how mise-en-scène, camera work, editing, and sound are used to convey “explicit” and “implicit” meaning in one scene in Do the Right Thing.