Much contention and controversy have historically surrounded the idea that Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952) is the single film that brought an end to what is commonly referred to as the “classical Western." Through a single crucial scene, one important character invokes the ancient advice lent by Aristotle in his seminal work, On Rhetoric, to persuade a town to turn on its hero and change the face of Western's forever. By adhering to the ancient philosopher's notion of ethos, pathos, and logos, the film effectively reworks a traditional Western opposition that had been at the core of the genre's classical narrative structure from its inception.
One of the quintessential narrative components of this somewhat loose body of films
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Ethos, according to Aristotle, is bound up with the character of the speaker, as this mode is influential through its ability to use the "fair-mindedness" or impartiality of the one speaking and is "the most authoritative form of persuasion" (115). The mayor's words, at this point, are the words of the law (the judge had previously fled town earlier in the day) and after stating that Kane should leave town immediately, he invokes his own authority by promising they will have a new Marshall in place by the next day. Notably, the mayor is very specific as to when this will occur (tomorrow instead of sometime soon) exerting his influence and displaying a great deal of authority in showing the crowd he is more than capable of making this happen and immediately. For the townspeople, the mayor's words are just, and he has given the town the ability to voice its opinion before he made the final ruling, an impartial act of a fair …show more content…
When the mayor first begins his speech he mentions how the town owes the Marshall more than they can repay him in money and how Kane's problem is the town's problem, and ultimately that they must have the "courage to do what we think is right, no matter how hard it is." The audience, at this point, is led to believe that the mayor will stand with Kane and fight off the outlaws when they arrive on the noon train. However, somewhat surprisingly, the mayor uses this appeal to emotion, that of requesting the townspeople's courage, to instead provoke the citizens to have the boldness necessary to in fact stand up against Kane and deny him their assistance, effectively allowing judgment to be passed and the Marshall exiled. In using Aristotle's rhetorical precepts, the mayor was able to sway the townspeople to quickly abandon the most revered figure in the history of the town. Although Aristotle never made clear the effects of using all three of his modes together, it is clear, at least through this cinematic example, that the power of these appeal types used in conjunction with one another could yield an unlimited purview of
Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Princeton University Press: Princeton and Oxford, 2004.
Beginning the mid 1920s, Hollywood’s ostensibly all-powerful film studios controlled the American film industry, creating a period of film history now recognized as “Classical Hollywood”. Distinguished by a practical, workmanlike, “invisible” method of filmmaking- whose purpose was to demand as little attention to the camera as possible, Classical Hollywood cinema supported undeviating storylines (with the occasional flashback being an exception), an observance of a the three act structure, frontality, and visibly identified goals for the “hero” to work toward and well-defined conflict/story resolution, most commonly illustrated with the employment of the “happy ending”. Studios understood precisely what an audience desired, and accommodated their wants and needs, resulting in films that were generally all the same, starring similar (sometimes the same) actors, crafted in a similar manner. It became the principal style throughout the western world against which all other styles were judged. While there have been some deviations and experiments with the format in the past 50 plus ye...
Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, who initially came up with the three different sections of rhetorical appeals and the act of persuasion. The three appeals include ethos, logos and pathos, all three different means of persuasion. Michael Moore’s, Capitalism: A Love Story will be used and examples will be taken from throughout the movie to analyze his rhetorical techniques when reaching out to the audience. Examples from “The Qualities of the Prince” by Niccoló Machiavelli will also be analyzed for the three appeals. Moore’s movie relates exactly to the rhetorical appeals because he is persuading the readers to realize all the corrupt and unjust happenings that are going on all around us without even knowing it. He is trying to explain to the readers that it is going on everywhere and steps to educate their selves to gain awareness in the corruption of America. His video shows many examples of the “behind the scenes” into the political world and cites all the events back to how and why it is ruining our country and what we can do to prevent and/or help the cause. Machiavelli’s piece also was a form of persuasion and rhetoric’s, using all three appeals as well. “The Qualities of the Prince” is a piece by Machiavelli in which he is trying to explain how a prince should act and what traits they should possess to be a successful leader. Machiavelli is using the rhetoric appeals and explaining his experiences through which he has learned what it takes to be a great prince.
For these two articles that we read in Crito and Apology by Plato, we could know Socrates is an enduring person with imagination, because he presents us with a mass of contradictions: Most eloquent men, yet he never wrote a word; ugliest yet most profoundly attractive; ignorant yet wise; wrongfully convicted, yet unwilling to avoid his unjust execution. Behind these conundrums is a contradiction less often explored: Socrates is at once the most Athenian, most local, citizenly, and patriotic of philosophers; and yet the most self-regarding of Athenians. Exploring that contradiction, between Socrates the loyal Athenian citizen and Socrates the philosophical critic of Athenian society, will help to position Plato's Socrates in an Athenian legal and historical context; it allows us to reunite Socrates the literary character and Athens the democratic city that tried and executed him. Moreover, those help us to understand Plato¡¦s presentation of the strange legal and ethical drama.
In his work Socrates’ Apology to the Jury, Xenophon produces an account of the Socratic deliberation –and indeed the logic that seemed to inform that deliberation- over his trial. Specifically, Xenophon, provides his readers with an ambivalent justification of Socrates’ chosen rhetoric during his trial, namely his “boastful manner of speaking” or megalegoria (Patch, footnote 2). Indeed, instead of choosing to deliver a speech that would gain him the jury’s sympathy and the city’s acquittal, Socrates proceeds to deliver a speech that is characterized mainly by its ironic arrogance. Xenophon goes so far as to provide his readers with a kind of statement of purpose that frames Socrates’ megalegoric speech; Socrates had, in the words of Xenophon,
Aristotle states that when producing the speech of blame or praise the author is supposed to consider the attitude of the audience by checking whether they will be moved. It helps to see the
The postmodern cinema emerged in the 80s and 90s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood film-making, helping to form the historic convergence of technology, media culture and consumerism. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the faith in historical progress, the norms of industrial society and the Enlightenment, the postmodern film is defined by its disjointed narratives, images of chaos, random violence, a dark view of the human state, death of the hero and the emphasis on technique over content. The postmodernist film accomplishes that by acquiring forms and styles from the traditional methods and mixing them together or decorating them. Thus, the postmodern film challenges the “modern” and the modernist cinema along with its inclinations. It also attempts to transform the mainstream conventions of characterization, narrative and suppresses the audience suspension of disbelief. The postmodern cinema often rejects modernist conventions by manipulating and maneuvering with conventions such as space, time and story-telling. Furthermore, it rejects the traditional “grand-narratives” and totalizing forms such as war, history, love and utopian visions of reality. Instead, it is heavily aimed to create constructed fictions and subjective idealisms.
To begin, ethos is the appeal to credibility. Ethos use of persuasion to show the writer has a full knowledge of what is being said. Amanda Coyne displays this rhetorical device when she notes she has a family member is prison. This small amount of information credits her knowledge on the emotional effects and the experiences one may have inside a federal prison visitation room. Ethos also promotes the ethical appeal to the reader through the text. For example,“The Long Goodbye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison” tells the tale of a woman in jail for conspiracy. “Ten years. That boyfriend talked and got three years. She didn 't know anything. Had nothing to tell them. They gave her ten years. And they called it conspiracy. Conspiracy? Aren 't there real criminals out there?” (62). This pulls the reader to start to question the ethics of the justice system and if the system truly beneficial to all who fall under and are held accountable to its standards. Amanda Coyne puts this litotes into this essay to make you question if this woman is a criminal or someone who was caught up in the wrong place and couldn 't get
Studies in melodrama usually hover around the works of a few significant directors, all of whom were at the top of their craft in Hollywood during the 1950s. Douglas Sirk, Vincente Minnelli, and Nicholas Ray were just a few of the directors who worked at that time, and all helped to shape the conventions of melodrama to which audiences and critics alike have become so accustomed. However, recent melodramas have been unable to reach the popularity that the films of the 1950s achieved, and most current audiences would dismiss the na•ve and artificial world that those films presented as rather trite. But Thomas Schatz raises an interesting point in his article "The Family Melodrama." He claims that "those who look more closely at [the films of the 50s] may see through the facile naiveté to an altogether bleaker reflection" (152). And, even though melodramas are not as widely seen as they were in the past, the ones that are still strive to portray the "[paradoxical] view of America, at once celebrating and severely questioning the basic values and attitudes of the mass audience" (Schatz 150).
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
Meneghetti, Michael. “Review: Ellis Cashmore (2009) Martin Scorsese’s America.” Film Philosophy 14.2 (2010). 161-168. Web. 6 Apr. 2014
Since he is a coward, he often bullied by his peers. Even though he is thinking to stand up for himself, he still doesn’t dare to resist them.“I took a deep breath and shut my locker. I was used to this kind of abuse. Last year, whenever Enrique caught wind of it, he’d tell me to stand up for my self. ‘I know you don’t want to fight,’ he said once. ‘But at least have the balls to tell hem to fuck off,’ And in my head I did. In my head, I was Jason Bourne or Jack Bauer or James Bond or all three of them combined. But beyond my head, the most I ever did was ignore it and walk away”(Henriquez 15). This quote tells us Mayor has been bullied for a long while and he is kind of used to it. He is unhappy, but he just hides his anger and ignores what they did to him. He is willing to fight in his mind, but he doesn’t succeed in real life. It is ironic that he thinks t he is “Jack Bauer” or “Jason Bourne”. They are heroes in people’s mind. The difference between them and Mayor make us feel more sorry for
The Apology is Socrates' defense at his trial. As the dialogue begins, Socrates notes that his accusers have cautioned the jury against Socrates' eloquence, according to Socrates, the difference between him and his accusers is that Socrates speaks the truth. Socrates distinguished two groups of accusers: the earlier and the later accusers. The earlier group is the hardest to defend against, since they do not appear in court. He is all so accused of being a Sophist: that he is a teacher and takes money for his teaching. He attempts to explain why he has attracted such a reputation. The oracle was asked if anyone was wiser than Socrates was. The answer was no, there was no man wiser. Socrates cannot believe this oracle, so he sets out to disprove it by finding someone who is wiser. He goes to a politician, who is thought wise by him self and others. Socrates does not think this man to be wise and tells him so. As a consequence, the politician hated Socrates, as did others who heard the questioning. "I am better off, because while he knows nothing but thinks that he knows, I neither know nor think that I know" (Socrates). He questioned politicians, poets, and artisans. He finds that the poets do not write from wisdom, but by genius and inspiration. Meletus charges Socrates with being "a doer of evil, and corrupter of the youth, and he does not believe in the gods of the State, and has other new divinities of his own."
In this essay the following will be discussed; the change from the age of classical Hollywood film making to the new Hollywood era, the influence of European film making in American films from Martin Scorsese and how the film Taxi Driver shows the innovative and fresh techniques of this ‘New Hollywood Cinema’.
In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates discusses the nature and uses of rhetoric with Gorgias, while raising moral and philosophical perspective of rhetoric. Socrates believes that rhetoric is a kind of false knowledge whose purpose is to produce conviction, and not to educate people about the true extent of knowledge (Plato 15). On the other hand, Gorgias argues that the study of rhetoric is essential in any other professional fields, in order to provide an effective communication (Plato 19). After their discussion of rhetoric, Socrates seems to understand the true extent of rhetoric better as compared to Gorgias, as he is able to use rhetoric appeals as a device to dominate the conversation. During their discussion, Socrates seems to have use rhetorical appeals, such as ethos appeal and pathos appeal to connect and convince the crowd of audiences, and logos appeal to support his claims. His speeches seems to have shown sarcastic aspects and constantly asking questions in order to keep Gorgias busy, at the same time preparing an ambush. Since rhetoric is the art of effective communication through the form of speaking and writing, with the appropriate knowledge and virtue, it can be used for good purposes. On the other hand, rhetoric also can be used as an act of conviction because rhetorical appeals can be defined as an act of persuasion as well. Learning the true extent of rhetoric can help an individual strengthen their verbal communication skills. Socrates uses rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos and logos appeal to win his argument against Gorgias, as he is able to get the audiences’ attention through rhetoric and cornered Gorgias into revealing the true extent of rhetoric.