Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Film Amelie
Imagination is an intrinsic part of the human experience. It has the power to mold reality by defining the limits of possibility and affecting perception. Both Alan White and Irving Singer examine aspects of this power in their respective works The Language of Imagination and Feeling and Imagination. White delineates how imagination is a necessary precursor to possibility (White 179) while Singer primarily illustrates imagination's effect on human relationships, such as love (Singer 29-48). Despite their different focuses, White and Singer demonstrate the impact that imagination has on human perceptions of reality. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amelie explores this facet of imagination: the film provides a poignant depiction of imagination's influence as the title character Amelie exacts changes in her life and in the lives of others with her boundless imagination.
In the chapter entitled "The Imaginable and the Possible," Alan White argues that imagination is the key factor in testing the "acceptability of something as possible" (White 183). In seeking to answer the questions whether what is possible is imaginable and whether what is imaginable is possible, White examines a variety of seemingly impossible ideas, such as the three-dimensional triangle. From these examples, he
concludes that the possible must be conceivable by the imagination but that the imagination's capacity to visualize extends beyond the mere possible (White 179-183).
Amelie addresses this dichotomy between the limitations of the possible and the unfettered possibilities of the imagination in a less didactic manner. Instead of intangible ideas, the film illustrates the link between imagination and possibility throu...
... middle of paper ...
...ng their imagination to bestow value to each other, much in the manner Singer describes. In terms of inherent worth, neither the relationship between Georgette and Joseph or Amelie and Nino seem to have any tangible basis. However, when revisiting these interactions with the idea of bestowal in mind, it is understandable why the characters are willing to
"appraise" each other so highly. Thus, through the interaction of the characters, the film Amelie demonstrates how the imagination governs the daily existence of human beings with the power to either help or hinder an individual by defining the realm of possibility.
Works Cited
Singer, Irving. Feeling and Imagination: The Vibrant Flux of Our
Existence. Lanham: Rowman and Littlerfield Publishers, Inc., 2001. 21-48. White, Alan R. The Language of Imagination. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc. 1990. 173-183.
In response to living a desensitized Parisian lifestyle and a monotonous upbringing, Des Esseintes creates ideal settings that stimulate his “overfatigued senses”2. Des Esseintes is born into a family which had been inbred. This ...
Rife with different themes in every storyline, Les Misérables entices critics to examine the numerous themes and speculate as to their meanings. These themes that they elicit from the text include, but are not limited to, fate dictating the course of one’s life, good works saving every soul, evil being the root of all of the problems of humanity, society weighing a person down, misfortune being the sole cause of faults in a person, love being the meaning of life, and the ability of love to alter a person. Many who read the novel are enamored with the many themes and agree that they are all explicitly explored. First, according to the critic Reeves, one can try to shape his own destiny all that he wants by “[chiseling] the ‘mysterious block’” from which his fate is made. However, no matter...
Think back to your childhood; a time where everything and anything was possible. Magic and imagination was something that was used everyday in your life. Now think about where you are in your life right now. There is no longer any magic or mystery. Neil Gaiman and Antoine De Saint-Exupry write two different novels that include multitudes of fantasy. But in the midst of all of the fantasy is the fact that children and adults think differently. Both of these novels explore the idea that children think positively while adults grow out of that stage, developing a pessimistic way of thinking from what they experience in life.
Duerbeck, N., & Dowling, D. (2012). Vitamin A: Too much of a good thing?. Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey, 67(2), 122-128. doi:10.1097/OGX.0b013e318244c52d
To conceive – or to think in terms of concepts – is to make an epistemic claim, which may not be the same as attributing of something that it possibly exists in reality. The philosophy of the mind remains indebted to Kripke’s distinction between epistemic possibility (how things could conceivably be) and metaphysical possibility (how things could really be).[4] What could conceivably be the case might be metaphysically impossible (i.e.: impossible to instantiate in a possible world), and this is to be known a posteriori rather than a priori. What do the problem of ethnocentrism, the problem of obstacle-concepts, and the problem of conceivability have in common? Firstly, they invoke a belief in a set of concepts which they purport to be the best available description of the world.[5] Secondly, they involve a certain bias that awaits critical reflection. In ethnocentrism, it is the cultural bias of the Western or Westernized researcher; in the philosophy of science, it is the sociological bias of the prevalent scientific community; in the philosophy of the mind, it is the bias of the individual mind questing after a mind-independent reality. Finally, these biases are smuggled into the
Tobacco use during pregnancy is another environmental influence. The nicotine, carbon monoxide, and many other harmful chemicals mixed together in cigarettes are very harmful to the mother and especially the unborn child. This can cut off the baby’s oxygen supply, increase the risk of
The correlation between maternal smoking and low birth weight has been strongly established. Nicotine affects the placental function by inducing the release of norepinephrine and epinephrine into the maternal blood, which causes decreased blood flow to the placenta (1). The decreased blood flow causes a decrease in delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the fetus. This may have an effect on cell growth and development. High levels of carboxyhemoglobin are present in the blood of the mother and the fetus. This may decrease the capacity of the blood to transport oxygen and fetal hypoxia is the result (2). Fetal hypoxia and ischemia are major contributors to developmental defects, but nicotine has been implicated, in various studies, to have a direct affect on fetal development (3).
Run Lola Run, is a German film about a twenty-something woman (Lola) who has 20 minutes to find $100,000 or her love (Manni) will be killed. The search for the money is played through once with a fatal ending and one would think the movie was over but then it is shown again as if it had happened ten seconds later and changed everything. It is then played out one last time. After the first and second sequence, there is a red hued, narrative bridge. There are several purposes of those bridges that affect the movie as a whole. The film Run Lola Run can be analyzed by using the four elements of mise-en scene. Mise-en-scene refers to the aspects of film that overlap with the art of the theater. Mise-en-scene pertains to setting, lighting, costume, and acting style. For the purpose of this paper, I plan on comparing the setting, costume, lighting, and acting style in the first red hued, bridge to that of the robbery scene. Through this analysis, I plan to prove that the purpose of the narrative bridge in the film was not only to provide a segue from the first sequence to the second, but also to show a different side of personality within the main characters.
Through most of the characters’ passion for filmmaking, this movie teaches the audience the great significance of film history. Many people in modern day tend to take film and its history for granted, but they do not realize the depth and effort that mankind has put into such a development. In Hugo, the theme of film history revolves around the entire production, and the audience sees flashbacks of Georges Méliès’ past that reveal his vital role in movie-making. By investing a deep meaning to the tale, viewers start to understand the great emotional and intellectual characteristics of movies. Additionally, Hugo himself delivers a message to his counterpart characters, which also serves as a lesson for the onlookers. He shows the audience that everyone has a part and purpose in this world. Protagonist Hugo Cabret says that “everything has a purpose, even machines. Clocks tell the time, trains take you places. They do what they’re meant to do.” Voicing through Hugo, the filmmakers illustrate how every individual has a reason to live and discover their calling. With a statement about the forgotten grandeur of film history and a valuable message to the crowd regarding one’s purpose, Hugo inspires and presents itself as a noteworthy and unforgettable
Imagination is the action of creating new ideas, scenarios, or concepts that are not present. It is the ability to form a mental image of anything that is not perceived through senses. It’s the ability of the mind to build mental scenes, objects or events that do not exist or are not there or have never happened. “...the pleasures of the imagination exist because they hijack mental system that have evolved for real world pleasure. We enjoy imaginative experiences because at some level we don’t distinguish them from real ones.” (pg.577 parg 4, Bloom)
The idea of people playing pretend and using their imagination may sound silly, but it is in fact not. Imagination has the potential to be used as a utensil. It can used to create multiple universes with diverse outcomes and possibilities. These are what we call counterfactuals. These thoughts are the woulda-coulda-shouldas. “What if I did…?” “I wonder what my life would have been like if…” The list goes on and on. You can use counterfactual thinking to think ahead in the future to plan out your next actions, look into your past to see what you could have done differently or to even watch your present self. In this essay, I argue that imagination and counterfactual thinking can be used as a means to problem solving because counterfactual thinking
The characters are a crucial element in developing the narrative of a film. The characters in Breathless do not act the way one expects those of Hollywood cinema to act. The woman who distracts the police officer in the opening scene seems as if she may be important, but is in fact never seen again. This happens again in a subsequent ...
Catherine Deneuve is famed for not only her acting credentials but her beauty too, having once been the flawless face of Chanel. She has appeared in various films that exploit her sexuality and desirability, but one could claim that her characters are never one-dimensional. Hartman’s assertion that Catherine Deneuve’s characters display both passion and inviolability supports a conception of her roles as multifaceted yet sometimes contradictory; Deneuve has certainly shown passion in her films (as the strong businesswoman of Potiche) and her inviolability cannot be denied (as the inaccessible ice maiden of Repulsion who degenerates into an ‘angel-faced schizophrenic murderess’ to protect herself from men’s advances), but does she demonstrate these two qualities simultaneously through any of her characters? This essay will discuss the validity of Hartman’s argument referring to Deneuve’s performance in Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour, with some supporting references to other films in which Deneuve starred.
In this essay, I aim to discuss the issue whether imagination is more important than knowledge. “For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there will ever be to know and understand” (Albert Einstein).
“According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are an estimated 1.3 billion smokers worldwide. This number is expected to increase to 1.7 billion by 2020…According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking causes approximately 443,000 deaths each year in the United States” (“Smoking”). Tobacco has over 4,000 chemicals, including some that are poisonous and some that cause cancer (“Smoking”).Smokers tend to die 13 or 14 years earlier than those who don’t smoke (“11…”). Women who smoke during pregnancy subject their baby to the dangers of being miscarried, being born prematurely, dying during infancy, and mental and physical developmental issues. The use of tobac...