While many films the primary goal is to entertain, others attempt to inspire a change in the minds and actions of the audience. These movies motivate people to change behaviors by demonstrating an alternative way of living. They often accomplish this by drawing new connections between the memories and experiences of the audience with the images and characters on the screen. An example of this type of movie is the film Seven Pounds. The film deals with concept of paying penance for one’s actions. The title comes from the Shakespeare play The Merchant Of Venice in which the concept of using “seven pounds of flesh” as the ultimate payment of a debt is given(Wikipedia). The main character’s careless actions lead to a substantial loss of life that he feels he must atone for. Although this character’s actions can be classified as extreme, he literally gives everything he has in an attempt to make amends for the lives he has taken. The movie calls for individuals to take responsibility for their actions instead of placing blame elsewhere. Ideally, audience members will …show more content…
These are characters the audience can relate to because their actions are appropriate in the context of the scenes. The characters are not one-dimensional and express a rage of emotions mirroring that of real people in similar situations. The female lead, played by Rosario Dawson, is given a very short time to live and the audience is able to see a range of emotions from her character as she deals with the possibility of death. Even the actions of the main character can be justified when paired with the memory of the car accident. His vow of contrition is also accompanied with moments of doubt. Towards the end of the movie he looks for a way escape his self-imposed destiny but is eventually swayed by flashbacks of the
The negative representation of Spurlock is revealed in many instances in Fat Head. Firstly, Naughton mirrors Spurlock’s 30-day fast food binge, which he uses as a means of demonstrating the faults in Super Size Me. Another error the director analyses is Spurlock’s daily consumption of more than 5000 calories. By displaying the calculations on the side on screen as Naughton’s criticises the errors, the director accentuates the fact that none of the meal combinations that Spurlock could consume contain 5000 calories. He also manages to construct Spurlock as sinful, dishonest person, which is symbolised by the red background. While Naughton explains his calculations, the lyric ‘Something here doesn’t seem to add up’ is played in the background. This song works together perfectly with Naughton’s commentary of Spurlock’s errors, since it further emphasises the director’s biased argument, that is, Spurlock is a prevaricator. This ensemble of v...
The only real way to truly understand a story is to understand all aspects of a story and their meanings. The same goes for movies, as they are all just stories being acted out. In Thomas Foster's book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, Foster explains in detail the numerous ingredients of a story. He discusses almost everything that can be found in any given piece of literature. The devices discussed in Foster's book can be found in most movies as well, including in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic, “Pulp Fiction”. This movie is a complicated tale that follows numerous characters involved in intertwining stories. Tarantino utilizes many devices to make “Pulp Fiction” into an excellent film. In this essay, I will demonstrate how several literary devices described in Foster's book are put to use in Tarantino’s film, “Pulp Fiction”, including quests, archetypes, food, and violence.
Seven Pounds is a film about a man named Tim Thomas who is searching for a way to redeem himself after a car accident, which he caused by texting and driving, that killed seven people including his fiancé. Tim exhibits signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD throughout the movie which influences the choices he makes and the actions he takes during his life.
Obesity and opposition are the two main issues of this film. The issue of obesity, treated lightly in the beginning of the film and then severely by the end, reflects society’s approach to weight loss. To ...
This paper will include the analysis of the movie Hope Floats. It will start with a short summary of the movie describing the characters and the plot. It will then discuss the family dynamics that are shown in the movie based on the class discussions and the readings. It will also include a variety of issues that are shown throughout the movie. This paper will discuss three key family system’s issues that includes the family concepts, assessing one from Bowen’s concepts, one from Minuchin’s concepts, and one from General Systems Theory/Anderson and Sabatelli concepts. There are many different scenes and examples in this movie that will give a better understanding of the many different family dynamics, family issues, and family system concepts.
I have chosen the main character Precious. Precious’ weight gain and eating plays a major role in the movie. Features of the story help describes many of the reasons emotional, physical, and particularly sexual abuse, are risk factors for eating disorders. This includes, bulimia, binge eating disorder, anorexia as well as emotional eating, obesity and body image displeasure. Precious, who was sexually abused by her father, struggles with her weight, body and eating.
Throughout a person’s lifetime there are a few defining moments that determine the kind of person they become. In Margaret Atwood’s Weight marriage, careers, and children play significant roles in the lives of Molly and her friend the narrator. The narrator’s flashbacks provide insight into the highs and lows of her own life along with Molly’s. Weight is an enjoyable short story because the struggles and triumphs of the characters may resonate with the reader’s own life. Atwood’s Weight is an effective and thought provoking short story. A complex plot, point of view, setting, theme, and characterization deliver mechanisms to stimulate thoughts and feelings in the reader.
Movies distort reality by creating an ideal conflictual ambience, from which all the subtle human emotions and the characters arise. Humans might appear as consensus beings, seeking conformation and avoiding alienation by “society”. However, referring back to Aristotle’s saying, “human beings are by nature political animals” (1999), humans continually strive for power and control inasmuch as they strive for pure oxygen to breathe. Movies unleash these “socially unacceptable” political animals, exposing the hidden moral corruption embedded within most humans. Movies accomplish such a task by distorting reality, by reshaping the truth into a collection of video shots, taken from different angles, creating different meanings to content; the true meaning. The three genres of literature – narratives, poetry and drama – establish the key to revealing the distortion, thus providing humans with the ultimate method of deciphering our reality through the eyes of a glass lens. In the movie Do the Right Thing, these genres come together to paint a “picture” of us.
...ng the underlying theme that drives the story and the movie, propels the reader and viewer to rekindle the desire to hope above all else because hope is all one has in devastating as well as dire needs. Hope overcomes despair, permits others to see your “inner light” to develop integrity which connects with honesty and trust. Hope is the inspiration to continue to live regardless of the circumstances. Red may have narrated; “Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” But, Andy Dufresne states it best: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
A set of practices concerning the narrative structure compose the classical Hollywood Paradigm. These conventions create a plot centering around a character who undergoes a journey in an attempt to achieve some type of goal (). By giving the central character more time on screen, the film helps the audience to not only understand the character’s motivation but also empathize with his/her emotional state. Additionally, some antagonistic force creates conflict with the main character, preventing immediate success(). Finally, after confronting the antagonist, the main character achieves his or her goal along with growing emotionally(). This proven structure creates a linear and relatively easily followed series of events encompassing the leading character and a goal.
Once audiences under why they watch horror movies they will gain a better understanding of themselves. An understanding of how we watch horror movies to control and conquer our nightmares. Also an understanding for the reason why we follow society's rules is due to feeding our dark sides. Along with feeding our dark sides, audiences will gain an understanding that we watch horror movies to take a break from our daily lives.
In conclusion, both films discussed the implication of money and the moral questions that might arise from lack of it. It suggested that money is a great necessity in our society today and could lead people to do drastic things even after realizing the consequences that might arise. It is a push to discover our morality. Ultimately though, decisions are made, consequences are faced and humans learn from accepting that morality is subjective and we are solely responsible for upholding it.
People can feel better about themselves after watching these types of movies. Using these elements together, it makes the movie better, but not only that, but each element helps each other out in the scene to make it a very good movie
The film that is being used for the movie analysis is “Enough”, this movie was chosen due to the fact that it is based on domestic violence towards women. The movie begins with in Los Angeles diner were a waitress named slim works with her best friend Ginny (Kazan, 2002). While working her shift slim has a customer that starts harassing her over the name she has, but the companion of the annoying customer defends slim, which in turn starts a romance, later to become a marriage between the two (Kazan, 2002). The couple is later blessed with a daughter they name Gracie, and at the beginning the marriage seems to be a fairy tale out of a story book (Kazan, 2002). The fairy tale becomes a nightmare as time moves forwards for the couple,
Seven Pounds (2008), directed by Gabriele Muccino, follows the mysterious Tim Thomas (Will Smith) on his journey to right a past mistake that shaped his entire future. Tim poses as an IRS agent, going by the name Ben Thomas, and begins to investigate several people in order to see if they are worthy of a “gift” he wants to give them. Tim soon develops feelings for Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson) who suffers from a could-be fatal heart condition. As the film progresses, the audience is still not fully aware of Tim’s motives behind any of his actions. It is not until the last couple of scenes that we realize Tim has been trying to repay a debt he feels he owes to the world by giving seven people a new chance at life to make up for the seven others lives that ended from a car wreck he caused. It is ironic the writers had Tim pose as an IRS agent, a person who investigates citizen who owe the government money, when it is he who is in debt to the others.