The film The Aviator (2004) directed by Martin Scorsese is a biopic film of Howard Hughes. The film shows more than just important parts of Hughes’ life; the film focuses on the period of World War 2 and his involvement in the war while producing Hollywood films. The film should be looked at how Hughes is showing and making the role of technology as an unavoidable force from the past to the future. Within the film for the first hour of the film the film viewer is drawn into the past by having a filter, only showing red and blue colors similar to bipack color films, showing the availability of technology Hughes had back in the past and placing the viewer in a historical era. While many scholars argue the role that the film has in showcasing how the role of technology the value it has being an unavoidable force; Paul Grainge in his article “Colouring the Past” would agree that the colorization within the film shows how important technology was at the time and how it affects the future. The film shows the viewer how important the role of technology to move towards the future through the film production style, framing, and character dialogue and actions to show technology is an unavoidable force.
The Aviator early on within the film stands out with the film production choice Scorsese decided on having an aesthetic of a colorization of the film only having red and cyan-blue look representing the past. Grainge would agree that the colorization within the film shows the emerging technology throughout the film to show that it is technology can be used to represent the past (Grainge, 213). The colorization within the film does this showing the importance of technology by the limitations it had and how Hughes is struggling to make a succe...
... middle of paper ...
...tently a persistent force that cannot be avoided and continues to develop and innovate into something else. The film takes production techniques, framing of the camera on a specific object in contrast to something else, and the character’s dialogue and actions to show the importance of the contribution it has to technology. Technology within the film is an unstoppable force that continues to develop and innovate throughout major events of Hughes’ life. Scorsese portrayed the role of technology by making it important through the decisions he made and reinforcing the idea; for the film viewer, the idea of how important technology is and the role it has by being the way to move onwards to the future.
Works Cited
Grainge, Paul. "Colouring the Past: Pleasantville and the Textuality of Media Memory." Memory and Popular Film. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2003. 202-19. PDF.
Lewis, J. (2008). American Film: A History. New York, NY. W.W. Norton and Co. Inc. (p. 405,406,502).
Literature and film have always held a strange relationship with the idea of technological progress. On one hand, with the advent of the printing press and the refinements of motion picture technology that are continuing to this day, both literature and film owe a great deal of their success to the technological advancements that bring them to widespread audiences. Yet certain films and works of literature have also never shied away from portraying the dangers that a lust for such progress can bring with it. The modern output of science-fiction novels and films found its genesis in speculative ponderings on the effect such progress could hold for the every day population, and just as often as not those speculations were damning. Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein and Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis are two such works that hold great importance in the overall canon of science-fiction in that they are both seen as the first of their kind. It is often said that Mary Shelley, with her authorship of Frankenstein, gave birth to the science-fiction novel, breathing it into life as Frankenstein does his monster, and Lang's Metropolis is certainly a candidate for the first genuine science-fiction film (though a case can be made for Georges Méliès' 1902 film Le Voyage Dans la Lune, his film was barely fifteen minutes long whereas Lang's film, with its near three-hour original length and its blending of both ideas and stunning visuals, is much closer to what we now consider a modern science-fiction film). Yet though both works are separated by the medium with which they're presented, not to mention a period of over two-hundred years between their respective releases, they present a shared warning about the dangers that man's need fo...
Thompson, Kristin , and David Bordwell. Film History : An Introduction. 3 ed. New York:
McCrisken, T. B., & Pepper, A. (2005). American History and Contemporary Hollywood Film. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Snead, James A., Colin MacCabe, and Cornel West. White Screens, Black Images: Hollywood from the Dark Side. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
Rascaroli, Laura. "The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments." Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 49.2 (2008): 24-47. JSTOR. Web. 08 May 2014.
... symbols the creator used to convey certain qualities of technology, I discovered that technology is represented in this movie as a threat to society. By incorporating course concepts, I realize that people often have this reaction when encountering a new medium. I have also learned that there are many benefits, as well as drawbacks to this medium, but it is neither the destroyer of civilization nor the savior of impending doom. It is important to understand how it fits into our lives.
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
When thinking of killing, drugs and nudity, I’m pretty sure not many people think of positive ideas. Electronics, such as television and computers, show these kinds of things regularly. Despite this explicit material, some people see the constantly improving technology as a wonderful addition to our lives. Yet as time passes, more and more people start to have doubts about what these developments in technology are leading to. Kids and teens should be playing and using their imaginations; instead they devote countless hours on various electronics ranging from tablets and computers to phones and TV’s. These inventions often show explicit and inappropriate material which corrupts children, and are slowly ruining society’s social skills.
There are a few components that go along with technology. There are a lot of pros to technology, but what else is it good for? Many people think that technology is bad, but at this time of life, the good always outweighs the bad.
Williams, Linda. “Mirrors without Memories. Truth, History, and the New Documentary.” Film Quarterly 46.3 (1993): 9-21.
It can be argued the use of technology affects our mind and makes people lazy. In society today many people do not endeavor to educate themselves and use their own knowledge as they resort to technology. We are therefore using technology more than our brain to learn new things, decreasing our understanding of learning new information. For example, today people at work are using technology to hold meetings online with other companies, resulting in a decrease of face-to-face interaction with people that can help individuals gain a greater understanding. People who used to live before us did not have the technology that we have, but they lived and discovered new things. They used their mind to comprehend things
Technology is making our life easier than before, but are we getting too much dependent on it? Technology is getting improved by past decades. It has become a part and parcel in everyday life. Without it, people would have a lot of trouble to keep pace with the whole world. At the same time, todays new generations incredibly dependent on it. They do not want to use their brain as there are lots of search engines they can easily access and can find out what they want. Technology creates problems about pollution and global warming and at the same time people are using technology to reduce these problems. Overdependence on technology is harmful for humans’ existence because it creates addiction that makes people inactive, decrease job opportunities and causes physical or mental disorders that is a great threat for mans’ life.
Technology can be conveyed as a necessary evil in our life today. It’s considered necessary because it can save lives, and make them easier. Yet it’s considered evil because it can destroy lives on a physical and mental aspect. The true question is does the good outway the bad? ‘Technology is a word used to collectively describe or portray the advancements, abilities, creations, undertaking, views, and knowledge of the human-kind”(https://www.academia.edu/346486/Technological_Advancements_and_Its_Impact_on_Humanity). Therefore it basically means that it progresses the human race. It connects us, conserves energy and produces goods, and it saves lives. How could it not be a good thing?
This paper discusses the relationship between technology and society. It focuses on how technology has influenced various aspects of the society. The areas looked are: how technology has affected the communication, transportation, education, health, economic activities, environment, food production, food conservation and preservation and food distribution. It has gone further to explain how technology has radically changed the demographic structure of the societies in question, specifically Japan society. In addition, it has discussed how technology has influenced government policy formulation.