The film Total Recall from 1990, directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is a good example of a film that illustrates philosophical issues through cinema. The film was loosely based on the short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale, written by Philip K. Dick, who also wrote the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, on which the film Blade Runner is based on. Total Recall takes place in 2084, in a world where humans have colonized Mars, and tells a story about Douglas Quaid, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Quaid is a construction worker living on Earth who has become bored with his uneventful life. When he sees an ad from a company called Rekall; a place where people can buy memory implants of fake “vacations”, he decides to take a fake “vacation”. The memory package he buys includes him going to Mars as a secret agent on an important mission and resulting in him “getting the girl, killing the bad guys and saving the entire planet” before the trip is over. However, during the procedure something goes wrong and Quaid has a “schizoid embolism” before the memories are implanted. To cover up the mess, the company erases his memory of the visit and …show more content…
After the visit, Quaid mysteriously starts to get attacked by various people he encounters, including his wife who reveals that she’s not his real wife and his whole life consists of fake memories implanted by “The Agency”. It turns out that Douglas Quaid is really a secret agent called Hauser, whose memory has been erased and replaced with the fake memories of Douglas Quaid. After
After watching the movie "Even the Rain", I was impressed how deeply it was thought out. With this film, I realized that people are ambiguous, and in different situations may not act the same way, showing the character from an unexpected side for others, and for himself. Also that history always repeats. Are hundreds of years old and forgotten, Read in dusty books suddenly is played at you through the window.
Neill, Alex. “Empathy and (Film) Fiction.” Philosophy of film and motion pictures : an anthology. Ed. Noel Carrol and Jinhee Choi. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 247-259. Print.
One example is the parlor walls that Guy Montag’s wife, Mildred, constantly watches. All she does is watch big screen TV’s so much so that she is brainwashed by the messages she sees. This is similar to today’s world as TV screens are getting bigger and bigger, and covering entire walls might not be too far off in the future. Many movies today are not made with meaningful content, but rather focus on a visual and mental assault of loud, colorful, meaningless images with idiotic plots aimed at the sole purpose of making money.
What is most ironic about this apparent postmodernism of resistance that we see at the surface of the film is undermined by high modernist ideology that recalls metanarratives of a patriarchal past. Thus we actually get the high modernist ideology that the film appears to reject. For every progressive step that Total Recall takes forward, then, it takes
Therefore, although the film appears to send a revolutionary message of a rage against ‘the machine’ or the matrix and its oppression, ...
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.
As they tried to implant the memory, a hidden memory of Quail actually being a real secret agent who was sent to Mars to fulfil a mission for the government agency Interplan, is brought up. They do not know what will happen if they try to plant a false memory of Mars over a real one. McClane decides no not continue with the procedure and sends Quail home. With half true and half false memories Quail sits in a taxi thinking about his trip to Mars.
Who we are as a person has a lot to due with the various kinds of influences that we may encounter through different events, personal experiences, stories, and by others. Surprisingly enough movies can have a large impact on us, that can really change who we are. The Blind Side, August Rush, and The Devil Wears Prada, are among the many different films that have had a significant impact me on how I live my life and see the world. Films have a way of influencing people into thinking and believing in ways they may have never thought in before.
If one has amnesia, they will have difficulty recalling facts, events, places, or specific detail (Barclay, 2016). The details can range from what one ate this morning to their birthday. Hollywood has fabricated the idea that by suffering with amnesia the first signs of symptoms include losing self-identify and ability to function normally. However, that type of amnesia is very rare and in reality, one with amnesia will still retain your motor skills, such as your ability to walk, as well as fluency in any languages you speak, and self-identity. In addition, there are many different types of amnesia with a wide range of
Effective Instructions on Recall Abstract A study was conducted involving fifty students, randomly selected, that learned three lists of ten nouns. It was expected that the group receiving narrative instructions would score higher than the group receiving the repetition instructions. Two minutes was allowed for each list. The control group was assigned to learn the list of words by repeating them.
Kerner, Aaron M.. “Irreconcilable Realities.” Film Analysis: A Norton Reader. Eds. Jeffrey Geiger and R.L. Rutsky. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2nd edition, 2013. 462-83.
When deciding what movie to do for this particular paper I faced a few issues. I knew what the requirements were, but I wanted something different and something I could have fun watching and writing as well. So, after looking around and pondering movies for weeks I finally decided on a perfect choice The 60’s directed by Mark Piznarski?
The culture and philosophy of Ridley Scott (pp. 231-243. United States: Lexington Books, Inc. Pramaggiore, M., & Wallis, T. (2005). Film: A critical introduction to the film.
In recent times, such stereotyped categorizations of films are becoming inapplicable. ‘Blockbusters’ with celebrity-studded casts may have plots in which characters explore the depths of the human psyche, or avant-garde film techniques. Titles like ‘American Beauty’ (1999), ‘Fight Club’ (1999) and ‘Kill Bill 2’ (2004) come readily into mind. Hollywood perhaps could be gradually losing its stigma as a money-hungry machine churning out predictable, unintelligent flicks for mass consumption. While whether this image of Hollywood is justified remains open to debate, earlier films in the 60’s and 70’s like ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (1967) and ‘Taxi Driver’ (1976) already revealed signs of depth and avant-garde film techniques. These films were successful as not only did they appeal to the mass audience, but they managed to communicate alternate messages to select groups who understood subtleties within them.
What makes a movie or a play important? The messages of course; no text will ever go without messages intertwined within the story line. Tom Stoppard is a master of this technique which is shown throughout his play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. This is a play about two gentlemen who are from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. Stoppard writes this play expecting readers to know the play Hamlet extremely well; some parts of the play are even performed within Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. However, this is a play about two dead men walking; readers who know the play Hamlet know that these two men are going to die at the end of the play. This is a play where everything is a metaphor, a message, or a theme, some of which reference back to Hamlet, others refer to other things throughout history. There are specific messages that arise throughout Tom Stoppard’s play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which includes the use of language, the question of identity, and lastly the uncertainties of life and death.