Gus Van Sant’s Elephant was at once critically praised and denounced by both film reviewers and filmgoers alike. The cinematography takes you on a waltz throughout a seemingly typical day at an unnamed high school, stopping through the journey to focus on the stereotypes of school. The jock, the quirky artist, the cliqued girls, the skateboarder, they are all represented and representative of his film. Van Sant created a film, seemingly without a staunch opinion on the horrors of the Columbine shootings. The movie seems distanced from the actors and their actions: an unaware participant from the tranquil introduction to the gruesome climax. His seeming lack of a purpose, lack of a reason for the creation of this film, is exactly the impetus that drives its core meaning. The high school was as stereotyped and typical as possible, a campus where everyone swears they’ve visited once in their life. The visceral climax is at once both slowly built up to inevitability by the characterizations of the assailants, yet it also strikes the school suddenly and without warning. Van Sant’s film is a series of seeming contradictions and paradoxes that create the illusion that he has no stance on the Columbine shootings. His stance, however, is given away in the purposelessness of the film; the idyllic simplicity of the school, and its subsequent destruction, has no purpose. The Columbine massacre had no purpose. Gus Van Sant’s aestheticized school builds up a world that seems tangible to most students. He carries every right to create his own world and tear it back down. It is this beauty that he creates that makes the film so much more shocking when it ends.
Aesthetic realism is the concept of accepting reality as unchangeable; therefore, one must find the beauty that is inherent in everyday life instead of attempting to create beauty. The idea is that aesthetic realism “sees all reality including the reality that is oneself, as the aesthetic oneness of opposites,” (Siegel). In other words, life is at once changing and the same. For example, someone is the same person when they wake up in the morning and the same person when they go to sleep at night. They haven’t changed. However, there have still changed as a person throughout the day, at least minutely. Change and stability both occur simultaneously. At the same time, Siegel states that it “sees the largest purpose o...
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...e what can be easily related to; they wouldn’t be considered stereotypes otherwise. The beauty that is created during the first hour, which is denounced by Foundas as unrealistic, is subsequently destroyed in the climax. To create and destroy mediocrity would not be as stirring a rendition as Van Sant’s recreation of perfection coupled with his systematic disposal of it.
Gus Van Sant has created a world of high school that has every stereotype. He manifests a sense of beauty in every shot he creates, with the slow arcing camera shots combined with the loving caricatures of the students. He finds the aesthetic realism in high school, the elegance inherent in aspects of campus life, and constructs a film around it. It is his own right to create his own view of high school, and while critics can disagree, they should not debase. The initial purposelessness should only be taken at face value; it is the lack of purpose in the beginning of the film that makes the lack of purpose in the massacre more obvious. There was no reasoning behind the Columbine shootings, they were a tragic occurrence that had little logic behind it. However, Van Sant’s film had purpose underneath its exterior.
After reading “The Apology of Socrates”, I feel very strongly that Socrates was innocent in the allegations against him. “The Apology of Socrates” was written by Plato, Socrates most trusted pupil, who in fact wrote everything for Socrates. Numerous times in his defense, Socrates points out ways that what he is being accused of is false. The point of this paper is to show how Socrates did this, and to explain how he proved his innocence by using these quotes. He uses a lot of questions to the accusers to prove his points and is very skilled in speech and knowledge. This essay’s purpose is to explain why I think Socrates was innocent, and how he proves that in his speech.
... crime and deviance differently. This is why left and right realism have formed a general consensus that influence politicians as to what laws may help deter criminal behaviour and to what support is needed for struggling families via government initiative. For example if a community has been affected by crime offering them some form of social justice and support they would be less likely to commit crime themselves as a form of revenge. The government’s policies on criminal behaviour and victim support are reflected through some of the main theories and beliefs of realism.
This section from the book To Kill a Mockingbird explains the title. Throughout the entire book Harper Lee talks about Boo and mentions that it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird since they don't harm anyone. Boo Radley is just like the mockingbird. He is innocent and even saves them from Mr. Ewell. When Boo saves their lives by killing Mr. Ewell he shows that goodness does exist in him but it was corrupted by the evil of the outside world.
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."
Harris was “the callously brutal mastermind” while Klebold was the “quivering depressive who journaled obsessively about love and attended the Columbine prom three days before opening fire” (Columbine High School, History). On an article published by Cullen on Slate.com, it reveals the true motivation and meaning behind the actions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
The Columbine Shootings were one of the greatest tragedies that the nineties faced; and changed the world that was once known. The fault for this tragedy falls on popular culture, moral climate, and the parents of the shooters; not the shooters themselves. Society has greatly affected the minds of the youth, and viewing violence on television, video games, and on the internet, has planted a negative seed of thought in their minds.
On April 20, 1999, Columbine High School Senior Dylan Klebold and his friend Eric Harris killed twelve students and one teacher before taking their own lives shortly after. They were armed, cruel, and just full of hatred that day. They decided to channel that hatred towards their classmates and teachers in the form of havoc, devastation, and death. Crimes such as this are sensitive subjects, especially when the youth are involved. The subject is even touchier when both the murderers and those murdered are children themselves.
On April 20, 1999, within the tiny, suburban city of Littleton, Colorado, two high-school seniors, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, enacted a full-scale assault on columbine high school throughout the middle of the school day. The boys' idea was to kill many of their colleagues. With guns, knives, and a large number of bombs, the two boys walked the hallways and killed. Once the day was done, twelve students, one teacher, as well as the two murderers were dead; and 21 of them were wounded. The haunting question remains: why did they decide to do this?
Plato’s "Apology" gives the substance of the defense made by Socrates to the Athenians at his trial. Meletus, Anytus and Lyncon brought Socrates to court on charges of corrupting the morals of the youth, leading the youth away from the principals of democracy, neglecting the Gods of the State and introducing new divinities.
As the world recovers from recent school shootings, people wondered why these events have occurred. They are focused on drug use, violent society, video games, bullying, and mental issues to try and explain an unexplainable event. The idea that a person would shoot others for little or no reason gave little relief to the survivors.
Socrates starts by speaking of his first accusers. He speaks of the men that they talked to about his impiety and says that those that they persuaded in that Socrates is impious, that they themselves do not believe in gods (18c2). He tells the court of how long they have been accusing him of impiety. He states that they spoke to others when they were at an impressionable age (18c5). These two reasons alone should have been good enough to refute the first accusers of how they were wrong about him but Socrates went on. He leaves the first accusers alone because since they accused him a long time ago it was not relevant in the current case and began to refute the second accusers. Socrates vindicates his innocence by stating that the many have heard what he has taught in public and that many of those that he taught were present in the court that day.
Elephant Man The Elephant Man, written by Bernard Pomerance, is a play about identity. It is a play about a man who is deformed, but constantly trying to live life as an ordinary person. The play begins with John Merrick, also known as the Elephant Man, performing in a carnival freak show in order to make a minute amount of money for living expenses. In Scene VI, Even on the Niger and Ceylon, Not This, Treves brings in Miss Sandwich to become Merricks nurse. He explains to her that he has been let down so far by the other nurses he has introduced to Merrick.
Plato's The Apology is an account of the speech. Socrates makes at the trial in which he is charged with not recognizing the gods recognized by the state, inventing new gods, and corrupting the youth of Athens. For the most part, Socrates speaks in a very plain, conversational manner. He explains that he has no experience with the law courts and that he will instead speak in the manner to which he is accustomed with honesty and directness. Socrates then proceeds to interrogate Meletus, the man primarily responsible for bringing Socrates before the jury. He strongly attacks Meletus for wasting the court¡¦s time on such absurd charges. He then argues that if he corrupted the young he did so unknowingly since Socrates believes that one never deliberately acts wrongly. If Socrates neither did not corrupt the young nor did so unknowingly, then in both cases he should not be brought to trial. The other charge is the charge of impiety. This is when Socrates finds an inconsistency in Meletus¡¦ belief that Socrates is impious. If he didn¡¦t believe in any gods then it would be inconsistent to say that he believed in spiritual things, as gods are a form of a spiritual thing. He continues to argue against the charges, often asking and answering his own questions as if he were speaking in a conversation with one of his friends. He says that once a man has found his passion in life it would be wrong of him to take into account the risk of life or death that such a passion might involve.
Some of the best sources of information about Socrates' philosophical views are the early dialogues of his student Plato, who tried to provide a faithful picture of the methods and teachings of the great master. The Apology is one of the many-recorded dialogues about Socrates. It is about how Socrates was arrested and charged with corrupting the youth, believing in no god(s) (Atheism) and for being a Sophist. He attended his trial and put up a good argument. I believe that Socrates was wrongfully accused and should not have been sentenced to death. Within the duration of this document, I will be discussing the charges laid against Socrates and how he attempted to refute the charges.
Realism, a style of writing that gives the impression of recording or ‘reflecting’ faithfully an actual way of life. The term refers, sometimes confusingly, both to a literary method based on detailed accuracy of description and to a more general attitude that rejects idealization, escapism, and other extravagant qualities of romance in favor of recognizing soberly the actual problems of life..( Shodhganga, SOCIAL REALISM, ch2.p 79)