Differences And Similarities Between The Conquerors And Prospero's

In Giovanni Stradano’s engraving Amerigo Vespucci awakening “America”, he exemplifies colonial discourse by asserting the idea of writing being a fundamental component to colonization. Both the documentary The Conquerors: Cortez and the fictional film Prospero’s Books work to further develop the concept of writing as the production of myths that is illustrated in Stradano’s engraving through the use of literary techniques such as allegory and narrative in order to communicate and build understanding about the ways in which accounts of the past become“writing that conquers.”

Myths are self serving stories that we tell about ourselves and others that work to strengthen our established beliefs, assumptions and ways of living and film is just one form that our myths can take. When making these films, the idealized audience that filmmakers are shooting for would be the descendants of colonizers, and these
In films, the different production techniques make up the narrative, or the way in which a story is told. In The Conquerors: Cortez, an important film technique that is used is the camera viewpoint. Generally speaking, the further away from someone we are, the less connected we feel and oppositely, to be near someone gives off the feeling of being close both physically and emotionally and that same effect can be achieved with a camera. Throughout the documentary there are frequent close ups of Cortez, these serve the purpose of making the audience feel linked with Cortez. In addition, the initial shots shown of Cortez at 1:35s and 1:45s are at slight upwards angle in order to start off the film with the idea that Cortez should be looked up to figuratively and literally. These techniques assist in the