According to Google, a family is defined to be a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household. To Kill a Mockingbird never stops describing family to us. In Maycomb, Alabama, where the book takes place, family is everything. According to Aunt Alexandrea, every family has a “streak.” Many of her values around family loyalty and staying strong under pressure are shared throughout the novel. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper lee teaches readers about family by providing a variety of them. She teaches us about family in many different ways.…
In observing examples of film noir and its contemporary version, neo-noir, it is clear several elements in regards to the style and overall “feel” of these films have virtually remained the same throughout the years. In Nicolas Winding Refn’s neo-noir, Drive, a sense of otherworldliness is portrayed through several night scenes, intense shadows, and an overall dark rather downtrodden mood to the film. The scenes in the film take place at night and invariably in an urban setting. All of these elements are…
The story begins abruptly, as we find our mock heroes out in the desert en route to the savvy resort of Las Vegas. The author uses a tense hitchhiker as a mode, or an excuse, for a flashback that exposes the plot. An uncertain character picked up in the middle of the desert who Raoul Duke, the main character, feels the need to explain things to, to help him rest easy. They had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers....Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw either, and two dozen amyls. They were on assignment from a fashionable sporting magazine in New York, to cover the 4th Annual "Mint 400" dirt bike and dune buggy race. A savage journey to the heart of the American dream.<br><br>Before one can review the motion picture "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", he must first research the full length novel of the same name. The book first appeared in 1971 in issues 95 and 96 of Rolling Stone magazine, published November 11th and 25th respectively. Although the two part series stated its author was someone called Raoul Duke, the story was copyrighted in 1971 by Hunter S. Thompson. Raoul Duke is actually the false name under which Hunter Thompson portrays himself as main character and narrator.<br><br>The film was produced in the early goings of summer in 1998 almost as a tribute to the re-release of the novel in June. Directed by Monty Python's Flying Circus animator Terry Gilliam [12 Monkeys], the film was received quite poorly in the box office and even by the counterculture which was its target audience. Not even an impressive list of cameo appearances could salvage box office respect. This list featured Cameron Diaz, Cristina Ricci, Gary Busey, Lyle Lovett, Verne Troyer ["Minime" from Austin Powers], Penn Jillette [of Penn and Teller], Michael Jeter, and Flea [Red Hot…
The concept of homosexuality has been explored by society for many years and is not a new concept. Gay roles portraying homosexuals as people with the same drives and desires as heterosexual people have only begun to surface in the last few decades. Roles showing lesbian women and transgender seem to have been more widely accepted especially when they are used as humor. The role of the gay man in film and in society seems to be widely accepted when those roles are opposed or when the stereotype of a gay man is needed to inject some humor. Homosexuals are only now receiving the same attention that other controversial roles have received without the extreme criticism in the past.…
Traveling to another country, and being situated in some dangerous situations opens ones eyes and helps ones gain experience. In the book Forbidden City by William Bell, Alexander jackson is a seventeen year old boy that travels with his father Ted who is a camera man that works for CBC news. In this novel Alexander Jackson goes from innocence to experience. He developes as a caring, responsible human being and grows up through his experience in China. Alex before his journey to China is a typical teenager. Therefore he gets some experiences that change his point of view during the journey. After his journey he returns to Canada ;however, he is not a typical teenager anymore.…
Prison has always been a place of intrigue for people who have not spent time behind the bars of justice. Countless movies have been made to feed that intrigue by depicting prison life, but most have been grossly inaccurate. The effectiveness of a prison system relies on the rehabilitation process that is enacted by each prison; this process is usually overlooked in most movies.…
The film noir movement was a staple of American cinema but it has been the decline for quite a long time. In response to this, a number of directors have sought to revive this dying genre. A popular example is the period film Chinatown (1974), directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and Jon Huston. This film is heavily reminiscent of the neo-noir genre and showcases this quality through it’s use of narrative and visual structures. This film uses noir characters, plots and themes with a slight twist. There is a familiar sense of pessimism and moral ambiguity within the narrative that is shown through the use of dramatic lighting. Chinatown relies heavily on visual symbolism. The film is neo noir in the way it ties its narrative and visual structures to the theme of the inability of mankind to fully understand the world.…
Does the movie Gran Torino glorify violence and gun culture in the United States make specific reference to events in the film?…
Throughout my semester in Topics in Contemporary Literature, I have read a lot of works by a lot of different writers. Given the array of material that has been covered, I also have been introduced to a slew of new ideas and amazing characters. Two prime examples of this can be found within Barry Hannah’s “Ray,” and Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Both of the aforementioned characters are extremely complex, even though they may seem superficial, and both are the main focuses within the text. On one end there is Ray, who is a character that indulges in womanizing, fighting, and is often driven by pure lust and impulse. On the other end there is Raoul Duke, which is a fake identity that is taken by one of the main characters…
Fight Club is an important film revealing the results of civilization which causes emerged new ego far from real ego. We examined this popular rich content movie looking from psychoanalytic perspective.…
Research into the typical elements of the genre combined with positive film reviews by prestigious film critics were able to prove that the genre was successfully carried through from film to book. Because the two mediums a require different presentation, different measures must be taken in order to convey the noir style. In the film, elements such as an objective presentation and perception of the plot, a distorted and crooked camera angle to symbolize corruption, and music to set the tone and theme are key in showcasing the genre; whereas in the book, elements such as mysterious, detective, or criminal storylines and, often, the pitting of one individual against a group. Overall, both pieces of work resonate with the noir genre, and both pieces are able to express this genre using techniques most accessible and applicable to the respective medium…
For my essay on mise-en-scene, I will be talking about Sin City, written and directed by Frank Miller, Robert Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino. In this film, there are many unique techniques used by the directors to portray emotions, hidden meanings and to determine mood. Sin City is a bold and brutal adaptation of the graphic novels written by Frank Miller. Mise-en-scene is a cinematic term, which refers to techniques used by directors to help construct a specific onscreen representation. It consists of the setting of the film, costume and make up, lighting, staging, and last of all, time and space.…
The movie Fight Club features a story that, on the surface, appears to be about an underground boxing club, but goes much deeper. It focuses around one man, the Narrator, whose name is never revealed. The Narrator, like everyone else in the world, is looking for fulfillment in life, but tries to obtain it by odd means. His first obsession that we notice seems ordinary and quite common: his IKEA furniture collections. It then starts to get a little bit more unusual when he begins attending therapy sessions concerning serious medical problems in which he does not have such as various forms of cancer. Since he is still unfulfilled, he then moves on to creating an underground "Fight Club" with his recent acquaintance, Tyler Durden. This is where his obsessions become extremely unhealthy and abnormalities occur. The Narrator, throughout the movie, is seen to have many psychological issues that lay a path to is inevitable mental breakdown. Although there are many problems that the Narrator faces, the main issues are that of his masculinity, breaking away from conformity, and the slow uncovering of his severe Dissociative Identity Disorder which goes unnoticed until the final moments of this twist filled movie.…
I found at times the characters were pale, sick looking, dead, or possessed. Depending on the scene and which world the scene fell into, the lighting and musical score was dark, dusty, dim, or bright, colorful, and inviting. The overall color contrast in this film was very effective as well.…
The Stylistics of Film Noir transcends medium : in Sin City and V for Vendetta - both Noir influenced graphic novels that were adapted for the screen - an attempt to identify the Stylistics at play that are common to both mediums will be made. Sin City is Film Noir in both the film version and in the art and writing in the graphic novel from which the film directed by Robert Rodriguez was made. V for Vendetta was written and illustrated by Alan Moore and later made into a film version starring Natalie Portman. My reason for choosing these particular examples was obvious : the ability to reference and cross reference a Noir influenced graphic novel with an actual film noir adaptation of the same. The film Sin City remains faithful to most all Noir stylistics where as V for Vendetta does so in a modernist sense. Robert Rodriguez took great pains to create the visual and other style elements of Noir through his film version of the comic book - which was likewise heavily Noir influenced in the dialogs and illustration style. The Sin City movie was given a special lab treatment where bye color is laced into an essentially noirish low key black and white. V for Vendetta despite faithfulness to the original illustration style of Moore, was, in my opinion more concerned with presenting a post modernist set of Noir Stylistics - basically for audience acceptance at the box office. Again, the V for Vendetta film version lacked the extreme rendering that Rodriguez took pains to accomplish and like Polanski's work on Chinatown - could be classified more as a sub genre of classical Noir.…