Rarely has a film impacted an audience and held the test of time as the film Gone with the Wind. I have always been curious if director, Victor Fleming and producer, David O. Selznick and screenplay writer, Sidney Howard knew what they were creating a masterpiece and how this film would have such an enormous impact on audiences for years to come. Interestingly enough there were some who thought the film should not be made, as Irving Thalberg said to Louis B. Meyer in 1936, “Forget it Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel” (Ten Films that Shook the World). This romantic melodrama was released in January, 1940, yet it was at the 1939 Academy Awards that Gone with the Wind was nominated for thirteen awards, the eight awards that were won were Best Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, Color Cinematography, Art Direction, and Editing (Ten Films that Shook the World). ”If the total income for Gone with the Wind were to be adjusted for inflation, it would be considered the most successful of all time” (Ten Films that Shook the World). When you think of “Gone with the Wind” from a film criticism standpoint, it’s hard to judge it by the Auteur Theory, which states that the director is supreme overlord of a films artistic merit because in the case of Gone with the Wind, Fleming takes a back seat to Selznick. The film chronicles the grandeur and splendor of the Old South, how it crumbles during the Civil War and the New South during reconstruction. The characters are basically simple folk living a simple life until their world is shattered by the Civil War and this devastation creates a new world, one which will require courage and resilience to survive. Selznick genius in the aspects of cinematography lighting, sound, costumes and societal impact and genre…
Tres Bellezas is a Spanish satire movie with English subtitles that came out in 2014. It is about a mother and her three children (two daughters and a son). The mother is a previous beauty queen and wants her daughter Carolina to be one also. Her other daughter, Estefania, wants to be a beauty queen as well but her mother tells her that she is too skinny to be one. Estefania and her brother Salvador are pretty much ignored by their mother, meanwhile Carolina needs to lose weight for her school pageant so her mom locks the fridge and cabinets and teaches her to puke after eating. Carolina hangs herself after losing the competition and being made fun of by the school. They rush Carolina to the hospital and she survives. Then the family finds…
Lastly, you can accomplish a great amount if you work as a team. The film Powaqqatsi has a scene that shows groups of people dancing in costumes, performing for people. In this scene, the people are happy, they all have smiles on their faces and are enjoying the company of the people around them as they dance and create music together. The idea of working together in Powaqqatsi is also portrayed in the episode “Flight” of Grey’s Anatomy. The plane, transporting six of the Seattle Grace doctors, just crashed to the ground and everyone is injured and some even facing death. Meredith Grey is on a mission to find her husband, Derek Shepherd, after the plane crashes. After looking and looking, Christina Yang, Meredith’s best friend, and Meredith…
Amistad, directed by Steven Spielberg, displays the fierce determination of 53 African abductees and their compelling desire to return home. Led by Cinqué (or Sengbe), a man longing to see his wife and son in Sierra Leone again, the men aboard the ship La Amistad rebelled against the Spanish slave traders who guarded them from escape. Using sugar cane knives stolen from cargo aboard the ship, the Africans defeated the gun-wielding Spaniards. With ambitions of returning to West Africa, they eventually ended up off the coast of Long Island instead of the initial destination, a Cuban port. Even as the native Africans adjusted to an entirely different life in America, their African identity still remained apparent throughout the film.…
Few teams have gone from irrelevance to significance as quickly as the newly (re)christened Los Angeles Rams.…
The Years of Lead (Anni di piomno) was a period of socio-political abruption in Italy from the late 1960s into the early 1980s. This period was marked by a wave of terrorism. Italian cinema has played a prominent role in portraying the ongoing impact of the anni di piomno and in defining the ways in which Italians remember and work through the events associated with this traumatic decade.…
In the movie The Rookie, directed by John Lee Hancock, the director tells a story about a high school baseball coach from Texas named Jimmy Morris. Morris’s dream throughout his life was to make it to the big leagues and play with the very best in the game. He faced multiple challenges that tried to hold him back from his dream. One of the challenges he faced was his dad, his father disapproved of him playing baseball and didn’t support him playing at a young age. Another big challenge was the town Morris’s family moved to, they didn’t care for baseball and there was nowhere to play. In the end, an injury ended his career and he knew it was time to give it up. Eventually, Morris got married and had three children,…
recently saw the incredible film ‘Concussion”. The true story begins when forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu discovers brain deterioration that is comparable to Alzheimer's disease on former NFL football players while conducting an autopsy. Dr. Omalu names the disorder Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy and with some help gets his findings published in a medical journal. After presenting his research, he finds himself under fire from the National Football League. As other athletes face the same diagnosis, the doctor embarks on a mission to raise public awareness about the dangers of football-related head trauma.…
The town of Bogota, Columbia, which is the town that this documentary is focused on, went through many phases of change and redevelopment. These ideas and changes were very effective and overall influenced the success of this city. I believe that almost off of these actions could work in the urban system of U.S. cities, if they are needed and implemented right. Cultural and political contexts needs to be taken into account though. Overall, the two mayors that this film focused on was Antanas Mockus who taught the citizens how to behave in a city and Enrique Penalosa, who built a democratic city.…
This essay will take an in-depth look at the history of Hollywood during the late 60s and early 70s. This period of time is considered to have been a renaissance for American cinema, and was titled the ‘New Hollywood’ by cotemporary critics of the time. In order to understand the changes that Hollywood went through the late ‘60s, you first have to examine the preceding era of Hollywood filmmaking during the 30s and 40s. This was a period that is commonly referred to as Hollywood’s Golden Age; when the dream factories were in full swing and the audiences were in regular attendance. This period of time could be defined by a number of social, political or economic contexts, but it’s the filmmaking practices that were employed at the time which…
Un Chien Andalou is a historically important film because of the profound impact it has on its viewer. Its timeframe is important as it was part of a larger Surrealism movement and much larger avant-garde movement in the 1920’s.It awakens the unconscious minds of the viewers because of its startling scenes of extreme violence and utter confusion. Directors Bunueland Dali created a film that was so strange and different it was able to change how people thought about film and…
Do the Right Thing took place in one of the hottest days in Brooklyn, New York in 1989 where race relations were the “talk of the town.”. Many people like Mookie, Sal, Da Mayor, and Mother Sister tried to accommodate with the heat, however at the end of the film Sal, the pizzeria owner and others attacked the African Americans and eventually the police ended up killing one African American. This film “presents a case for both violence and nonviolence in racial conflicts” (Haas, Christensen and Haas). Both famous and ordinary individuals, and events left their mark in history like Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcom X were the ambassadors of the black movement. These individuals invited the people to hassle out the contradictions. One ordinary…
In the movie “Bernie”, we follow the story and between a Carthage, Texas funeral director Bernie Tiede, and his co-dependent relationship with a wealthy widow, Marjorie Nugent. As “Bernie” unfolds, we see the companionship turn for the worse as Ms. Nugent’s ill-temper causes Bernie to snap – and lands her dead in her freezer. This movie brings up some questions, specifically regarding image. After analysis, the question I keep coming back to is “Was Bernie genuine and sincere? Or was it all a façade?” Although Bernie committed a horrible crime, I believe the answer to this question is “yes”- Bernie was a genuine man.…
I had the privilege of attending the Policy Symposium workshop on Thursday at Ramapo College. They touched on immigration and a lot of what they mentioned was found in the text book Two things that both the text book and Symposium talked about was that when Immigrants get deported back to their country, they are at risk of getting raped. Women have a higher risk of getting raped, but men also sometimes gets raped as well. Another thing that they both mentioned was if immigrant children are deported, they often go to a country that is unfamiliar territory because they have little knowledge. This was also mentioned in the movie "Underprivileged" as the main character, Thomas was deported after not being able to produce an social security number for his university.…
Our analysis is on the film The Italian Job. While we view the movie and determine the various norms, behaviors, roles and interaction between group members, as well as individuals the examination within the realm of film can present many of the same components. Thus, our group selected this movie to analyze based on its formation of a cohesive problem-solving group full of unforgettable characters. The Italian Job portray many different theories and aspects of small group communication.…