thursday presentation
Hey everyone, just wanted to know if anyone took any pictures of our presentation. We forgot to take pics and itd be awesome if any of you did to see just how crazy we looked lol. thanks hope you’re all enjoying your weekend.
Is there such thing as a good remake?
In class we started to get on the subject of how remakes are just a cheap way to gain profit and are rarely well made films. Well I found someone’s blog post where Vic Holtreman claims to have boiled down how to successfully remake a movie in just five steps. I’m going to take his five points and write my own opinion about them. I’ll paste the link below so everyone can read his reasons behind the five steps.
http://screenrant.com/top-five-rules-for-movie-remakes-vic-964/
1. Stories in the public domain that have already had multiple movie remakes done.
I agree with Vic’s first step because in a way I feel remakes of classics don’t really count as remakes. Vic uses movies such as Dracula as an example of a classic and I feel stories like this are so well known and established, that it is very hard to mess up a remake. What I mean is that, for example, the story of Dracula is known by many people, so in a way people know what to expect in a remake. Kind of like how people feel when they go to Mc Donalds, they go there for food because they know what they are going to get, no matter where it is or when it is. People going to see Dracula usually have a base knowledge of what to expect, leading to less let downs. There is the argument that people would like to see classics reinvented, but do you think that really counts as a remake?
2. The original is terribly dated in either setting or pacing and style.
Where many people who love older movies will totally disagree with me, I feel this is very true because when I watch some movies from the 40s and 50s I find myself a bit bored, which I feel has to do with pacing. Maybe this is because newer generations of audiences have a different respect for movies, but then wouldn’t a remake serve good here, to retell a story for newer generations?
3. The original is not terribly well known or beloved.
I feel this is very true and I will use the example of John Carpenter’s The Thing as an example because many people probably do not even know this is a remake of The Thing From Another World. This proves the point that it helps to remake films that are not well known and it creates a successful remake because hell, half the public don’t even think of it as a remake.
4. The remake does in fact bring something new while respecting the original.
I think this is interesting because here someone can use the original film to tell the story in their own way. A good example of this is Halloween and Rob Zombie’s remake, where it essentially tells the same story without changing main plot elements, just from a different characters perspective. One film I’m interested in seeing how this is done is the soon to be American remake of the Swedish Let The Right One In, titled Let Me In. I feel this is going to be interesting because the Swedish movie is based off a novel that is quite lengthy and has many different elements and the American film plans to focus the movie on elements from the book that weren’t expressed in the Swedish film.
5. The original was basically pretty cheesy or tongue-in-check in tone and most folks wouldn’t care if it was remade.
I think this is very true and the perfect example that comes to mind is the remake of Wes Craven’s The Last House On The Left. I must say I actually enjoyed the remake better than the original because it stays very true to the original story, it just takes out some of the slapstick elements of Wes Craven’s original. Personally I felt this element did not mesh well with the rest of the original exploitation film and actually takes away from some of the shock and horror.
I feel these are actually five pretty accurate steps to create a successful remake. Let me know if you guys agree or disagree.
Halloween, different take
To begin with, I thought you might enjoy this video, which definitely gives a different perception of Halloween.
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I definitely experience fear and anxiety while watching Halloween. One of the most obvious techniques that the film uses to create suspense is the music, which builds up to a crescendo as the process of stalking and killing progresses. The camera movement is shaky, switching from Michael’s point of view to the victim’s, which creates a sense of disorientation, an unsettling feeling, and puts the audience in a moment-to-moment viewing position. The villain is hidden from the viewer, more often brought into awareness by the heavy breathing, which makes him appear more dangerous and evil. Lastly, the ending does not give a resolution but leaves the viewer with a sense of imminent danger still present, which has a powerful effect. The film builds up tension continuously, pretends to conclude to a release of the anxiety (the numerous times Michael was perhaps dead), and quickly returns to a stressful state, and in the end leaves the audience with these feelings. Halloween makes numerous references to Hitchcock’s Psycho throughout the film: the stabbing with the knife, falling down the stairs, using theme music to alert the audience to approaching danger, as well as other stylistic techniques. I contemplate that perhaps most importantly both films share simplicity in eliciting fear: a near lack of gore, blood, and graphic violence. By showing less, the films give the audience more – a very emotionally disturbing experience.
Of course, one of the most prominent themes in Halloween is sexual promiscuity and the price of this “sin.” It all begins with Michael witnessing an illicit sex act, which some might argue is what turns him from an innocent boy to the monster he is. This particular loss of innocence is portrayed as the root of the evil in the film. The only girl who survives Michael’s killing spree is the only virgin, while the sexually experienced girls are killed. In addition, they are open about their sexuality, the murder follows the sexual act, the easiness with which this “sin” is lived out intensifies the theme of the film. It is only the women who are pursued for being sexually active; the one male who is killed dies because he was just there. The film clearly speaks to the society’s anxiety of the change in women’s attitudes and roles, however, it is only women who are judged for their sexual behavior. This difference in treatment has persisted over the years and is unlikely to change as long as we continue to place such high value on gender differences, which are not as great in quality or quantity as they are perceived to be.
Here is another different view of the film.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/J3oontXKRzo" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Inside the mind of a murderer…
Having watched both Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween, one can’t help but wonder what drives serial killers to commit such atrocious crimes. I usually take the Freudian approach and search for the answer in their troubled childhood. This person had to somehow be brought up differently to lead him or her to not have the same emotions as us, same sense of morality.
Pedro Alonso López is considered to be one of the most infamous murderers of all time. He is said to have killed over 300 victims. I learned that his mother, a prostitute with 13 children, caught him fondling his younger sister when he was eight years old. She threw him out of the house. He was then picked up by a pedophile, taken to a deserted house and repeatedly sodomized. Later, he was taken in by an American family and enrolled in a school for orphans. He allegedly ran away, either with a teacher from his school, or because he was molested by a teacher. Furthermore, at 18, he was gang-raped in prison. There’s no justification for what he did, but this certainly gives us some insight into how tragic events shaped his character.
However, what incites more fear is facing a serial killer that is seemingly normal but leads an alternative life full of murder and cruelty. One that gives no explanation for his actions, no warning signs. One such famous murder was Richard Kuklinski – “the Iceman”. He was an ordinary man. He had a job, a wife, children, and as we later find out a hobby! In the following interview with him, we can see how he got his nickname, having had no feelings as he committed the crimes.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/8iTmoeFsjDs" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
A couple of weeks ago I was browsing the internet in search of some scenery pictures of the city I am from in Ukraine. I kept coming across references to the “Dnepropetrovsk maniacs”. I thought they are some local band or maybe a motorcicle gang. I then found out that it was a group of guys who murdered for fun. They started with stray dogs and later moved on to humans. They tortured and then killed their victims and recorded it all on camera to keep as memories. What’s more is that they would attend their victims’ funerals and desecrate their gravesides. I was disgusted to find out that these teenagers came from fairly wealthy families and simply took this up as a hobby. I searched for answers; I tried to blame their parents. In interviews, they denied that their children could commit such things, claiming that they were framed by the police. But there are endless pictures and videos showing them committing the crimes and enjoying them! Here is some news footage.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/9OqmfAPxSE0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/F6asP4DABGk" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
A video of one of the murders made it onto the internet. Movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween dont scare me much, so I began to watch the movie out of curiosity. You can easily find the video online and www.ohlookaforum.com has a whole lot of information on it. But I urge you not to. I am not exxagerating when I saw that it took me days to recover from it, and the images linger in my mind to this day. The three murderers attacked a middle aged ma, a recent cancer survivor. They used a hammer and a screwdriver to slowly kill him, but what made the video most tragic, is that the poor man wouldn’t die for the longest time, suffering slowly. Some say this is the most gruesome video available online and anybody who dares to watch it, please respond with some feedback. Perhaps it was the raw realism of the footage, perhaps its because it occured in my own city, but I swear that I have never been more horrified in my life…
Calvin and Hobbes Make War
So I love Calvin and Hobbes, always have…and when I saw this I had to post it. It is funny how Calvins says they can’t play Peace because there aren’t enough role models…hmmm interesting…then he goes on and calls himself the American defender of liberty and democracy (i have heard that one before) and then naturally Hobbes would have to be the evil godless (because if you don’t believe in god you’re automatically evil) communist oppressor, i love how godless communist and oppressor go hand in hand. And then finally in the end they both die anyway…nuclear warfare anyone? To quote Plato (well technically General McArthur): “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” That is all.
P.S. citation- http://all-thats-interesting.tumblr.com/post/499738698/calvin-and-hobbes-on-war
don’t want to go and get sued or something
Jesus Camp
After reading Stephen’s post, I was inspired to write about how children in the US are brainwashed. I had recently watched a documentary called Jesus Camp and I thought it was an excellent example of the indoctrination of children. It reminded me of The Manchurian Candidate and Melley article (Stephen covered most of the points so I won’t spit them back out).
The movie is basically about an evangelical Christian summer camp. Like the video below says, these children are training to become preachers or “warriors for Jesus.” As you can see, all the attendees of this camp are children. Children are most susceptible to new beliefs and ideas. The pastor in this documentary also compares her teachings to Islamic schools that prepare their children for jihad.
Although this is not as extreme as the topic Stephen posted about, there are obvious signs of brainwashing. In the trailer (below), one of the boys was talking about how he was saved at the age of 5 because he wanted more out of life (:40 mark). When I was 5, I barely knew what life was; I went to school and had friends and family; that was pretty much it. I wasn’t thinking about what life had in store for me or if there was something more to life.
This next clip about Harry Potter pretty much speaks for itself.
I feel that it’s sort of over the top. Both the camp and the parents of these children are just pumping certain information into them and the children will obviously believe it all. They home-school their children so they won’t be influenced by information that might be contrary to their beliefs and they even pray to a Christian flag, for instance.
So I was just wondering how you guys feel about this now that you’ve seen faith-based brainwashing in two different cultures.
Also, I recommend you watch it if you get the chance!
Exorcism
After watching The Exorcist and today’s discussion I thought it might be appropriate to post a video I found on youtube about real life exorcisms that take place.
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I was a little freaked out when I first watched the clip and did not realize that exorcisms were really still performed these days. I think that the freakyness and curiosity that is associated with exorcisms and demonic possessions in general is one of the reason that The Exorcist is so popular to begin with. We touched upon it in class a little bit today but I just wanted to bring up the reasons why a person would find a movie scary. There are actually a variety of reasons but one of the main ones for me is that I find some kind of personal connection to the film or the situation/setting is realistic enough for me to suspend my disbelief and really allow myself to become scared. Granted, I did not find this film to be one of the scariest I’ve seen. The most it did was freak me out at some parts, mostly the possession parts but I can see why when it came out it was thought of as something completely new and terrifying and why this film has continued to remain popular so many years after its release.
I feel that exorcism is general is something that is a very touchy topic for people because of its place in religion. This is not something that is thought of as so mythological or fake such as zombies or monsters, but is a real world threat and I feel that is what is so scary about a film like The Exorcist. The clip I posted above shows a woman who believes herself to be possessed, undergoing exorcism to try and remove the demon. It’s almost crazy to watch this woman as they try to exorcise the demon from her. It seems a little ridiculous to someone like myself, who doesn’t really believe in the idea of the devil. But for so many people, this exists as part of their belief systems and I can see why a movie about demonic possession would strike many people as very frightening. I am still uneasy with the idea and may have been more scared by the film had the cinematography and production been a little bit scary, because I think just the idea of it is enough to cause anxiety.
In case anyone is interested there are more clips up on youtube about real-life exorcisms taking place.
For Today’s Discussion: The Exorcist
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Disgustingly Fun
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was an attack of the senses. Though it was a low-budget film, with an unspectacular plot and flat characters, TCM was a great experience.
What I love most about the movie was how evocative it was without really showing that much. There wasn’t a whole lot of blood, but it was the suggestion of killing that made it scary for viewers. The fluttering of the guy’s body when he is knocked in the head. Pam hanging on the meat hook. Leatherface chasing Sally through the woods and wielding his chainsaw madly. The viewer is immersed in a disturbing killing spree, where the sensation of fear and anxiety is created more by the imagination than anything else.
For me, the most frightening scenes were when Sally was being chased. I could feel my adrenaline pumping as her predator neared her and my heart probably skipped a beat every time Leatherface’s chainsaw narrowly missed her. It was as if the withholding of death was even worse than death itself. When the other characters were killed, it was quick and relatively painless for me, but watching Sally being tortured, chased and bludgeoned in the head was agonizing. I wanted her to escape, but a small part of me was hoping they would listen to the cook and get it over with.
Another important part in creating the atmosphere for the movie was the use of physically disgusting elements. The gallery below contains some disgusting scenes that I could find on the internet. Some of what’s missing is the grandfather, especially the scene where he sucks on Sally’s finger and the room where Sally finds herself surrounded by bones and feathers and ghastly remains. What was scary was not only the senseless murders, but imagining coming in contact with some of those disgusting things.
I also wanted to add part of a documentary on the making of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In this particular video, they discuss some of the disgusting elements of the movie.
Animated Soviet Propaganda
I would like to turn back a little and continue on the topic of cold war and mass propaganda, this time examining it from the point of view of Russia. It’s pretty obvious that if America had propaganda, where communists seemed evil and manipulative, Soviets must have also used mass media to control their population. I found a great documentary called “Soviet Animated Propaganda” , which depicts a history of all the mind controlling cartoons made by Soyuzmultfilm Studios from 1924 to 1984. Thirteen parts of it are available on youtube. Here is part one to start with.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/KV5sIGm70SE" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
I thought it would be interesting to know how Soviets portrayed Americans in the cold war period. During WWII, media was created to align people against fascism, and during cold war American capitalism took its place. It seems that Soviets stayed on top of their game and criticized every single aspect of American life – the money, racial divisions, war strategies and so on. As Igor Kokarev says in the film, people were persuaded to believe, which they did, that they live in the best country of the world, and that the rest of the world with their money and ideologies is absolutely evil: outsiders are the enemy. As Kokarev notes such strong propaganda was so successful, because Soviet people were artificially isolated from the rest of the world, and lived almost like a “cult”. Children from early years were taught how to view the other countries and how to react to certain situations. All children and adults were given the same mindset, the same resources of knowledge, therefore leaving all on the same page. The government created thousands of propaganda posters, which were hanged on every wall in every institution – from schools, busses, cafeterias to private homes. Those posters “told citizens what to do and how to think and who to blame”. All media was strongly supervised and corrected “very stubbornly” up to the last days of the Soviet Union.
I urge you to watch this documentary even though its long, if you are at all interested in media as a brainwashing device. I found it very interesting, since it goes through most of the propaganda cartoons ever created by USSR. After watching this, I got a strong sense that the Hollywood blacklisting was minor, compared to this large degree control in Soviet Union, where nothing could leak out.
The French Are Sick!
Just thought I would share with you a couple of French movies that I’ve seen recently that I absolutely loved. A couple of people told me they didn’t find Rec very scary, which I some what feel is also mild, but these movies will not disappoint. These movies I feel aren’t too deep, but will definitely scare and shock you guys.
High Tension
I feel this is the most mild of the movies. It’s a fairly simple plot that revolves around a man terrorizing a family in a remote house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrbfbvqg1o4
Inside
When I first heard the plot of this movie I was extremely hesitant to watch it and after the first twenty minutes I was hesitant to finish it. The plot of this movies follows a woman on the night before she is suppose to go into labor, where she is visited by an extremely creepy woman who wants to cut the woman’s baby out with a pair of scissors.
Martyrs
This movie I feel is the most interesting of the three and also the most shocking. I wont give away too much of the plot here because I feel knowing less will make the movie better. This movie though is extremely gritty and graphic, but has a pretty open ended finale, which I found very interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNM9kKo4JNU
All of these movies are extremely graphic and if you don’t have a strong stomach when it comes to horror movies I recommend you don’t watch them.
EMP risk
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1976224,00.html
must read
Satire during the MADness of the Cold War
Dr. Strangelove is one of the best satires on the paranoia of the Cold War. During a time of great fear and panic, Dr. Strangelove served to offer a more humorous approach towards the threat of mutually assured destruction. This greatly contrasted with other movies, such as the short film “Duck and Cover”, which only seemed to add to America’s fear of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. There is a snowball effect of panic, where out of the fear of the spread of Communism, there is the rise of the military industrial complex. Such a response only triggers a similar reaction by the Soviet Union, thereby adding to the fragility of foreign relations. Dr. Strangelove understands these fears, and is able to effectively turn them into a form of entertainment, during a time when many only seemed to add to the anxiety.
But Dr. Strangelove was by no means the only satirical take on the Cold War. Tom Lehrer, a famous American satirist and songwriter during the time of the Cold War, recorded “So long, Mom” in 1967, which remarked on the same fear of mutually assured destruction. The youtube video of the song is embedded here for your entertainment. Strangely, I found it rather difficult to find many musical satires of the Cold War during the 50s and 60s. There seems to be a trend, where during times of crisis, there are spikes in the entertainment industry. During the Great Depression, Vaudeville adjusted itself according to the economic times, becoming an excellent means of escape for those in great hardship. In recent years, the entertainment industry has performed exceedingly well, correlating with the exceedingly poor performance of the economy. As a result of this correlation between economic and political fears with the performance of the entertainment industry, it would only make sense for artists to cater to this shifted environment. Additionally, Tom Lehrer’s satire offers a unique perspective on the time period, where he produces songs during the time period, as opposed to in retrospect. It is one thing to comment on the irrational fear of the constant threat of nuclear war with foresight, but it is entirely different to create a piece which acts almost as political commentary. In addition, Tom Lehrer also produced the song “We Will All Go Together When We Go”, another piece on the threat of mutually assured destruction.
Weird Al Yankovich’s “Christmas at Ground Zero” is an example of entertainment that focuses on the threat of nuclear winter. During the time of its production, the Cold War was coming to a close, and after existing for many decades, the threat of nuclear war seemed increasingly distant. What I found particularly interesting in the music video is that many of the scenes were taken from the same “Duck and Cover” video that we had watched in class. It’s also amusing to see the contrast between the fear of total destruction by nuclear winter and the joy of the holiday season.
For Today’s Discussion: Nuclear War
Presidential Campaign Ads
In our last class, we watched the famous LBJ “Peace, Little Girl” commerical, where fear was used to collect votes. This was still during the time in the Cold War, when the American people were afraid of a nuclear holocaust. It is intresting to compare this ad with another Presidential campaign ad, that of (the great) Ronald Reagan.
Remember that the bear is the symbol for Russia.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/NpwdcmjBgNA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
It is interesting to see these ads reflected each ones respective time period, within the cold war. LBJ – fear of the USSR, Reagan – prepared for peace.
Check Your Watch!
After spending the past couple of lessons on movies of the pinnacle of the era of Nuclear Threat I feel that it would be interesting to delve more into the concept of the Doomsday Clock. The Doomsday Clock is so interesting because it takes such a complicated scenario dependent on so many variables, the end of the world, and transforms it into something we glance at on a daily basis, a watch. The Doomsday Clock is a metaphorical clock that is monitored by the heads of the The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago that depicts of close we are to ‘midnight’ or global disaster. It was created at the beginning of the Cold War in 1947 and was first set at seven minutes to midnight. When the Soviet Union began testing nuclear bombs in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s the clock inched closer and closer to midnight. The closest it’s ever gotten was 2 minutes to midnight in 1953 and the farthest it’s gotten was 17 minutes away in 1991 when the United States and Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. This current year in 2010, the clock was moved back from 5 minutes to midnight to 6. While this allegorical clock is not in the best position it’s ever been in the fact that it’s moving back can give us all a brief reprieve and breath. For more in-depth looks and good articles on the current state of the world in regards to nuclear weapons and ideas here is the main website of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: http://www.thebulletin.org/
I would also like to highlight the use of the Doomsday Clock in modern culture, in particular in the wonderful graphic-novel ‘Watchmen’ by Alan Moore. The movement of the Doomsday Clock can be seen in the movie but is particularly important and symbolic in the actual graphic novel, which I personally feel is better than the film. In the graphic novel, which deals a lot of ethical issues and the destruction of the world, each chapter is denoted with a picture of the Doomsday Clock getting closer and closer to midnight and finally, fittingly in Chapter XII the clock does indeed strike ’12’. This shows that the Doomsday Clock was not a mere fade of the hype of the Cold-War era but a lasting barometer of where we stand as a planet with it’s share of feuds.
Also: While watching ‘The Day After’ I would just like to emphasize how I feel that I believe it really struck a chord with me with how horrible all of this nuclear arms war really is and how terrible it could be. I started feeling this way during the scene when the bomb detonates in the city and there’s a good ten minutes of explosions and destruction that is deeply disturbing. When I was witnessing this I shuddered at the thought of something like this ever happening again and the horror that must have been experienced in Japan after the Atomic Bomb drops. The Atomic Bomb was chosen in World War II as the lesser of two evils, the other being a complete mainland invasion of Japan, which would have been catastrophic with death-toll estimates being predicted in the millions. After World War II I honestly have no idea why any country would want a nuclear bomb after the destruction that was seen. Here’s a documentary I found on YouTube about the bombing on Japan. Very interesting. It’s incomplete but unique nonetheless:
Looking at footage on YouTube the best is looking at all of the out of control political rants on the comment boards. I dare not comment but I do chuckle out loud reading some of the absurd things written. Someone even talked about in a really positive light the movie ‘Apocalypse 2024’, which I would guess to be similar to ‘The Day After’. And here is also some nuclear arm testing footage from the History Channel. Powerful stuff figuratively and literally:
I guess it could be a child-like complexity of wanting to have something that someone else has or the insecurity of being at a military disadvantage but after fighting for world peace for years it is still a conundrum to me why countries would even want to bomb another one in peace-time. The world works in complex ways but these movies try to simplify them.
Two 1980s Nuclear Nightmares
If you haven’t had your fill of nuclear doomsday narratives, here are two more.
The Atomic Cafe (1983) is a clever, satirical documentary made up of archive footage from a variety of sources from the late 1940s to the early 1960 addressing every aspect of cold war era nuclear anxiety. Both frightening and darkly funny, it very nicely distills many of the themes in the discussions we’ve had over the last two weeks.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1126269724766604475&ei=4yuqS-KgHI6mqgL0g7DRBg&q=atomic+cafe&hl=en#
Threads (1984) is a BBC made for TV movie about a nuclear attack on Great Britain. It is, in a sense, a British Day After. It feels decidedly more real than it’s American counterpart broadcast a year earlier. Believe it or not, it is even darker and bleaker. It is widely regarded as the very best, most disturbing and haunting imagining of nuclear war and its aftermath from the 1980s.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488&ei=Ay2qS7-lNZPorAL7rNXWBg&q=threads&hl=en#
The TUBE: Can you handle the truth?
After looking at the blog assignment, a YouTube video popped into my head. It was over a year ago that my friend sent me this clip from the 1976 satirical movie “Network.” I didn’t think too much about it then, besides finding it ironic that the clip showed a man ranting against the “Tube” while being a YouTube clip. To provide you a bit of background, the movie is about tv anchorman Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch and how he is shaken by his network for his poor ratings. He goes mad while live on camera and his ratings skyrocket. The network then gives Beale his own show where he rants and raves. In this particular segment, he speaks about his disillusionment with the media and how the television, man’s miracle invention, is filled with propaganda and lies that the public feed into without knowing any better.
Barely three minutes long, this clip touches heavily upon the topics of fear, anxiety, and paranoia that our class is based on in relation to the notion of “truth”. I have below the part of his impassioned speech that really hit home for me:
The words were so powerful, especially in the frenzied way Finch plays his character. With each angry word, I was filled with anxiety. We take what we see on television and other digital media, as the unspoken truth. We learn our values from television, and we just hope that we’re being taught the right things. Isn’t it worrisome that what we see impacts how we think, and if we just watched or heard something else, maybe we wouldn’t think/act a certain way?
I know this kind of diatribe against the media is nothing new. No one can trust the media because it is biased, no matter which way you cut it. From Fox to CNN, all major news channels have their own motives for getting out certain stories while minimizing others. Then again, if we choose to never watch television or connect to the world through the media, does that mean that we’re too paranoid and choose to be ignorant of the world?
In relation to the movies we’ve watched, I thought the idea of truth, how we consciously (or subconsciously) try to hide from it, and how it can destroy the best and worst of us is evident in movies like in Touch of Evil and Memento. Quinlan in Touch of Evil hides the truth and frames people for committing crimes. Yet it catches up with him and he dies for what he’s done. Then in Memento, Leonard is forever on a quest to find the truth behind his wife’s murder, yet he’s actually sabotaging his own pursuits to fulfill his own needs. Just as striking was the fact that in this YouTube clip, Beale was a man denouncing the media while he himself is a player in the arena. It was insane that right as he was on the verge of finishing his speech telling people to turn the television off in the middle of his sentence, that he should faint in the middle of his sentence!
I don’t know whether he was staged to faint, but it’s still nevertheless an eerie omen–as though the truth is too much for one man to bear alone.
Also, you can find a longer version of the movie clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qfqZ1ZIx_U&feature=related
Midterm Exam
This is a take-home exam due at the start of class on Thursday, April 8th.
Choose 3 of the following 5 questions (not including the extra credit question) and respond to each as thoroughly as you can. Each of your responses should be 2-3 double spaced pages in length. Be sure to address every part of each question you choose.
1. Is Romero’s Night of the Living Dead scary? Why or why not? If so, what about it frightened you? If not, how might it have been scarier? Does it still resonate for the reasons Phillips discusses?
2. Peter Dendle argues that movie zombies can be seen as a “barometer of cultural anxiety.” According to Dendle, the preponderance of zombie movies over the years, in other words, speaks to various anxieties and fears that inform a particular cultural moment. What other genre (or sub-genre) of movies speaks to our fears and anxieties in a similar way? How? Why? Has it evolved in a way that might be compared to zombie movies? Be sure to use plenty of specific evidence from movies or our readings to back up your arguments.
3. Watch Touch of Evil and pay careful attention to the final scene. Consider the last few lines, spoken by Marlene Dietrich’s character, and discuss their significance to the movie. What does she mean by “He was some kind of a man . . .What does it matter what you say about people?” How might we interpret that line? How might we connect it to the moral sensibility typical of film noir according to Schrader, Naremore, Grossman, or Borde and Chaumeton? Use evidence from the film and our readings to back up your argument.
4. Watch a movie released in the 1940s or 1950s (it can be one that’s assigned, recommended, or one you choose to watch on your own on Netflix or archive.org) and discuss how it does or does not adhere to one or more of guidelines for patriotic, anti-communist movies as delineated by Ayn Rand in her 1950 pamphlet, “Screen Guide for Americans.” Be sure to back up your assertions with evidence from the movie and Rand’s infamous pamphlet.
5. Released in 1964 by Columbia Pictures and based on similar source material, Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove both speak to prevailing fears and anxieties over the very real threat of global nuclear war. They do so, however, in distinctly different ways. Discuss how each film presents the threat of a nuclear apocalypse. What sort of conclusions do they seem to reach about the cold war conflict and the possibility of a doomsday scenario? Be sure to cite evidence from the films and our readings by Whitfielfd and Perrine in supporting your argument.
EXTRA CREDIT QUESTION (optional)
6. “Are you now, or have you ever been a Communist?”
