Analysis Of One Of Us

Witness is a deep film which explores many aspects of the modern world and compares it to the prehistoric life-style of the Amish. It highlights the important of socialism and represents how two different cultures can

Labeled “Zionism,” this movement advocated for the return of Jews to Palestine, and that Jews constitute one nation and should have a state of their own. This was not met with wholehearted support, however. Both Jews and non-Jews disputed the need for, and right to exist, of the Jewish state. Jews that clung to more traditional values emphasized that the Zionists did not speak for all Jews, and that many do not wish for such a state to exist. Additionally, non-Jews disliked the particularity of the Zionist movement, viewing it as holding Jews as separate, and more significant, than other peoples.

The documentary, Promises, introduced the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the perspective of seven children. The film’s initiator, B.Z. Goldberg, initially interviews seven children, but gradually convinces the children to meet with peers of the opposite side in the conflict. Finally, by synthesizing the opinions of the children, the film achieves a lasting message at the end of the film -- everyone involved in the conflict is a human being, and thus one’s religion does not reflect his or her personality. Rather than enforcing this message upon the participants, the film has the children discover what it is like to be the person they hate -- a discovery which rather lingers throughout the subconscious of the film.

As a viewer, the documentary’s intention to inform is more completely fulfilled by research conducted beyond the scope of the camera lens. Had I never written this paper, for instance, the reason for all the violence embedded within the subject matter would remain as enigmatic as the documentary itself.

Jews had also lived a relatively normal life with social class, education, and political differences, where they were free to differ in opinions and make their own decisions. Chiena Kossowsky gives viewers insight into her life

In the article “HE SAID, SHE SAID. “Mine’s Higher” vs. “We’re the Same”, Deborah Tannen explains that men and women have different conversation styles. Although conversation styles of men and women are not quite same, but the ultimate goal of communication for both men and women always stays the same, to connect with others and to be more powerful. Men like talking while focusing on hierarchy, on the contrary, women like talking topics that can reinforce the relationship. The author states that verbal communication is similar to rituals, and differences of rituals can cause misinterpretations and behavior changes.

Edward Zwick’s film Defiance is based on the real story of the Jewish Bielski Partisans that fled to the forest during the German occupation of Belorussia in World War Two. The film was praised for shedding light on the little known organization and resistance of Jews against the giant of Nazi Germany. The film used source material from a book by Nechama Tec, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. The four Bielski brothers are credited with saving nearly twelve thousand Jews by hiding and establishing a community in the wilderness. The surviving brothers later moved to the United States and became truck drivers living out the rest of their lives in relative anonymity. The film takes direct aim at the typical portrayal of European Jews as victims. When a Red Army captain in the film says, “Jews don’t fight,” the leader of the group, Tuvia Bielski, played by Daniel Craig replies, “These Jews do” This is the sort of heavy-handed dialogue that is typical of the film. The film aims to portray the wide variety of experience among Jews and non-Jewish in Eastern Europe in World War II. However, with such a lofty goal the film falls short.

The film “Stories We Tell” by Sarah Polley explores the life and death but also the secrets of the Polley family specifically Diane Polley. This film establishes two modes of documentaries: reflexive mode and participatory mode. These modes help develop the plot of the documentary and make the film more intimate to the viewer.

They might be compelled to modify the story to intensify the excitement, the conflict or the danger (Aufderheide, Jaszi and Chandra 2009). In Capturing The Friedmans, the filmmaker juxtaposes multiple formats of video resources, including the footage from the time of the criminal trial, the Friedmans’ family videos, David Friedman’s video diaries and the present-day interviews to dramatize the family rupture and their struggles (Bell,

The story of the Jewish people is that of struggle and oppression. From the biblical accounts of slavery in Egypt, to the mass genocide perorated at the hands of the Nazi’s, the over arching facet of Jewish history is clear, that of crisis. Many time the Jewish community has sought to find answers to their problems of national identity.

The narration is more than a call to arms, a jolt to the collective memory. The film is an apt social commentary on the broader issues of the crimes of humanity and those who stand on the sidelines. In this way, Resnais' purpose, self-admittedly an indirect attack on the French involvement in conflicts in Algeria and Indochina, becomes broadly understood. The film is very much symptomatic of the 1950s. For the contemporary audience, the lack of any extensive reference to the specifically ethnic nature of the genocide is indicative of a reluctance to see the deportations as unique, individual narratives, a tendency that would later be countered in Shoah. The word ‘Jewish' for instance is mentioned only once in the narration when the narrator counts ‘Stern, a Jewish student from Amsterdam' (Night and Fog). Similarly, censorship

I will argue instead that an outsider perspective is in fact an asset in trauma cinema, especially in the case of a collective trauma. This is because in the case of a collective trauma, like national conflict, there are lines of allegiances drawn and narratives which subsequently conform to these. In other words, renarrativisation tends to affirm existing ‘mythologies’ where trauma cinema requires the ‘rupturing of mythologies’. (Beckett, 2001; 47) How this is facilitated can be in the form of an outsider perspective, this which is able to move beyond the immediate ‘scar tissue’ (Beckett, 2001; 47), having been unencumbered by loyalties to a particular narrative or political sympathy. An outsider perspective can reveal new perspectives – this being the aim of trauma cinema. In this way an outsider perspective can be an asset, it being able to engage in multiples sides to a conflict, with disregard to politicised narratives which hinder from progress. Through this type of cinematic experience, a traumatised individual is allowed to critically work through an experience of trauma, this process facilitated by the insight of the filmmaker who operates from a position without from the situation of

A defining cause of human rights violations across the world, identity has precipitated acts of violence in the name of intolerance in many different contexts. Interjected by force through agents of colonialism and rhetoric, the classification of individual identity has shifted towards a singular defining factor. This trend has marginalized groups throughout modern history, however, the process of reducing identity has impacted Jewish peoples in a frightening manner. An occurrence that caused the deaths of six million Europeans Jews, the Holocaust showcases the tragic consequences of singularizing identity the purpose of discrimination. Eliminating the freedom to choose an identity, the Nazi German state reduced the identity of those characterized

2. Rabiger's argument about "Behalfers" working in self-interest when promoting someone else's point of view was enlightening. It is easy to see making a film and giving a voice to the voiceless as selfless charity, when it is often, in fact, a self-aggrandizing act. As such, it is important for the filmmakers to give the subjects a say in the way that they are presented, so their image is not distorted by the filmmaker's self-centered perspective.

The most powerful message encountered in the Coates work "Between the World and Me" is the message of white people living in "a gorgeous dream." This dream includes the most tantalizing aspects of the "American Dream" but, has been built by the oppression of black people and is left unavailable to black people.