Arrival Analysis

Millions of people flock to the movie theater year after year on a quest to be entertained. Even a mediocre movie has the ability to take the audience to another place, escaping the realities of their own life, even if for just a few short hours. Some movies are simply pure entertainment. And then, there are those movies that provoke conversation long after the film has been viewed. Despite the popularity of the recent films The Hunger Games and Divergence, the dystopian theme in film is not a new one. The Matrix shows a society where humans exist without any freedom. The film, not only entertaining but thought provoking as well, paints a world with two different dimensions, a world very much like today’s when the film is closely examined. The Matrix questions the benefit of technology and influence over society.

1) Culture. (Write two double-spaced pages on culture, talk about BOTH films.) The films present us with a vision of futuristic societies. You should provide an analysis of this society as if you were an anthropologist discovering a new culture. What seems to be the rules, norms, values, laws and symbols of this culture? Is there a dominant culture? Are there any subcultures or countercultures, describe them (and indicate why some are subcultures and others counterculture)? Describe a few elements of material and nonmaterial culture.

My initial reaction to the film was of utter shock at the brutally raw reality of the film. Upon reflection and commentary from other sources, the film’s simple yet vastly effective filmmaking techniques of developing the explicit and implicit meaning of the film. The explicit meaning, as

How do the films’ devices function to construct the systems of the cinematic time, cinematic space and narrative logic? What ideological conclusions can draw from popular films such as this?

Millions of people flock to the movie theater year after year on a quest to be entertained. Even a mediocre movie has the ability to take the audience to another place, escaping the realities of their own life, if only for a mere two hours. Some movies are simply pure entertainment. And then, there are those movies that provoke conversation long after the film has been viewed. Dystopian themes are not new, and have historically provided a template to gage the course of human existence. The Matrix portrays a society where humans exist without freedom. The film is not only entertaining, but also thought provoking. It paints a world with two different dimensions, one with the mind numbing

This essay analyses how mise-en-scene informs both what is seen and how we are invited to see it, in Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men (2006), a dystopian science fiction thriller. The film is set in England in 2027 and humanity has become infertile. Every other society has collapsed due to dwindling populations with many migrating to England a former activist, Theo Faron (Clive Owen), agrees to help, Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore), to get Kee a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea. The aim of this essay is to investigate the power of mise-en-scene, specifically in the use of ‘setting’ and ‘staging’ in key scenes that frames the state of affairs in this imaginary society and the use of omnipresent media in the film and how audience is invited to see it by resembling their own reality. Using close textual anlysis of Children of Men, combined with an ideological critique of post 9/11 global, this analysis will demonstrate how Alfonso Cuaron’s uses the techniques of mise-en-scene show the audience a perception of reality in ways which invites them to debate the nature of contemporary society or politics .

Many futuristic texts depict grim and bleak worlds; however the author often tantalizes the readers with a taste of hope, only to systematically destroy it . Hope is defined as that that is wanted or desired is attainable, without hope there is no reason to live. Throughout the novel ‘1984’ by George Orwell there is an undercurrent of hope, of the possibility that things can improve in the future. However, by the end the text is completely bereft of hope. In Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’ we see a dystopia devoid of hope, where the only possibility of bettering your life is to move “off-world” and leave behind the now effete Earth behind.

Another thing that makes Arrival a great film is that Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner do an amazing job portraying Ian and Louise in Arrival. “Amy Adams is a miracle worker of an actress – she makes us believe in whoever and whatever she's playing” (Travers). That quote can’t be truer. Amy Adams really makes the viewer believe that she is a linguistics professor who has previously worked for the military and is now acting as a liaison between the aliens and the humans. The first encounter with the aliens when Amy Adams is experiencing all of this for the first time, you can tell it is suspenseful because she is not sure what is going to happen making all these questions arise within the film. During the third encounter with the aliens Adams and Renner take off their hazmat suits. Adams touches the glass to try to almost connect with the

Blade Runner and New Brave World's Perspective's on Humanity Ridley Scott’s film “Blade Runner: Director’s Cut” and Aldous Huxley’s

Dystopian science fiction films of the past have frequently presented a critical dystopia, by projecting future cities that perpetuates corporate capitalism’s prominent features. Examples of these features are urban decay, commodification, overcrowding, highly skewed disparities of wealth and poverty, and authoritarian policing. An example of a Dystopian science fiction film that project cities that perpetuates

     This film presents an individual that chooses not to conform to modern society, and the consequences of that choice. The main character

The ideas of what a utopian society should look like changes when talking to different people in different parts of the world. More often than not most people would say that violence is not a part of this utopian ideal and that man has found a way to work past that and find a better solution to the violent issues we have seen in the past. Films in a sense are a way for artists to explore these utopian and dystopia ideals and present them to the public as a looking glass into what the world could look like. For many of us we live in a capitalistic society or a society with at least some forms of capitalistic ruling. Film makers in Latin America have used their position to critique and analyze the different forms of capitalism and how the

The opening scene of the film utilises multiple aspects in order to display the hopeless that looms over the dystopian world that the audience is presented with. The film uses a mix of both visual imagery to show this along with verbal features in order to convey this to the audience.

Inception, a science-fiction thriller, was directed by Christopher Nolan and released in 2010. The film’s protagonist, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, works for various corporations, stealing information from the subconscious of each of his subjects. He is tasked with planting an idea into the mind of an heir to a business empire, a process known as inception. Nolan’s use of cinematic techniques fully engages the viewer and leaves the audience speculating about the film’s conclusion. In this essay, I will analyze the various film techniques used throughout the film to portray the separation of order and chaos, the perception of time, and the idea that absolutely nothing is certain.

Action-packed and highly-rated, Mad Max: Fury Road is a critically-acclaimed film about a journey of survival through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There is no doubt that post-apocalyptic films are becoming increasingly popular among audiences as seen with movies such as the Hunger Games. However, Leggatt (2012) describes another variation in the post-apocalyptic genre, one that has been dubbed post-9/11 after a string of patterns prevalent in some post-apocalyptic films. Leggatt’s definition of post-9/11 apocalyptic films are ones that have a pessimistic tone towards the future of a society. As the world evolves and progresses, many new issues overlap and outgrow previous issues that have plagued the world before - though this transgression, the film industry follows suit in order to invent stories and media that is thought-provoking and relevant to changing society. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) is a film that encapsulates many elements of Leggatt’s post 9/11 apocalypse film genre through the apocalyptic setting, derailment of redemption, and societal obsession with apocalypse over utopia.