First reaction paper to the films: Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, The Great Train Robbery, and Broken Blossoms
The story of “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” is very simple. Honestly, I don’t think there is a story in this film; it seems to me like someone just stopped at the train station and filmed the train arriving. This film is one very short scene that last for not more than 5 minutes, and I believe the idea of the filmmaker was to create an audience’s reaction, and to let the audience make up their own story of the movie. There is no conflict or characterization in this movie, it’s only the train arriving to the station and people getting off the train and leaving or arriving to the train station. I guess the resolution is very simple, the train has arrived!
There is no acting in this film since there is no characterization; although, the film is believable because is what we all see happens when the train arrives, people get off, people get in, and eventually everyone leaves, including the train. In conclusion, the filmmaker created a sense of surprise on myself because I wasn’t expecting a so short film, yet I have to admit that I liked the fact that I could make up the history of the movie because the filmmaker provided me with enough material to build my own story.
In the second movie, “The Great Train Robbery”, the filmmaker made a story. The story starts with 3 thieves robbing a train station, then getting on the train, rode on it, and stopping it to rob
Orphan trains and Carlisle and the ways people from the past undermined the minorities and children of America. The film "The orphan Trains" tells us the story of children who were taken from the streets of New York City and put on trains to rural America. A traffic in immigrant children were developed and droves of them teamed the streets of New York (A People's History of the United States 1492-present, 260). The streets of NYC were dirty, overcrowded, and dangerous. Just as street gangs had female auxiliaries, they also had farm leagues for children (These are the Good Old Days, 19). During the time of the late 1800's and early 1900's many people were trying to help children. Progressive reformers, often called
Throughout the term I have begun experiencing movies in a different way. The class has taken ideas of cinematography, theory, and film history and practically applied it to physically watching movies. By breaking down scenes and movies as a whole, the way I look at films in general has developed. A reflection on two of the films from this term, Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942) and North by Northwest (Hitchcock, 1959) will carry the bulk of the essay. Though, I will also be discussing how this class changed the way I saw a movie just a few weeks ago. Casablanca’s script and acting are of particular caliber, and North by Northwest unfortunately does not deliver with the dialogue and casting of lead actor Cary Grant. Though, overall, they both
What’s the best way to face a difficult situation? Day in and day out, life circumstances force people to live their lives differently than planned. Some struggle with this concept, never seeing the silver lining in the unexpected turn of events. Others however, live their lives as normally as they can, regardless of whatever they’re faced with. During the second world war, America was faced with the question of how to keep their country safe from enemies that might live within its borders. Although every American citizen is legally innocent until proven guilty, all’s fair in love and war. America saw no choice but to lock away immigrants and their American born children. This is detailed in The Train to Crystal City by Jan Jarboe Russell as
The Train to Crystal City, written by Jan Jarboe Russell, is a book about internment camps that were constructed in the United States during WWII to house people the U.S. government classified as “enemy aliens”. For years, these camps were home to people of various nationalities, most notably those of Japanese, German, and Italian descent. A majority of the book follows the experiences and lives of several families that were interned at these internment camps during the war.
A fantastic linear narrative storyline accompanied The Great Train Robbery upon release, with interesting editing, sophisticated camera work and a satisfying finale. Audiences at the time had only seen long shots, where the action took place within a linear narrative and in a less than exciting frame. It was only when Porter introduced this experimental form of film making that audiences saw how dull and mundane the features they had previously been exposed to had been.
A journey of hundreds of miles lies before you, through swamp, forest and mountain pass. Your supplies are meager, only what can be comfortably carried so as not to slow your progress to the Promised Land – Canada. The stars and coded messages for guidance, you set out through the night, the path illuminated by the intermittent flash of lightning. Without a map and no real knowledge of the surrounding area, your mind races before you and behind you all at once. Was that the barking of the slavecatchers’ dogs behind you or just the pounding rain and thunder? Does each step bring you closer to freedom or failure?
In the classic fairytale of Cinderella, the main character is trapped in an abusive household. However, Cinderella’s self-perception of optimism and hope, enables her to believe that ultimately, her life will naturally improve with these attributes. True to her convictions, Cinderella gets her happily ever after by going to the ball where the prince falls in love with her. Cinderella is saved from her evil. On the other hand, Cinderella can be viewed as a victim who does nothing to enable herself to escape her abusive reality, insteads helplessly waits for fate to intervene. She does not confront the situation nor independently strive to improve her circumstances. Correspondingly, how individuals act when faced with conflict is strongly influenced by their self-perception. It is possible to become confused between reality and illusion, which is determined by their level of self-awareness. In Tennessee Williams’ play, A Streetcar Named Desire, the character of Stella struggles between the control of her husband and sister. Throughout the play, this conflict is demonstrated as she struggles with becoming aware of her abusive household and the contrast to the fairytale illusion she desperately clings to. Ultimately, Stella’s choice to maintain her illusion, rather than confronting her reality, is due to the self-perception of her need to depend on others and desire for idealism, which overall controls her fate.
A lost wagon train was found in 1960 that has been traveling from the West to the East, only twenty-four miles to the North of the Monahan State Park. There were three major tribes in the area that had a trail that traveled through the sands. The Native American tribes were Lipan Apache, Mescalero and Comanche, and it is believed that the wagon train entered into one of the Comanche winter camps, leading to the demise of the men on that train. There were bones of only males found at the site, with no trace of women or children, and it is believed the women and children were taken by the Comanche. It is believed that Quinta Parker became the leader of this unit some time later. The Oxen and Horses
In Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche DuBois is thrust into a series of unfortunate events and undergoes drastic changes in an effort to come to terms with her completely changed life. Through these events, Blanche happens to be the only remaining individual left to take care of the once valuable and prestigious family belongings, and her psychological mind spirals out of control in her attempts to restore the family’s honor. In addition to experiencing loneliness and feeling isolation from humans, Blanche faced many new challenges in stressful situations, which contributed to her poor decision making skills and inevitable negative outcomes in most of those situations. Through the characterization of Blanche DuBois, Williams’ intends to display the power of significant experiences in one’s life, which serves as a warning of how the effects of significant experiences on individuals should not be underestimated. Unfortunately, in Blanche’s case, abandonment by her sister was the perfect example of an individual underestimating the result of their actions, as this action was the initiation point of the events that would eventually lead to her unfortunate fate. Specifically, Williams’ focuses on portraying the disastrous effects of human isolation, which is often the result of an individual’s mindless actions. Human isolation plays an important role in the outcome of the play, as Blanche is known to have been abandoned at a young age, and her
The artistic intensions of this film are implicitly stated everywhere throughout the film. All of the dancing, singing, acting and pretend fighting was done thoroughly and very well, although the miking and mixing during the pretend fighting did not seem realistic. Specific actors, dancers, and singers were trained and taught how to perform in order to get the message across to the audience that this West Side Story is not just a film, but a
The first half of this course focused on Alfred Hitchcock and how his techniques are now recognized as iconic. From class discussions and film screenings, it is clear that Hitchcock pays every attention to detail when he crafts a scene. Many Hitchcock films we have seen this semester highlight how he builds suspense through cinematic elements such as shadow, dialogue, and composition. While many of his suspenseful scenes stir feelings of intensity and uncertainty, Alfred Hitchcock builds a more romantic suspense in his 1955 film To Catch a Thief in the fireworks scene (1:06:35-1:11:00).
This essay is based on films of the same story, told in different ways, with emphasis, themes, meaning and interpretation shaped or shaded by the situation of the storyteller; the cinematic mise-en-scene. Based on the same story, the films reveal and reflect the film-maker’s social norms and views, emerging from their different national contexts. While exploring the two films, this essay will examine elements of film language or semiotics: color saturation (or black and white), sound, setting, type of camera angles used; repetition of visual motifs (Metz, 1985). The two films explored were made in the 1960s. Neither film is American, yet both reveal influences and reflections on American cinema and American power; the Western film, adherence or detracting from Hollywood Classical cinema tropes, i.e. close-ups, shot-reverse-shot, POV, depth of field (Bazin, 1985: 128-9). The two films are Kurasawa’s Yojimbo (1961) and Leone’s Fistful of Dollars (1964), from Japan and Italy, respectively. How are they different; how similar? Why do they use the same plot,
A tragic hero in literature is a type of character who has fallen from grace, where the downfall suggests feelings of misfortune and distress among the audience. The tragic flaw of the hero leads to their demise or downfall that in turn brings a tragic end. Aristotle defines a tragic hero as “a person who must evoke a sense of pity and fear in the audience. He is considered a man of misfortune that comes to him through error of judgment.” The characteristics of a tragic hero described by Aristotle are hamartia, hubris, peripeteia, anagnorisis, nemesis and catharsis which allows the audience to have a catharsis of arousing feelings.
In this paper, I will write about “Thelma and Louise” (1991) movie. I choose a last scene of the movie which the police came to arrest them in the Grand Canyon (from 122 to 125 minutes).
In the multi-language comedic drama Mystery Train, the analysis of narrative vs narration, character motivation, goals, narrative complexity, as well as other techniques such as colour, sound and mise-en-scene are useful tools that help the audience understand the social commentary and meaning that underlies the film.