Cult Hit Films : Harold And Maude

Early on, Mrs. Chasen is shown as dismissive of her son, waving off his suicide attempts as silly grabs for attention. Some of Harold’s feelings for his mother are exposed when a psychiatrist asks if his suicides were done for his mother’s benefit, in which Harold replies, “No. No, I would not say benefit.” Further on, it is revealed that Harold is hoping to garner a true emotional response from his mother like the day she thought he was really dead and has tried to invoke the same feelings in her since for his own benefit. Mrs. Chasen decides she knows what’s best for him when she fills out the dating service survey for herself and not Harold. A point of view shot is shown as Harold stares down the barrel of the gun at his mother before he then makes the customary suicide attempt on himself, giving the viewer a sense of apprehension at Harold’s feelings towards his mother. When Harold is seen practicing the banjo, Mrs. Chasen pays little attention, even though she should be thrilled that he has a hobby that is not going to funerals. When Harold shares his plan to marry Maude with his mother, she instantly disapproves, yet Harold just walks away, no longer going along with her wishes. The montage of various people talking to Harold about his relationship with Maude is spurred by his mother, showing her to be the main opposing force to their relationship and Harold’s

Harold and Maude are opposites in their views of death and life in the beginning of the film. Harold is obsessed with death and goes to funeral and demolition sites for fun. He does not go there to enjoy what life there was in the objects before their demise, but to obsess over the decay and death. This is due to his mother’s reaction when he blows up the chemistry room at his boarding school and is told of his death. She faints for the attention of the police officers and the partygoers. As Harold tells Maude, "she reached out as if groping for support and with this long sigh, she collapsed in their arms (Harold and Maude).” To his mother, Harold’s death was just a way for her to gain attention. Harold also begins seeing his suicides as a way to get attention, and he begins practicing for his own death instead of living his own life. As Harold tells Maude, “I haven’t lived. I’ve died a few times. (Harold and Maude).” This shows Harold’s preoccupation with his suicides and his eventual death. Maude is instead obsessed with life. She goes to funerals in order to celebrate the life that was lived before the death, and goes to greenhouses to see how things grow and live. As she tells Harold, “I like to watch things grow (Harold and Maude).” Maude’s obsession with life is what allows Harold to learn how to live. Since she enjoys watching things grow and

A violent contract killer, a blue-collar welder, and a weary sheriff are all players in the ensemble No Country for Old Men. The Coen Brothers adaptation of the novel written by Cormac McCarthy is a multi-genre, visual buffet about a man’s strength of will and dedication. It’s about death, fate and American violence. It is set in 1980 and centers around the chaos of questionable decision making and killing without a purpose or at the very least killing without ethics. Every Coen Brother movie has utilized violence as a way to enhance realism, entertainment and narrative. Each of their films employ bloodshed in

Film is, and has been one of the most significant aspects of American culture for over one hundred years. In addition to entertainment value, film plays crucial social role in conveying the struggles, and hardships of various groups. The importance of film is constantly being changed and driven forward by filmmakers. Without influential directors, there would be no driving force making films that entertain and inform about the perspective of different groups of people. Throughout the history of film, there have been certain directors whose work was so influential it changed the entire film industry. One such director is Charles Burnett. Through his films, Burnett birthed the idea of African American film, films that are made and acted by African Americans that display the struggles of African American people. The themes and ideas that Charles Burnett featured in his films would go on to be the foundation for other filmmaker’s films during African Americans film’s rise to prominence. This paper will focus on the cornerstone themes of Burnett’s work as seen in his films The Killer of Sheep, and My Brothers Wedding. In particular, themes such as family and self-identity will be explored. Links between the themes of these films and more modern films will then be made.

Rosemary’s baby is a creepy, non-shock oriented, horror movie. With its credibility, well written storyline, and great actors it has received a spot on the best all time horror films list. While this movie isn’t like the newer horror movies, it messes with your mind in a disturbing way. The movie’s plot revolves around the fears of being a new mother that later become suspicions and paranoia. Rosemary’s Baby is a story about a recently wedded couple. Guy is an actor wanting to get any gig he can and Rosemary wants to have children. They move into an apartment with a bad reputation due to witches and deaths in New York. A little while after

The movie I choose for this assignment is entitled Ordinary people (1980). The movie is based on a novel of the main character name Conrad Jarrett who was traumatize from a boating accident with his older brother Buck, which left Buck dead. The Jarrett’s are an affluent family and lives in an upper-class Chicago community. The family was stricken with the dead of older son Buck, parents Calvin and Beth tries to rebuild their lives with younger son Conrad. As the story continues son Conrad not long after the traumatic experience tries to commit suicide. Mother Beth is seen in the movie to be hostile to Conrad and her husband. Beth is cold and appeared to be withdrawn from the family especially from Conrad. Conrad has recently

Media, including movies has been an outlet for many directors and screenwriters to express both their opinions and to illustrate the social temperature in which they lived while injecting their own views into their work. Media 'fossils' like The Lost Boys directed by Joel Schumacher not only provide a thrilling tale for viewers, but also critiques, comments, and upholds different social norms in an amusing manner as an outlet for often controversial subjects such as peer pressure amongst young people. The Lost Boys may be a gory film, but to ignore the film's social context would be to ignore the complexity of the movie itself. Many young people today as well as in the eighties were under a siege of pressure from their peers to conform to the group's expectations. When the older brother Michael first goes into David and his friends' tomb, he is blatantly pressured into drinking and performing dangerous acts that he wouldn't normally do.

It was celebrated as the foundation on which community is built” (Blaser). In turn, questioning the values of America, especially within the family, was deemed un-American, which is why Schrader believes that many film noirs, such as “Mildred Pierce,” were neglected by film analysts for so long (p.12). Film historians insisted on taking another look at film noirs, though, and they have found that film noirs, such as “Mildred Pierce,” have helped in better understanding society’s way of thinking at a particular point in time (Andrew,

Starting off with a Lighter tone the Critic A. O. Scott, writing for the New York Times, had Found the film to be a delight. He focused on the entertainment that the film provided to the viewer and the continued joy that one may feel after the fact. Scott’s Review scraped the top of the barrel he represents the majority of people of whom merely enter the theater to lose themselves in the story and perhaps forget something in the process. Scott praises the film for its dark comedy and use of gore that both enthralled and revolted his senses. “It may seem strange that I am praising a work of such unremitting savagery. I confess that I’m a little startled myself, but it’s

After completing a show in Grand Rapids, Michigan an unflattering headline was printed in the local newspaper about Kiedis. The headline said: If I Had Son Like That I’D Shoot Him. Kiedis brushed off the unflattering headline, and his mother wrote a letter to the editor proclaiming her son to be, “, one of the greatest men on Earth.” (Kiedis and Sloman, Scar Tissue 153) This headline is very similar to the original reaction to noir films.

In 1997, the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress selected the movie, “Harold and Maude “by Hal Ashby, 1971, for preservation for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”1 This movie was dealt with black comedy and, at the same time, romance that leaves uncertainties in the ending which was significant at that time because it was unusual for Hollywood films making vague endings where the viewers expected solid happy endings or has clear noticeable thriller at the end. Not surprisingly, the last scene from the movie, where, the protagonist, Harold, throws himself off the cliff and weirdly comes out

The following essay examines the characteristics of the aestheticisation of abjection by analysing Jonathan Demme’s, The Silence of The Lambs (1991) to better understand what pleasure we, as a culture, find in consuming horror films. The Silence of the Lambs shows women being tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered yet is still a widely popular film that serves to entertain a seemingly sane society.

For this psychological disorder analysis paper, I picked the movie American Psycho. American psycho is a 2000 American Canadian black comedy psychological thriller horror film directed by Mary Harron. The movie was based on Bret Easton Ellis’s novel with the same name. The movie was stars by Christian Bale playing the main character and the movie’s narrator, Patrick Bateman. The movie was set in New York City in the years of 1980s. The main character, Patrick Bateman is a investment banker. The movie starts with Patrick doing his everyday activities like hanging out with his friends and co-workers, going to clubs, working, and his daily morning routines. Then his insanity starts, he starts killing people. The first killing was on one of his colleague at his company named Paul Allen. He then takes over Paul Allen’s apartment and use it to conduct a series of illegal outrageous behaviors such as rape, torture, cannibalism, and mutilation necrophilia.

Harron’s production of American Psycho being a black comedy is necessary when taking into consideration of the film being accepted into society. Being able to laugh at Christian Bale during his performance as Ellis’ unstable character Patrick Bateman helps the audience overlook the murders taking place and be drawn into Bateman’s humorous character, which is innocently a result of the times.

Many critics have noticed that Mulvey’s application of psychoanalysis and filmmaking appears in an ironic return to Freud and Jacques Lacan. Mulvey uses the gaze to examine male pleasure in narrative cinema, but Lacan