Moonlight Film Analysis

Movies and entertainment outlets speak volumes about the current state of a nation’s culture. Cinematic creations in the United States allow small voices to be heard and controversial issues to be addressed. However, a repetitive and monumental issue continues to be addressed, yet continues to persist in our 21st century culture, racial inequalities. Since the inception of the United States, black men and women alike have been disenfranchised at the hands of the “white man” in America. Instead of continuing the conversation today, the issue is continually silenced referencing the successes and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. Nonetheless, an unfortunate reality looms upon this great land; racially based systems and structures continue to exist in 2015 the in United States. This paper synthesizes three films focused on racial inequalities in different time periods. Separate but Equal (1991), Selma (2015), and Crash (2005) illustrate how influential the Civil War amendments are, while serving as an uncanny reminder of how the racial prejudices during the 20th century continue to exist in our great nation today. Needless to say our nation has made great strides, but still has a long way to go.

Throughout the matriculation of a black boy 's’ life, there are many, (labeled natural, yet are culturally, socially and institutionally based) factors, that govern the holistic views and beliefs entailed to the child. From that moment on, challenging the social structures that these norms entail suggest a sense of sensitivity, homosexuality or weakness, ultimately emasculating the highly regarded social stigmas attached with being a man. Despite being indoctrinated into the minds of black boys from an early age, there are many long lasting effects of masculinity that are in turn reciprocated in the role of black fathers, husbands, brothers and friends. Black masculinity is the self-deteriorating idealisms that attack the identity and social positions black men ascribe to.

The film Moonlight was released October 21, 2016. Moonlight is all African American cast, and was awarded over 25 awards including the Academy Award for best picture. This film is a coming of age story that follows the dramatic ups and downs of the life of Chiron, a young Africa American man growing up in Miami. The plot begins from the time he is in elementary school to the time he reaches adulthood. The plot is structured in three stages of the life of Chiron and touches on the topics of the struggle of dysfunctional households via socialization, sexuality and sexual identity, physical and emotion abuse, and the process of accepting ones self.

This is a criticism of Moonlight, a film directed by Barry Jenkins. It is a coming-of-age story, telling the journey of a young gay black man named Chiron. Through linear character development the film follows a young Chiron from adolescence into adulthood while growing up with alpha males in Miamis black ghettos. The Story is told in three parts, with a different actor playing the lead role in each section: a young Chiron named “Little”, as a teen named “Chiron”, and an adult named “Black”. Despite a compelling lead performance by Mahershala Ali and Naomie Harris, and its great soundtrack, Moonlight falls flat and never gets out of the shadow of its typical cliche plot, all the while, the film continued to never overcome the obstacle of

Shameless is a Golden-Globe nominated show with a white dominated cast. One of the siblings on the show is black, but is identified as a White male contrary to the character’s skin tone. “When it comes to representations of Blacks on television, the 1980s can be seen as a decade of elevated inclusion both in terms of the quantity and quality of roles -- which remains the norm today. (Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015). Over the years, we will see more shows gearing their audiences to the black community. Producers add in a few social issues to reel viewers in, but the fact remains the same that a prime time heavy hitting shows, will most likely have less than 20% of their cast of African descent. In consonance with researchers, blacks currently constitute between 14-17 percent of the prime-time population. (Tukachinsky, Mastro, & Yarchi, 2015). The lack of representation in the media can lead to some interpreting that the Caucasian race is the superior race, and in retrospect, can influence the attitudes and beliefs of viewers. Prior research has shown that exposure to counter stereotypic exemplars in the media can have a positive effect on inter-group relations. (Scharrer, & Ramasubramanian, 2015) In order to reduce the misrepresentation from taking over the media, we must depict a positive image on the lives of minorities and portray them as successful, thriving human beings. By

The movie Before Night Falls directed by Julian Schnabel offers viewers a glimpse of how the homosexual community in Cuba was being mistreated under Fidel Castro’s regime. The true story is told in the eyes of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. The film depicts Arenas life in Cuba and all of the awful experiences that he had to deal with as a homosexual. Eventually he was arrested for false accusations of being a molester, however, he was actually under arrest for being a homosexual. Between the 1930s and 1990s, the Communist Cuba was abusive to the LGBT community as shown in their actions of harassment towards homosexuals, imprisoning the homosexuals, or sending them to re-education camps.

Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight depicts the coming-of-age of a young black boy as he struggles with and endures abuse for his sexuality, causing him to hide his internal conflicts. The life of the protagonist, Chiron, is split into his three main stages of life, with each part focusing on the physical and emotional abuse he endures due to his homosexual orientation. When the viewer first meets Chiron, he is running from bullies. As he ages, the bullying follows him, causing him to harden and avoid vulnerability in his adult life. Jenkins uses climactic scenes in Chiron’s life to portray how prejudice against black sexuality forces him to conceal his true identity. In Moonlight, Jenkins’ cinematic style illustrates Chiron’s public and private

“The most exciting moment is the moment when I add the sound… At this moment, I tremble.” (Akira Kurosawa) Sound is arguably the most important concept in cinema studies, being there ever since the beginnings. It can radically change the way a motion picture is looked at and it can render what the director may sometimes find hard to depict using only his camera. Looking upon silent cinema one discovers an era which wasn’t at all silent, but rich in sound of different forms, from the simple narration of the images shown on screen, accompanied by a piano, to the complex score later composed specifically for that film. An example of that complex score is shown in Sunrise, a film by F.W. Murnau, which lies at the border between silent cinema and sound cinema. Considered to be one of the first films with an actual score, Sunrise is a great example of the multitude of dimensions and effects sound can have.

Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight is a masterful queer coming-of-age story told in three parts - Two years after Richard Linklater’s masterpiece Boyhood composed a unique passage of time portraying realistic preciousness of a young man on the journey to manhood, Jenkins continues the coming-of-age instrument further from Linklater. Diving into the brutal conditions of Miami streets, Moonlight shatters the dated template of masculinity with a potent story of closeted homosexuality among black men. The film rises above the wrongful stereotypes associated with sexual orientation and urban environments.

Film noirs describe pessimistic films associated with black and white visual styles, crime fiction, and dark themes. Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 film noir directed by Billy Wilder. Sunset Boulevard presents many themes that are common with the genre film noir, but also introduces some differences from the typical movie in that genre.

Theorist Vsevolod Pudovkin claims that narrative films are mainly a “product of construction” and cautious compilations of “selections of images that have been shot” (Renée).

It’s more than difficult living in a drug-plagued, impoverished community. These places are often ignored, but shouldn’t be forgotten in any capacity. The film Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins, is meant to demonstrate the hardships of living in a difficult community. Thematically, it highlights the already difficult nature of being black and poor in modern America, while simultaneously showing the hardship of also being gay in said tough community. The film is comprised into three acts surrounding the development of the protagonist, Chiron (in order of acts: Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Trevant Rhodes). Following him as he struggles with his own sexuality. Consequentially, each act circles back to Chiron at a local beach, which for him, is a safe haven in a typically hostile place. This beach signifies both hope for the marginalized, while commenting on the unjust reality many Americans face daily. Essentially zooming in on what it means to be black, poor, and gay in America.

Linklater had the goal to create a unique film and I believe Richard Linklater set out to make Before Sunrise and Before Sunset one film nine years apart. The years that pass between the two films both for the characters, as well as the audience, gave it a sense of realism that couldn’t have been achieved without the actual nine years between the two films. When Before Sunset ended, the audience had the ability to decide whether they believed that Jesse and Celine would meet up again. If you were a romantic, you could say both showed up. If you were more critical, you could believe that one if not both never showed up. As you watch Before Sunset and witness the year’s gap between the actors in the first movie compared to the second movie, it

Whether you are in the sky above Las Vegas or on the Strip; you can always watch the enormous fountains performing elegant musical acrobats. These springs are truly a masterpiece of artistic production with significant design and engineering. It is the most ambitious, choreographically complex water features ever conceived against the beautiful backdrop of Las Vegas’ lavender sky. With the performance that rival the most graceful of human motions and a shell that defines categorization, these bounds are commonly recognized as the “Fountains of Bellagio” or “Fontane DI Bellagio”. The jets have been the setting for countless real-life dramas, love affairs, proposals, weddings- as well as cinematic intrigues, most famously Ocean’s 11. It was

Many black and other people of color members of LGBT community had been critical of the mainstream LGBT movement’s narrow focus on the legalization of same-sex marriage during the marriage equality movement. They argued that the focus on legalizing same-sex marriage for sidestepping issues concerning inequality and marginalization within the community (Spade and Willse 2013; Loicano 1989; Choi et al. 2011; Han 2008). Studies show that the experiences of discrimination within the LGBT community among blacks lead to lower sexual identity salience, prevents them from feeling connected to the larger LGBT community, and makes them less likely to come out to others (Harris and Battle 2013; Grov et