I have truly enjoyed this semester in Blacks in Film this semester. I have been introduced to a wide variety of Black films that I probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to watch if I was not in this class. Out of all the culturally diverse, emotional, dramatic, strange Black films that we have watched this semester, my favorite was Moonlight and my least favorite was the original Birth of a Nation. Moonlight was an extremely powerful and eye opening movie. Before having the chance to watch this movie I just kept hearing about it and when it won won Best Picture, I still wasn’t very sure of what to expect from the film. But after watching and internalizing it, I realized that this film was extremely deserving of the honor. This was …show more content…
During the first Chiron, I was really appreciative of his character and Juan, played by Mahershala Ali. I thought that because of their close relationship his death should’ve been explained and Chiron’s mourning should’ve been explored because the death of a father figure would impact anyone, but especially someone who is struggling to find themselves. I enjoyed the second Chiron the most because, it represents the most life changing moment in this young man’s life as he has his first sexual experience as a gay man. You also see him lose everything and have to start all over again which leads into the third Chiron. When the third Chiron was presented, I initially thought that the third chapter wasn’t going to be as moving to me because I felt he was a coward hiding and trying to be a hard gangster. As the third Chiron progressed you see that this is the final stage in his development. He is a person who is learning to forgive, rekindling old connections and accepting his sexuality as reality. This movie was my favorite film this semester, because it was a true definition of a coming of age and even the viewer couldn’t relate it to their personal circumstance, they could relate in some way. I feel that Moonlight is a must see film, especially for those who are homophobic or judgemental, and even for those who feel they aren’t because it is truly eye opening to another perspective. My least favorite film this semester was the 1915, original Birth of a Nation by D.W.
I downloaded Moonlight off the internet last night. I often watch films with my parents but they usually think they're shit. Moonlight is one of few films that really hit home, so much so that I have spent this last day creating this blog to write about it. Not really sure if this will become a thing.
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
Through the depiction of Chiron and his struggle in the film Moonlight Jenkins shows that the system one lives in and the internal self results in domination against oneself. Chiron the protagonist of the film is considered weak and fragile in comparison to his classmates and the people in his community and thus Chiron is targeted by his peers and even within his own household. In Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks it is argued that the black man plays a part in their own domination by constantly viewing themselves as less than the white men.
Barry Jenkins’s 2016 film, Moonlight, is a work that is characterized by its silences, both in what is unsaid, as well as the unresolved nature of many of its central tensions. In the film, silence functions to emphasize the interiority of the film’s subject, and to make the audience aware of itself. Such strategic use of absence recalls John Cage's groundbreaking composition, 4'33; a work that is distinguished by its lack of any audible musical accompaniment. For many, the piece is reflective of Cage's sexual identity as a gay man; the silence functioning as a metaphor for the “closet” (Katz 241). The scholar Jonathan Katz has pushed against such a totalizing reading of Cage's oeuvre, by noting that silence was part of his larger aesthetic and religious practices, and thusly cannot be considered as simply an aural manifestation of the closet (242). Katz argues that, "Silence was much more than conventionally unmusical; it provided a route toward an active challenge of the assumptions and prejudices that gave rise to homophobic oppression in the first place. For Cage, silence was an ideal form of resistance, carefully attuned to the requirements of the cold war consensus, at least in its originary social-historical context." (241).
In Moonlight (2016), the PROTAGONIST is a black boy called Chiron Harris or Little, who is thin and small. His PROBLEM in the first 10 minutes is that he is chased by three boys, who try to bully him. His WEAKNESS is that he is always bullied by others, but he is quiet and shy that he is not being willing to talk to strangers or speak out. Hence, he is a rebellious teenager. This causes him to display BAD BEHAVIOR by not returning to his home like he supposed to, rather he spends the night with Juan and his girlfriend Teresa. He hates his mother because she doesn’t care about him.
Moonlight is a movie that follows the life of Chiron as he grows up. Starting from an abusive childhood at his mother’s house, and through his struggle filled highschool years, Chiron ultimately ends up an independent adult. From the beginning of the film, Chiron face abuse at the hands of his mother as well as from bullies at his school, which leads him to find Juan, who acts as a type of mentor to him as he grows up. Juan’s girlfriend Teresa also acts as a mentoring figure through Chiron’s youth and adult life, while Chiron’s own mother slips into drug use and prostitution. In Chiron’s younger years, he befriends Kevin, who remains significant throughout the film as his love interest. While in school, Chiron must battle with bullies, while growing up in a rough home situation. This constant struggle for physical safety and well as safety in his sexuality causes high tension throughout the film. As he discovers himself, Chiron looks to Juan and Teresa for guidance, but eventually lashes out at the violent bullies in his life.
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.
Moonlight, a film directed by Barry Jenkins in 2016 is mainly about the life of a young black man growing up in Miami; he encounters his journey through his teenage years and into manhood. Chiron is a ten-year-old adolescent nicknamed "Little" who is taken in by a Cuban drug dealer “Juan” and his girlfriend. Chiron explores his sexuality as he falls in love with a close friend and reconnects with faces. Chiron then reconnects with faces from his past. The director Barry Jenkins captures several important moments in the elevation of human everyday experience. Chiron seeks out a father figure, Juan, in which he loses him to an early death. Juan directs Little to shape meaning of his own identity and self acceptance. Jenkins also portrays the real life aspects of violence, subjectification that demoralize his mental and physical appearance throughout Moonlight. Jenkins utilizes violence and drugs in Miami as a perception of realism based on how Chiron’s sexaulity is conditioned by the deriding of adolescent masculine becoming. Moonlight plays a significant role in the representation of the black community, hardship and gender identity performances. Chiron hides his sexuality while living in poverty, finding one’s true self and the emergence as an African American male.
The three movies I decided to watch were Leave It on the Floor, New Muslim Cool, and Terrors of Tiny Town. Leave It on the Floor is a musical about a young man named Brad who gets kicked out of his home and finds refuge in the drag community. New Muslim Cool is a documentary about a man who converts to Islam and turns his life around. He once was a drug dealer and now is a man who helps others and spreads the word of Islam. Terrors of Tiny Town is a musical and a Western with a cast made up entirely of dwarfs. The film is about a feud between two families. I chose to write my film review about Leave It on the Floor because it was the most interesting and entertaining to me. It is one of those movies that you cannot stop thinking about after you watch it. We talked a lot about the LGBTQ community in another class I am taking this semester so I thought this movie was a good choice for me to dive deeper into. Paris is Burning came up a lot in our discussion of this topic and it was great to finally watch it. The documentary is incredibly enlightening with regards to the struggles of young adults who identify as LGBTQ.
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
“Selma”, I have a love hate relationship with this movie every time I see it. Mostly because it depict the horrible terror, that most of us American don’t want to take into consideration. The movie “Selma” give a vivid depiction of our dark past. While also explaining and bringing to light the things we are currently battling as a nation. In the movie we see the iconic Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other iconic civil right leaders come together in the small southern time call Selma.
I can see why this film is the required film in the section, it fits perfectly, I really can’t think of a better film to display stereotypes and behaviors related to them. This film really plays on a person’s emotions. There is so much that could be discussed. I have seen this film before, but I don’t remember it having such an impact on me after watching it through this context. I noticed a lot more stereotypes than I ever had before. It’s almost as if every contact we see there is stereotypes being presented, different ethnicities colliding.
2006764 Ms. Szymski Composition & Media 5th March, 2015 Best Picture Analysis #1 – The Graduate Criteria: 1. The movie should have more to it than just pure entertainment. It should have a deeper message that will impact me in one way or another. 2.
Part two of the documentary which was labeled as “High and Low” struck out to me the most. This part brought up issues that we can all for the most part say we have at least saw in our daily lives. This section also brought up some of the many struggles that African-Americans have to deal with every day. For example, two women brought up the point that the label “Bourgeois” is a constant problem within black America. If a black person works hard to make a lot of money, get a good education and become successful, the black
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).