Natalia Alamada Film Analysis

First Position follows five top dancers at the Youth America Grand Prix. The dancers that it focuses on are Michaela DePrince, Rebecca Houseknecht, Joan Sebastian Zamora, Aran Bell, and Miko Fogarty. It talks about the dancers lives and shows the stages of the competition, including when the dancers get awards and scholarships or contracts to dance schools and companies. Michaela DePrince, Rebecca Houseknecht, and Joan Sebastian Zamora were the older dancers. Michaela and Joan both earned scholarships to different dance schools. Aran Bell and Miko Fogarty were the younger dancers that the documentary focused on and they both got awards as well.

Films are created for many reasons. Some of these include to entertain, inform, and raise awareness. Whilst the film ‘Kokoda’ is entertaining, it also has some value as a historical source. However, its information is limited and some aspects of the battle are not portrayed. The battle conditions for Australian soldiers in Papua New Guinea is presented in an informative way in the movie yet it does not cover the conditions the Japanese soldiers had to face as well. The portrayal of the conditions for the 39th battalion full of Australians is depicted effectively in the film through scenes that emphasise the struggle and difficulties the soldiers faced due to them. We can see the tough terrain in many scenes in the movie such as when the

The historical evidence suggest that the film ‘Kokoda’ is a nearly accurate representation of the events of the Kokoda Campaign in 1942. The film accurately portrays the soldiers’ attitudes, conditions and the terrain of the Kokoda Track although there is a few events missing, such as the Japanese cannibalism, but other than that it is a great short way for anyone to learn about the Kokoda Campaign. It started on the 21st July and lasted until 16th November in 1942. Approximately 625 Australians died, over 1600 suffered from injuries and more than 4000 were suffering from illnesses such as malaria and dysentery. (Australian War Memorial, Date Unknown)

     The author of Mexican Lives, Judith Adler Hellman, grapples with the United States’ economic relationship with their neighbors to the south, Mexico. It also considers, through many interviews, the affairs of one nation. It is a work held to high esteem by many critics, who view this work as an essential part in truly understanding and capturing Mexico’s history. In Mexican Lives, Hellman presents us with a cast from all walks of life. This enables a reader to get more than one perspective, which tends to be bias. It also gives a more inclusive view of the nation of Mexico as a whole. Dealing with rebel activity, free trade, assassinations and their transition into the modern age, it justly

Alexander Avina’s book, Specters of the Revolution: Peasant Guerillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside, provides insight into the contextual relationship of Mexico’s habitual revolutions with in their turbulent history, and the failure of leadership from Lucio Cabanas and Gerno Vezquez , as well as the overall divisive culture that plagues Mexican history. Though his arguments are often lengthy and complex, Avina’s work manages to chronologically document the extensive history of Mexico’s revolutionary upheaval. In addition, Avina addresses the flawed leadership of Lucio Cabanas and Gerno Vezquez as they scrupulously debated various ideologies in attempt to find the solution for the people. Meanwhile the Mexican people whom they were theorizing

But the soldaderas’ stories, and more prominently, their images, have survived and become an iconic component of Mexican history. When I was researching this project, I found that it was much easier to find photographs of soldaderas than information about them or records of their lives. Several historians have pointed out that the prominence of soldaderas in photography has lead to the truth about how important women were in the revolution, and Horacio Legras has suggested that these photographs have allowed women to become the “rightful subject of history” that they had previously been left out of (6). Elena Poniatowska, in Las Soldaderas, states that, “if not for the photography of Agustin Casasola and Jorge Guerra, and countless rolls of celluloid by Salvador Toscano, we would know nothing about the soldaderas because history has not treated them kindly-in fact, it has denigrated them” (27). Denigrated through verbal written history, the soldadera has ironically become the focal point of Mexican Revolution

In A Mexican Self-Portrait, written by many authors, this article focused on the different lifestyles of the poor and rich woman in Mexico. The representations of women in Mexico for both high and lower classes in Latin America were very different. For lower class they were considered “tortilleras’’, however, one of the most well known was referred to as “La China”. La China was one of the most notable types portrayed in the “Mexican Self Portrait”. She was considered to be an unnamed independent woman of the popular class.

The film begins on February 26, 1995, with American Tejano music singer Selena (Jennifer Lopez) performing to a sold out concert at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. In 1961 Corpus Christi, Texas, a young Abraham Quintanilla, Jr. (Edward James Olmos) and his band Los Dinos, are rejected for an audition by a white restaurant owner due to their Mexican American background, and are later booed and chased out of a club for performing ballads and not knowing any Mexican dance music. Crushed, Abraham gives up music.

The Mexican Corridos of 1910-1930 not only depict the lives of certain foreigners living in Mexico and in the United States during this time, but also illustrate what their experiences were like in such locations. While several individuals criticized the life in Mexico, and others criticized the life in the United States, the one thing that remained constant in almost all corridos was the fact that the criticism of Mexico was mainly aimed at the overall poverty of the country, while criticism of life in the United States focused mostly on the well-being and class of Americans themselves and not so much on the country’s financial status.

North By Northwest is a thriller,mystery and crime film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, that was released in 1959 during the midst of the Cold War era. He depicts the United States Government and their use of spies during the time. When reading about the covert operations used by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War it is astonishing how little the general public knew about the affairs of the government.The film centres on the character of Roger Thornhill, an advertising executive who finds himself mistaken as a United States spy - George Kaplan. Reference to cold war as Edger Hoover said communist were inflicting in corrupting ‘’various spheres of American lives’’.Ultimately, this resulted in a incredible paranoia and

Alyssa Milano is not only a famous actress, but she is also known for being a breastfeeding advocate. She posted a picture of herself breastfeeding her one year-old daughter, Elizabeth. She has been very outspoken about breastfeeding and has tried to erase the stigma associated with it. Alyssa has stated that women should not be ashamed to breastfeed in public just because some people are bothered by breasts.

Throughout Rebecca, the second Mrs. De Winter, portrayed by Joan Fontaine, constantly seems to be weak and completely out of control of her situation. While Fontaine’s performance plays a significant role in conveying this information, other elements of the film that are not as blatant to the layperson watching from the audience subliminally enhance Fontaine’s desperate situation within Manderley by both visually minimizing her power within scenes and by contrast, highlighting the strength of other characters surrounding her. A pivotal scene in the film where these techniques come together occurs when Mrs. Danvers, portrayed by Judith Anderson, and Fontaine meet in Rebecca’s old room. Danvers walks Fontaine through the nightly repertoire of the first Mrs. De Winter, and Fontaine, feeling overwhelmed by Mrs. Danvers strange behavior, starts to head

Throughout this class, various discussions and blogs have been used to analyze the different elements of films such as theme, cinematic techniques and genre. It is time to bring all of these separate elements together in the analysis of one specific film, according to class text, “analyzing levels of meaning below the surface story can greatly enhance enjoyment as well as understanding of a film” (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014. p. 10.03). There are several different approaches to film analysis including formalist, auteurist, and generic or any combination thereof. Utilizing a genre theory lens, the 1956 film The Searchers will be analyzed addressing contextual information, story/plot, aesthetic choices, social/personal impact and how these areas come together to develop the film.

During the 1930’s and 1940’s, women of the world held virtually one role and one role only…homemaker. This was no different for the women of Mexico, except for one woman in particular, Frida Kahlo. Frida refused to accept the current ideals of society and the accepted social norms by engaging in things that few women in history ever had. Frida was involved in politics, she was promiscuous with men and women, she painted pictures of herself in ways that had never been done before, and she wore the clothes of her indigenous people as opposed to the current fashions of the world. The movie Frida showcases all of these qualities. The director, Julie Taymor, uses the symbolism of these things to show how Frida

"Baraka" exemplifies everything Emile Durkheim referred to as sociological functionalism. This is the perspective that various parts of a society or social system affect other parts within that system, and how they function in the overall continuity of that system. Durkheim showed that all the aspects of human society work together much like the parts of a machine. The concept of social solidarity - ties that bind people to one another and to society as a whole- play a major role in the lives of humans. This film reflects these ideas.