The Assembly Line

    Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.

During reassessment for article "Some Lessons From the Assembly Line" by Andrew Braaksma (2005), I concluded similar notations, and judgements. What I developed from the material is that life has moments of bliss, nativity, and hardships. This was related by sharing experience spent at a summer job at an assembly line, clocking hours, and followed going back to college life after their time at the summer job. Also, Mr. Braaksma, expressed that college life was lenient in contrast to the summer position, emphasizing on a lack of security, complacency causes injury, and an education is valued. However, individuals tend to lack in society, within school, and even the valued education will show within the production of work. In turn, also causing a lack of security, complacency, and a worthless education. With that, an education need to be valued, and developed throughout to ensure continued success.

“The biggest mistake we have made is to consider that films are primarily a form of entertainment. The film is the greatest medium since the invention of movable type for exchanging ideas and information, and it is no more at its best in light entertainment than literature is at its best in the light novel.” - Orson Welles

In Andrew Braaksma 's essay “Some Lessons from the Assembly Line,” he tells his personal insights, lessons learned and experiences, while he works a temporary summer job in a factory located near his hometown during college summer break. Braaksma describes his deep appreciation for receiving his education as he attended college and seeing what his life may have been like working a blue collar job in a factory if he did not go to college. As the majority of college students, Braaksma works during the summer to pay for his college books, beer as well as to reduce his summer housing expenses. More importantly, Braaksma chooses to move home and work at the local factory while his classmates are busy working in food service or at a local retail store. Obtaining a higher education will take him far in life without the threat or possibility of having to work a blue collar job in a factory.

In Some Lessons from the Assembly Line by Andrew Braaksma, my first interpretation of this article was that the authors main point was that decisions you make today, will affect your future.  After rereading and careful analysis, the authors main point has changed.  The author is not speaking of what my first interpretation was,  but he is stating you cant learn everything in school.  As I re-read the article using what I have learn, I see that he is explaining lessons that he has learned outside the classroom.  He explains his first person accounts of the differences he has experienced between school and factory life, also giving his readers examples of these lessons learned outside of school.

An auteur is a singular artist who controls all aspects of a collaborative creative work, a person equivalent to the author of a novel or a play. The term is commonly referenced to filmmakers or directors with a recognizable style or thematic preoccupation.

The title of the article is "Some Lessons From The Assembly Line" by Andrew Braaksma. After reading the article it made me realize how important it is to have an education and how fortunate I am to be able to have one. It makes me want to stay in college because I see how it is a struggle for some people today to find a job with decent pay. Braaksma's goal for writing this article was to teach his audience about the value of education. He discussed the value of his work experiences. He also mentioned that the most stressful thing about working in a factory is knowing that your job could disappear overnight. Braaksma experienced this himself when one of his co-workers had told him that the unit they were working in would be shut down within the next six months and moved to Mexico, where people would work for lower pay. Braaksma makes an effective argument about the benefits of receiving a college education by using personal anecdotes and imagery.

An auteur is a director who personal creative vision and style is expressed through films. The term auteur is originated in France and is French for author. There are different ways in which a director can express their vision in films and show who they are. There are many directors that are considered to be a auteur such as: Quentin Tarintino, Tim Burton, Kathryn Bigelow, Stanley Kubrick and Woody Allen. The director I have chosen as an auteur is Spike Lee.

The auteur theory is best described as a director taking the role of author. Auteur comes from a French word, meaning author or originator. Just as a reader can detect patterns in written works of the same author, viewers can detect patterns in films directed by the same director(s), if they’re auteurists. They control as many aspects of the film as they can in order to fully embed it with their vision. The Coen brothers do just that; they, down to the writing of the script, work to control many of the elements of their films. The patterns and style, though with slight alterations with time, carry over in their many works. Fargo (1996) and No Country for Old Men (2007), though almost ten years apart, still adhere quite strongly to the same patterns and style typical of the Coen brothers.

What attracts us to the movie theatre on Friday nights? Is it the commercials we see? Or is it all the gossip we hear from friends and TV talk shows? Well for many, it is the critiques we read and hear almost every day. One who specializes in the professional evaluation and appreciation of literary or artistic works is a critic. The profession of movie criticism is one of much diversity. Reviews range anywhere from phenomenal to average. Not only are movies created for the entertainment and sheer pleasure of the audience, they create a market of jobs and open doors to the world of financial growth. The success of these films, whether they are tremendous or atrocious, is not only dependent of the actual film, but

In Andrew Sarris’s article “The Auteur Theory Revisited”, he reflects back on his earlier article, “Notes on the Auteur Theory” (published in 1962). He states, “Still, if I had to do it all over again, I would reformulate the auteur theory with a greater emphasis on the tantalizing mystery of style than on the romantic agony of the artists.” (Sarris, A) This reflective aspect of his earlier theory assisted to see Auteur theory in a different angle. Sarris contemplated that the technical talents of a director, as well as having a diverse and individual persona were all ethics that went into describing a genuine

Alfred Hitchcock is widely regarded as a prime example of an auteur, a theory that emerged in the 1950s by Truffaut, in the ‘politique des auteurs’ of Cahiers du Cinema (Tudor 121). The auteur theory, as defined by Andrew Tudor, is premised on the assumption that “any director creates his films on the basis of a central structure”(140) and thus, if you consider their films in relation to each other, commonalities can be found within them. These commonalities work to demonstrate the view of the director as “the true creator of the film” (Tudor 122). Evidence of an auteur can be found in examining a director’s creative tendencies, in their distinctive themes and motifs, stylistic choices,

The term Auteur seems to bless a privileged group of filmmakers with an almost messiah-like legacy. Men such as Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and Fritz Lange are believed to inhabit the ranks of the cinematic elite, and not surprisingly most critics are more than willing to bestow upon them the title of Auteur. By regarding filmmaking as yet another form of art, Auteur theory stipulates that a film is the direct result of its director's genius. With the emerging prominence of auteur based criticism in the 1950?s, the role of the director became increasingly integral to a film's success. However most would argue that this form of criticism didn't reach its apex until 1960s, when Andrew Sarris released his

In the viewing of any production, the director’s input is palpable as unique and is often attributed to the director’s ‘auteur’ style. The ‘Auteur Theory’ in which this notion derives from is attributed to François Truffaut as he wrote about it an essay entitled A Certain Tendency in French Cinema. In this essay, Truffaut claimed that directors are able to express their personal ideas in the greatest medium of contemporary society: film. He is often quoted as saying "There are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors" (Australian Catholic

The first rule of the auteur theory was that the director must have technical competence with the production of the film, the second rule, that the director had a distinct personality which was put across, and lastly an interior meaning, which meant that the directors innermost soul must come through in their work. Probably the most identifiable way of seeing if a director could be an auteur is the “recurrent characteristics of style, which serve as his signature” (Sarris, 2009, p. 452) This is clearly demonstrated in the work of John Ford, in particular with his films in the genre of the