The Swimmer: Film Analysis

Mike Lupica, ESPN commentator and well-known sports writer for young adults, wrote Summer Ball. Summer Ball is primarily set at Right Way Basketball Camp. The main character, Danny Walker, and his friends, Ty Ross, Will Stoddard, and Tarik Meminger go to Right Way along with boys from all over the country to improve their basketball skills. They also hope to make new friends and possibly catch the eye of college scouts over the length of summer camp. Right Way helps Danny learn how to prove himself against outside expectations and self-doubts. Danny experiences his troubles when his Right Way coach, Edward Powers, doesn 't believe in Danny and tries to break him down any way he can. Coach Powers represents all of Danny 's fears around basketball and his place as a basketball player. At Right Way Camp, Danny and his friends work hard and struggle through tough games in order to prove themselves as basketball players.

Eventually, the fun and laughter turn into something normal and boring, and drinking more serves to reanimate his social interactions. Unfortunately, those problems are only gone for a little while, and Ned Merrill finds this out the hard way by continuing his journey. Each house

Looking at “The Swimmer” through the Marxist lens suggests that the story is really about how easily social statuses can change under different circumstances and how blinding hubris can be. Neddy Merrill is clearly a man of means in the story. For one thing, it is clear he can afford to spend time during midday to enjoy the afternoon by the poolside. Living in an upper-middle class suburban neighborhood has given Neddy many benefits. But his extravagant lifestyle takes a turn for the worse once he starts his journey home. As Neddy swims home, cold and half-naked, he begins to “crash”

“The Swimmer,” a short fiction by John Cheever, presents a theme to the reader about the unavoidable changes of life. The story focuses on the round character by the name of Neddy Merrill who is in extreme denial about the reality of his life. He has lost his youth, wealth, and family yet only at the end of the story does he develop the most by experiencing a glimpse of realization on all that he has indeed lost. In the short story “The Swimmer,” John Cheever uses point of view, setting and symbolism to show the value of true relationships and the moments of life that are taken for granted.

In the short story, “The Swimmer,” John Cheever uses precise literary devices to emphasize the true meaning behind what the average reader might first gather. Throughout this short story, Neddy’s journey is recorded through what he does and how the time changes. His actions of “jumping from pool to pool” show Neddy’s incapabilities of growing up and the falsehood that he lives in. John Cheever wants the readers to understand that Neddy’s life is only a downfall as the years go by, and that his outlook on life doesn’t change until he realizes all his actions have left him alone. To set the tone of the story, the author uses metaphors of different objects to show Neddy’s changes in life, change of diction to set a tone from excellence to weakness, and Neddy’s life paralleled through the imagery described in this short story.

Sharkwater (2006) is a documentary that was filmed by Robert Stewart, a man who spent his whole life in the ocean fascinated by sharks. Stewart's passion for sharks lead him to eventually become a marine biologist so he could spend his days scuba diving out in the ocean. His main goal shooting this movie is to inform viewers about how sharks are being killed so brutally and to persuade watchers to help do something to keep the shark population in tact. Stewart and his anti poaching crew try to evacuate the illegal fishermen out of the waters, help save the sharks, and raise awareness about the mass killings of the sharks and their rapid declining population. People in the countries that he traveled to then rallied together to protest, urging the government to create stricter laws. Stewarts’ message has impacted the countries he's visited; with his excellent use of logos, pathos, and mainly ethos he is able to impact even more people around the world.

In The Swimmer a short story by John Cheever a man named Neddy Merrill decides to swim across every pool in the county naming his route the Lucinda River after his wife. As he goes on this journey some of his neighbors are nice, some show pity, and others show distaste for him. Throughout the story Cheever gives subtle hints that Neddy is disoriented as he doesn’t remember key details of things that have happened to his friends in the area. At the end of the story a disoriented Neddy reaches his home to find it empty, with his family gone. Cheever uses this short story to critique the way of life in the upper class suburbs of America that contributed to the social demise of Neddy Merrill

In Frank Perry’s 1986 film adaptation of “The Swimmer”, Cheever, Neddy, an upper middle class man who decides to swim across his neighbors’ pools home only to discover that his house no longer belongs to him and he is no longer a part of his family, is characterized as a very suave and robust man. The first scene of The Swimmer emphasizes Neddy’s vitality by the ways in which the camera encompasses Neddy’s body and that of his friends, the addition of two characters as well as additional interactions between Neddy and the women in this text. This contrasts the characterization of Neddy in the short story in the sense that Cheever’s Neddy is not presented as this sexual and aggressively masculine figure.

is shown as selfish and not trustworthy. Nick Carraway, the narrator, realizes this also. While

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the short story “The Swimmer” by Jon Cheever and it’s film adaptation. Overall, the film and the short story use different dialogue, different characterization, and different visual effects and imagery to provide the reader and the viewer with the allegory of Ned Merrill’s life. While both works focus on the fanciful nature of moving across an entire neighborhood using swimming pools, there are more differences between the film and short story than similarities. Firstly, I will begin by describing the usage of visual effects in the film and imagery in the short story. Secondly, I will describe the differences in dialogue. Finally, I will conclude by describing the ways in which both pieces leverage their characters.

Usually if a bartender knows a man he will have his drink ready for him with a smile. Not the case anymore for Neddy, at this point he realized he was losing something, his pride. Upon his return home he finds his house in bad condition, vines growing on it, rust on the handle of the garage door, the lights off, and nobody home. He stands there cold and hopeless in his worn and torn bathing suit searching for answers as to where he went wrong.

In the short film Night Swim, there are a lot of different cinematic techniques like lightning, camera angles, and sound. The film is about a girl swimming in her pool when she starts to notice creepy things happening. We start the movie with a high angle shot looking down at the girl swimming, and when we are looking at a subjective angle while we are underwater looking and seeing a shadow. For lightning when we are at the surface of the water it was very low key lightning unlike when we are underwater we can see everything because of the lightning from the underwater light. For sound we hear a lot of eerie and alarming music the character cannot hear, but other sound the character can hear the classical music, the water moving, and her breath

Ocean’s Eleven is an American heist film (first of the trilogy) and a remake of the 1960 version which features an ensemble cast of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts. For the most part there are three elements to a heist film: Assembling the crew and setting up the scheme, the break in and looting, and then the escape. Ocean’s Eleven covers all of those elements plus more. The plot of the film wasn’t just about robbing the casinos for money for the most part.

"The Swimmer," by John Cheever, illustrates one man's journey from a typical suburban life to loneliness and isolation. This short story is characteristic of John Cheever's typical characterizations of suburbia, with all it's finery and entrapments. Cheever has been noted for his "skill as a realist depicter of suburban manners and morals" (Norton, p. 1861). Yet this story presents a deeper look into Neddy Merril's downfall from the contentment of a summer's day to the realization of darker times.

Throughout Neddy’s journey “The Swimmer” he loses his sanity gradually as his loved ones leave him. For many people, friends and family make walking the tight-rope of life much easier. Eventually, Neddy begins to realize people leaving him, for that they move on without telling him and are malicious to him when they meet. Cheever manifests this when “...He visits the Welchers', only to find the pool drained, the furniture folded and stacked, the bathhouse locked, and their house for sale.” Unfortunately, Neddy has lost all sense of time, as everything seems to fly by him. Critics Blythe and Sweet support this with, “Time, despite Neddy's attempts through repetition to stop it, has not been standing still.” The last straw hits him when he returns to his domicile. Expecting to see his lovely family, a cruel darkness greets him. As when his loved ones leave him, his sanity does as well.