“Your movies are shit”, said to me, the first-year, senior, film major at the best arts boarding school in country. I have tirelessly made film after film since the age of eight, eventually wanting to reach even higher with my film education. Having been given the privilege to actually study film in a classroom setting, I was ecstatic. After being told my whole life how talented I am, after getting into the best high school film program in the country, my ego was shattered when my stone-faced roommate didn’t even make eye contact while mumbling “Your movies just aren’t good.” I would consider myself literate. I’ve been through 1st grade being an avid reader along the way so my understanding of English is quite decent. Although the concept of being literate is not that simple. Take someone with a masters degree in English and drop them in some African village, their literacy will mean nothing. Literacy is based on surroundings. Though to be literate is not only to be proficient in reading and writing. One can be literate in math, science, history, art, or in my case… film.
My roommate was a year and a half younger than me and he had the nerve to tell me I was no good. It was the age difference that struck me. I was on such a high pedestal that I failed to notice his quite apparent talent. “Your movies are shit” was the best advice I could receive from someone like him at the time. I’ve never been told that before! Although due to my arrogance I took his comments with a grain
One does not necessarily have to cluck in disapproval to admit that entertainment is all the things its detractors say it is: fun, effortless, sensational, mindless, formulaic, predictable, and subversive. In fact, one might argue that those are the very reasons so many people love it. At the same time, it is not hard to see why cultural aristocrats in the nineteenth century and intellectuals in the twentieth hated entertainment and why they predicted, as one typical nineteenth century critic railed, that its eventual effect would be to over turn all morality, to poison the springs of domestic happiness, to dissolve the ties of our social order, and to involved our country in ruin." said Neal Gabler, the author of Life in the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality. I agree with this quote, that entertainment is mind numbing and lessen the values of our society. Back in the nineteenth century, entertainment was something that actually stimulated their minds,
What were Edwin S. Porter's significant contributions to the development of early narrative film? In what sense did Porter build upon the innovations of contemporaneous filmmakers, and for what purposes?
Diversity in films is important because representation matters. Viewers are drawn to shows with ethnically diverse lead cast members. Mostly all viewers love to watch shows that reflect and relate to their own experiences. Reddigari, a freelance writer, also expresses the question of why we lack diversity in films. “Hollywood has been producing inspiring films intended to capture the beauty, joy and sorrow in everyday life. As much as we love our favorite movies, we can’t help but notice that many of them fail to capture the life experiences of all moviegoers, leaving the voices of millions of Americans from diverse backgrounds underrepresented” (This Tumblr Shows the Startling Lack of Diversity in Film). Diversity in films is an important topic in society because it represents equality and people of color to look up to.
When thinking about ones literacy, what first comes to mind is reading and writing, but literacy can cover many other aspects of life. It is usually not until a student reaches his or her college years that they realize they are “literate” in anything they are passionate about. This could include sports, technology or music because literacy is defined as “fluency in any given topic” (Writing about Writing 798). I am literate in lacrosse, a sport with rules and vocabulary that most people don’t know about and frankly I would have no idea about those things either if it weren’t for the people that helped me become literate in the sport. Sponsors of literacy often turn up in people’s memories when asked about how he or she became fluent in their
Becoming literate opens the doors to more educational and employment opportunities. In our increasingly complex and rapidly changing technological world, it is essential that individuals
I define literacy as being able to express my thoughts and emotions. I know everyone has different opinions and emotions. Therefore, everyone will write differently and read in a different pace. Also, everyone likes different types of books, for example fiction or nonfiction. As a result, everyone’s literacy journey is unique. Everyone has a different definition when it comes to literacy which is what makes it special. Some prefer to read and others prefer to write. It all depends on personal preference.
Rarely has a film impacted an audience and held the test of time as the film Gone with the Wind. I have always been curious if director, Victor Fleming and producer, David O. Selznick and screenplay writer, Sidney Howard knew what they were creating a masterpiece and how this film would have such an enormous impact on audiences for years to come. Interestingly enough there were some who thought the film should not be made, as Irving Thalberg said to Louis B. Meyer in 1936, “Forget it Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel” (Ten Films that Shook the World).
Director Brett Harvey documentary, The Culture High is an interesting story that takes a raw and honest look that tears into the very grit of modern day marijuana prohibition to reveal the truth behind the arguments and motivations governing both those who support and those who oppose the existing pot laws. As we ask ourselves will marijuana be legalized in our lifetime? Or is the “war on drugs” really fundamentally affecting this country? This documentary states two reasons why the information on cannabis is kept from the public, either just one joint can cause psychiatric (mental illness) episodes similar to schizophrenia (a long-term mental disorder) or the addiction and how this drug can lead to another drug. The thesis that this documentary
Literacy is not only knowing how to read and write. I believe it is much more than that. Being literate is more or less being knowledgeable in a specific area. That being said, it is hard to understand anything without first knowing how to read and write and that is why it's so important. I do not believe anyone knows their purpose in life if they are not literate in some area of life.
In all honesty, I don't remember a lot about becoming literate. I didn't have a special moment or time when I knew that reading or writing going to take me somewhere. According to my mom she started to read to me when I was one, so there wasn't anything that could've excelled me much farther before going into kindergarten. One of the requirements in elementary school was to read every night which I believe was an important factor of me improving my literacy. Reading and writing used to me excite me because I would immerse myself into a book or write a whole new universe on a page. I made reading and writing something personal to me. I now realize that every book and every piece of writing can be worthwhile in one way or another.
Dictionary.com defines literacy as “the quality or state of being literate, especially the ability to read and write.” In other words, people who are literate have the ability to look at and comprehend the meaning of written or printed matter. In “Animism and the Alphabet,” David Abram, an American philosopher and cultural ecologist, discusses several forms of literacy, including oral, print-based, and electronic. He explains the reasons for the cultural shift from oral literacy to print-based literacy that occurred centuries ago and argues that “...modern civilization 's evident disregard for the needs of the natural world” is partially at fault with the alphabet (28). The reason being that the first
Miss Representation is a short trailer that introduces a women’s position in our society and show how media will influence of women’s values. The trailer starts with Alice Walker ’s quote states: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any”. In the first half trailer, they used slow and serious emotion music, and it changed to fast tempo till the end of the trailer. This trailer provides many interviews from different kind of people.
To myself, the definition of literacy is having the ability and means to read and/or write. Although this seems as though it is a stereotypical and common definition, I have found during the course of my life that this definition holds to be true to my personal being. When I was younger, I used to think literacy was simply the literacy book that we read out of during English class. The more that I grew, the more I realized that literacy was having the ability to read the book- not the book itself. While in junior high, my English course was referred to as a literacy course. During this course, we learned on what basis literacy forms. The teacher explained that literacy is not the words on the page; literacy is having the means of reading the words, and having the ability to comprehend what exactly it is that we were reading. Though this seems similar to cultural literacy, it is actually quite different. Cultural literacy is having the ability to comprehend and participate fluently in a particular culture, whereas literacy is just having the ability and means to read and/or write in general.
The movie I chose to watch is Courageous. The precipitating event in this movie is the car accident that takes the life of Emily Mitchell. Her father, Adam Mitchell, and the rest of her family are traumatized by the sudden death of their 9 year old daughter/sister. In thinking about information that would be gained in the first contact with Adam Mitchell, one thing that stands out about his previous state of mind/functioning is that he was somewhat uninvolved with his children, taking them for granted. This fact can also be a trigger for how he processes this event, causing a crisis for him as he realized his
There are many different types of film and film genres. A film can fit into more than one genre, but there are some genres that are more general than others. Some examples of film genre are animated, science fiction, documentary, comedy, and historical fiction. Within each genre, there are also specific characteristics that help support themes and story lines within that genre.