Across the Universe Response

 Across the Universe

                The movie begins with Jude played by Jim Sturgess in 1960’s England leaving for America to find his father.  He arrives thinking his father will be a professor at Princeton but is dismayed to find that he is the janitor there.  Additionally his father has a new family and seems disinterested in pursuing a relationship with Jude.  Jude bumps into Max, a free spirit who is failing out of school.  The two become friends and Max brings him home for a family holiday where he introduces Jude to his sister, Lucy, played by Evan Rachel Wood.  Even though both of them are technically in other relationships, the two flirt with each other from a distance.  Lucy’s boyfriend is in Vietnam and Jude’s girlfriend is in Britain.  When Lucy’s boyfriend dies, she is drawn to Jude for support.  Lucy, Max, and Jude go to New York for the summer.  While they are in New York, they experience the culture of the time including drugs, music and anti-war protests.  To Lucy’s horror, Max is drafted.  This triggers changes for Lucy who becomes an anti-war activist.  At the end of the movie, Max is injured and returns home.  After a brief deportation period, Jude reunites with Max and eventually Lucy.

Write about how drugs are represented in Across the Universe.

Drugs are represented in Across the Universe through the use of astounding imagery.  While they do not actually show the characters engaging in drug use, it can be assumed that they are under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs.  This is suggested by the psychedelic images that surround them.  An excellent example of this is the musical piece, “Because” which includes spiraling camera techniques and a “rippling” sky.  The characters are positioned in a circular pattern in the grass, seemingly strung out.  Additionally, the famous underwater scene of “the kiss” includes even more bizarre images of nudity and weightlessness.

Dead Man Response

Dead Man

                The story revolves around William Blake who travels west for a new employment opportunity.  The job does not pan out and he finds himself caught in a love triangle with a prostitute and her ex-boyfriend.  Although Blake is the only surviving member of the triangle, he is mortally wounded with a bullet lodged close to his heart.  Throughout the movie, Blake is dying a slow death – his days are numbered.  A bounty is placed on his head for the slayings and he retreats to the wilderness with Nobody, a Native American.  Nobody believes Blake to be the reincarnation of the late poet, William Blake.  The two embark on a journey west to save Blake’s soul.  Along the way, they kill several people and Blake experiences a vision quest. In the end, Blake dies with little fanfare shortly after witnessing Nobody’s murder.

What story does Dead Man tell about manifest destiny and the “civilizing” of the American West?

                Manifest Destiny refers to the belief that the uncharted lands of the American West were subject to white expansion, regardless of the native persons that resided there.  This patriotic notion that all land should naturally belong to whites and the struggle it creates forms the basis of this film.  Whites believed they were taming the west, but instead of civilizing the area, they merely changed who lived there.  They seized the land, killing whoever lived there.  One might argue that this was not civilizing the west at all, just taking control and in many respects making the land far less civilized than it had been before.  Iggy Pop discussed transitions of power in his most famous scene from the movie when he references Emperor Nero of Ancient Rome and his exploits against the Christians.  Was this civilization or greed? 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers Response

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is a science fiction film starring Kevin McCarthy as Miles Bennell and Dana Wynter as Becky Driscoll. It starts out with a psychiatrist, Dr. Hill, finding a frantically screaming man being kept in the emergency room at the hospital, begging Hill to listen to what he insists is happening. Dr. Hill agrees, and Bennell takes us back to the beginning of the invasion, where his troubles all began. Returning from a trip, Bennell is surprised to find that a number of his patients have desperately been requesting his assistance; but when he gets back to them, they change their mind about telling him what’s wrong. When he finally gets the truth out of them, they say that something very strange is happening; that certain people are not themselves, and they can’t explain how or why. At first Bennell is at a loss as to what to think or do, but later on he sees for himself what is going on; physical replicas of the people in Santa Mira are coming to their town in pods, and replacing them; the originals cease to exist. When the “pod people” finally catch up with Bennell and his girlfriend Becky Driscoll, they both flee and manage to hide in an abandoned mine. Bennell leaves Driscoll there to go find help, but when he returns, a pod person has replaced her. Bennell runs for his life to the nearest neighboring town, and screams at cars to stop; the flashback ends and we return to the emergency room, Bennell having finished his story. Suddenly, an accident victim is rushed in, and the accompanying doctor tells Dr. Hill that he was found under a pile of giant pods. Hill realizes Bennell’s story is true, and rushes to call the authorities.

 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a good example of the science fiction genre; it is a story that is far-fetched and theoretically impossible to happen in real life, but most importantly, it forces the viewer to reckon with ideas and scenarios beyond human intelligence and comprehension. However, the film is also part of the horror genre, because it introduces a story of destruction, mayhem, infiltration, and despair. The story unfolds in a way that is both gross and disturbing, such as carbon copies of the people coming out of slimy pods.

All That Heaven Allows Response

All That Heaven Allows (1955) is about a man named Ron Kirby and a woman named Cary Scott that meet and fall in love. Upon receiving disapproval from her friends and even a threat from her children to abandon her, Cary breaks up with Ron and the two are miserable for what seems will be the rest of their lives. However, when Cary notices everyone around her falling in love and finding happiness, she decides to choose her love for Ron over her reputation with her friends. When Ron suffers a life-threatening accident, Cary hurries back to him and they reunite.

I think a melodrama in color is very beneficial because it helps to bring out the characters’ emotions, the time of day and year, and shadows. The latter two may not seem important, but both help to convey the theme and the tone of the film. Simply having color in a film helps to create drama and definition for the picture.

The Killers Response

The Killers (1946) is a film noir that attempts to make sense of a murder–that of Ole Andreson, “The Swede” by two assassins, Max and Al. Andreson’s coworker Nick Adams, after encountering the men at a diner and hearing of their plans, rushes to Andreson’s home to warn him about the attack. Upon hearing this, Andreson insists that there is nothing he can or should do to stop it, that he’s been expecting it, and that he “made a mistake once;” this is assumed to be why he is being targeted. Moments later, he is shot and killed by the hit men who enter his house. While Life Insurance Investigator Jim Reardon finds and pays the beneficiary of Andreson’s policy, he inerviews Andreson’s friends and associates. With this, he finds out that Andreson got mixed up with criminals and was murdered over a matter of $250,000.

The Killers and Citizen Kane are quite similar in narrative structure; not only do both movies have multiple narrators reminiscing in flashback, but both are investigative stories that seek to explain a character’s life and connect it with his death. I think Citizen Kane is more conventional because it is much less complicated than The Killers; the latter jumps around the timeline out of order from multiple perspectives showing very different scenarios; it was pretty hard to keep track of, and most audiences aren’t patient enough. I also thought that Citizen Kane was more revealing of character because it showed what kind of character Kane started out with and ended up with. The Killers just took the entire movie to explain why Andreson was targeted and killed by assassins.

Citizen Kane Response

Citizen Kane (1941) is a drama directed by and starring Orson Welles. The film starts with the death of Kane (Welles), and a reporter trying to figure out the significance of his dying word: “Rosebud.” Upon interviewing Kane’s friends and associates, the film takes us back in time to Kane’s childhood to show us, rather than tell us, the story of Kane’s life and what he achieved. After revisiting Kane’s entire life from childhood to death, the reporter is still in the dark about who or what “Rosebud” was, and the significance of Kane’s accomplishments. At the end of the film, after the reporter has given up on the Kane story, Kane’s possessions are all being sold, given away, and destroyed. The last shot is of his childhood sled being thrown into the furnace, an inscription on the top saying “Rosebud.” With this, it is to be assumed that Kane was unhappy with the megalomaniacal way he lived his life, and was only truly happy during his childhood.

Citizen Kane shows us the dark side of the American dream by giving us the entire lifespan of a man with a seemingly ideal life; we are shown every detail that went into Kane’s life, from his carefree childhood to his dying word. Often when we are shown wealthy and successful people’s lives, we only see those people’s accomplishments, their vast fortune, and the most public parts in the prime of their lives. We rarely see an entire lifespan from childhood to death where every detail is shown, such as failures, shortcomings, conflicts in relationships, and final self-analysis. Citizen Kane shows the dark side of the American dream by showing us what’s behind all the success and money in Kane’s personal life. In doing so, we see how Kane’s money cheapened his relationships, his possessions, and his way of living. In the end, all of Kane’s property and money were his undoing because they left little room for people he loved and things of emotional value.

The Awful Truth Response

The Awful Truth (1937) centers on the troubles and adventures of a divorcing couple, Jerry and Lucy Warriner, played by Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. Over the course of the film, both try to make each other’s love lives as difficult as possible, interfering with the other’s romantic encounters to make any potential relationships a complete disaster. After Jerry alienates Lucy’s fiancé Daniel and Lucy reciprocates by scaring Jerry’s fiancée Barbara, Lucy and Jerry drive up to Lucy’s Aunt’s cabin, where they realize they are still in love and decide to give it another try.

 

Lucy Warriner is portrayed as both weak and strong in different parts of the movie. Her weakness is especially apparent around Daniel; she clearly feels awkward with the way he expresses his love for her, such as serenading her, or writing poetry. It’s also evident that she is uncomfortable about moving away from New York City to a small town in Oklahoma, where Daniel insists they will live when they marry. The relationship as a whole brings her nothing but misery, while Daniel is head-over-heels in love with her. But all of this changes when Lucy finally takes charge and pulls a crazy stunt to get Jerry back; she crashes Barbara’s party where Jerry is, impersonating Jerry’s sister. All evening she purposely embarrasses and shames Jerry by acting like a fool and making Jerry look unappealing to Barbara; she then has Jerry drive her up to her Aunt’s cabin, but before arriving, gets them pulled over and pushes the car into a ditch so that Jerry can’t drive home and has to spend the night with her. This elaborate scheme works to her advantage, as they get back together at the cabin. Jerry, on the other hand, has a much less dramatic change in strength as a character; he is consistently the driver in his own life, never submitting to anyone else’s will. His strength is evident throughout the entire beginning and middle of the story; he kills Lucy’s relationship with Daniel, and manages to score himself a well-to-do lady for himself. At the very end, however, he is overpowered by Lucy, and tricked into coming to her Aunt’s cabin to reconcile things with her. In the beginning of the film, Jerry was the more dominant one in the relationship, but by the end, it was Lucy.

 

While marriage isn’t depicted as an oppressive institution in the film, neither is divorce. The Awful Truth depicts both as horrific if they are with the wrong person, but not as a whole. In terms of class dynamics, the film primarily deals with the rich, upper class. They represent this class by the extravagant costumes with elaborate details, such as feathers, sequins, top hats, and handkerchiefs. Jerry and Lucy are members of this class, with seemingly no hard work involved, making them both seem immature, lazy, shallow, and over-privileged. This suggests that screwball comedy works best with characters the audience is likely to feel “deserve it,” so that people will laugh instead of feel sympathetic when ridiculously terrible things happen to the characters. Perhaps at the time these types of movies were made, it was more socially acceptable or even encouraged to laugh at others’ misfortune.