...Sample Paper : English Communicative Class-IX (READING COMPREHENSION) Q1. Read the following poem carefully. INDIAN WEAVERS Weavers, weaving at break of day, Why do you weave a garment so gay? Blue as the wing of a bluebird wild, We weave the robes of a new-born child. Weavers, weaving at fall of night, Why do you weave a garment so bright? Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green, We weave the marriage-veils of a queen. Weavers, weaving solemn and still, What do you weave in the moonlight chill? White as a feather and white as a cloud, We weave a dead man's funeral shroud. -- Sarojini Naidu Read the questions given below and write the option you consider the most appropriate in your answer sheet. (a) What do the weavers weave in the early morning? (i) a bright blue cloth (ii) a dull grey cloth (iii) a soft white cloth (iv) a red coloured veil (b) The __________ is purple and green coloured. (i) dress of the weavers (ii) dress of a newborn child (iii) the queen's marriage veil (iv) the robe of a king (c) Whom does the poet address in the poem? (i) weavers (ii) children (iii) queens (iv) all the above (d) What do the weavers weave in the chilly moonlight? (i) a garment light as a feather (ii) a garment meant to cover a dead man (iii) a garment to keep away the chill (iv) a garment to wrap a newborn child in (e) The three stages of life mentioned in the poem are _____________________ (i) infancy, childhood and senility (ii) infancy, youth and...
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...Psycho by Alfred Hitchcock was released in 1960. An important relationship in this text is the unusual relationship between Norman and ‘Mother’. This relationship is unusual because although they are two separate entities and Mother is actually dead, there is a constant struggle for control of Norman’s mind and in the end, ‘Mother’ wins. This relationship helped me understand the main idea of madness through the parlour scene, the fruit cellar scene and the police station scene. The relationship between Norman and ‘Mother’ helped me identify and understand the idea of madness through symbolism, lighting and dialogue techniques in the parlour scene. This symbolism includes the stuffed owls, which seem ready to attack that are placed in the background in a low-angle mid shot of Norman. At another point in the scene, Norman leans forward into a close up. This shot helps support the idea that even though Mother is physically dead, she is alive and threatening to take over Norman’s mind. This can be seen through the lighting of Norman’s face, half-light, half dark, and the dialogue. “It's not like my mother is a maniac... We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?” These techniques have been cleverly assembled by Hitchcock to subtly hint at the idea of madness and help us to get to know Norman, but is not yet prepared to reveal the extent of Norman’s madness due to Psycho being a horror film. The complex relationship helps us understand Norman as a character and the idea...
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... In the movie, Peter Lorre plays the role of the adolescent killer, Hans Beckart. Roaming around the city and stalking his prey. It is true that there had been other films in this era with similar aspects, like Stranger on the Third Floor, but M in particular had a huge impact on it's audience, a child killer? Should he be punished? Or should the audience feel sympathetic and give a youngster a free pass? After all, he is merely a child. It's safe to say M was one of the starts to creepy thriller genres we have today. The lighting and contrast can be seen in many movies after this film was released which is totally understandable, the creative elements in M were too brilliant to not me mimicked. Take for instance Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock made this movie in 1960, nearly 30 years after the premiere of M. When you pay close attention to the creative elements in both movies one can see continuities to no end. At the start of the movie you see a balloon in a large field, instantly the audience assumes children seeing as balloons are typically associated with kids, but they have no idea what horror is in store. M contains the classic stalker, one who walks the streets and lures his prey, which is...
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...to make better movies. Two such directors are Ang Lee and Quentin Tarantino. The ways that they manipulate their audience's emotions are completely different yet they are both effective. Where Tarantino's manipulation of tension is unmatched in the modern world, Lee's grace and subtlety often leaves audience's with a sense of awe and wonder. The manipulation of an audience's emotions is often a difficult task but Lee and Tarantino achieve it in their own unique ways. Suspense, defined by the Oxford dictionary, is a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. Quentin Tarantino's manipulation of suspense and tension in a scene is unmatched in today's world. Like the former "Master of Suspense" himself, Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino leads the audience to a the point of near exhaustion, through the pent up pressure in his trademark lengthy scenes. These scenes serve to focus every ounce of mental and emotional energy on the situation, instead of cutting away to an inter-related subplot elsewhere and releasing the pressure, as is conventional. In the film "Inglourious Basterds" (2009), Tarantino leaves the audience gasping for breath right from the opening scene. The scene, in which a German "Jew Hunter" is questioning a farmer about the Jews hiding on his farm, is built up over nearly twenty minutes of pure dialogue between the two, as the German manipulates the farmer into telling him where the fugitives are. As the scene progresses, it grows...
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...Alfred Hitchcock is widely considered to be the master of horror and suspense. With movies like Vertigo and The Birds in his arsenal, it is easy to see why he carries such a title. While Vertigo is considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made, his 1960 film Psycho is considered to be one of the most suspenseful movies in history. It is difficult to determine if Hitchcock would be known as the master of horror if it weren’t for his cinematography and the way he understood how to stylize moments. Psycho is known for one of the most horrifying scenes in movie history, the shower scene. This scene is so carefully laid out and bone-chilling for its time that it has withstood the test of time and is still terrifying to this day. As Marion Crane begins to wash herself in the shower of room one, Hitchcock does one thing better than anybody else, he leaves just about everything to the imagination. Where as recent films are prone to showing nudity and gore, Hitchcock shows neither. As Mrs. Bates draws back the shower curtain and the high pitched, intense music begins; the most famous scream in film history is heard. The scene gets really technical shortly after the stabbing begins. Because Hitchcock leaves much to the imagination, he never shows the knife cutting Marion. The audience understands that she is being stabbed, but it becomes a reality when the camera pans to her feet moving around in the tub and the blood running down the drain. At first the amount of blood...
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...“It takes a thief to catch a thief.” Well, that’s the saying we’ve always heard. In modern day times, we’ve seen it in productions like Fast and Furious, Criminal Minds, and even in comedies like 22 Jump Street. Hitchcock based his movie, To Catch a Thief, solely based on this saying. John Robie (the infamous jewel thief from previous years) is being framed as stealing multiple precious jewels around the city. The culprit has the same technique and does it with the same stealth as Robie did. The police think Robie could be the only one to commit these crimes so he conjures up the idea that he has to catch the actual thief to prove his innocence. In his struggle to do so, he comes into contact with an old friend (Danielle), a jewel insurer, and two ladies from America (a mother and daughter), all who help contribute to the smooth transitions between scenes and an exciting ending. Therefore, To Catch a Thief is a striking movie, being both witty and suspenseful; Alfred Hitchcock creates this feeling by making the movie not too predictable, scripting engaging characters, and keeping scenes implicit. First off, Hancock set up the movie to where it wasn’t obvious who the jewel thief was, but if you paid attention to detail, you could make a good guess. From the way characters talked, it was believed that a man was the thief. For Robie even says, “He picks perfect victims and only the right stones. Goes up walls, over the roofs, down through the skylights. Leaves no clue and then...
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...fashionable detachment of Hitchcock’s flesh from Hitchcock’s concepts. High honor is given to Hitchcock himself, but on the other hand, it is slightly troubling for critics and film academicians. (as if Hitchcockian was the monster Kronos who ate all of his own children, in an effort not to be overthrown, but the problem lies in the fact that we are more interested in his children). Moreover, there are couple of other obstacles which keep us from approaching Hitchcock’s films more closely; In the first place, as Robin Wood claims, Hitchcock is not perceived as “a serious director” by many film academicians or critics since he was a part of Hollywood movie production whose commercials intentions were blatant. Hence, Hitchcock is suspected of “ being influenced by commercial interests and compromising his vision to accord to the mob’s taste .”|ustupky komercniho ohledu a na zasadni kompromisy s pokleslym lidovym vkusem |. (Wood 9) What is more, Hitchcock himself offered many murky comments or an absolute silence concerning his movies. William Rothman in “The Murderous Gaze” seems to be irritated by John Russell Taylor’s conclusion in an authorized biography of Alfred Hitchcock which claims that: “It seems unlikely that Hitchcock, even in the secret places of his heart, regarded himself as anything other than a practical movie-maker.” William Rothman, an eager admirer of Hitchcock believes that “Hitchcock’s silences mocked those who took for granted that they knew him when...
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...“I’ll smoke my last cigarette,” he said to his wife. “Stupid of me, it was the one thing I forgot to bring back from the farm.” He reached for it, switched on the silent wireless. He threw the empty packet on the fire, and watched it burn. As it burned he took a deep breath feeling a sort of calm, feeling that everything is over but deep in his heart he knew that those birds were going to come back. And at that moment he heard a tapping on the door. Once more, just like the beginning, and he turned his head around as fast as he could and peered at the door. He grabbed his rifle, marched towards the door, put a stern hand on the handle and pulled the door open with all the strength he could. Nat was furious! However when he opened the door he saw nothing there, except one small bird. His wife now behind him said, “ that is no harm to us at all, calm down Nat. Its just one small bird… actually not even a bird its only a chick.” Nat, now calm says, “ well thats true he doesn’t look like any harm.” and with that the bird made one small chirp and a swarm of majestic large birds swarmed into their home. Attacking both Nat and his wife. Screaming, the two ran as fast as they could heading towards the children but the birds had already got to them… blood splattered everywhere, on the walls, on the sheets, and the children lay there ripped to shreds from these disgusting, evil, birds. A large shrill scream came from Nat’s wife with one look at her kids and she collapsed to the...
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...short story “The Birds” (published in 1952) and Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 movie The Birds are both captivating pieces and share many themes and conflicts. However, the original storyline and characters written by Maurier are lost in its transition to the big screen. Hancock’s take on the story is much more geared to frighten and thrill an audience as he removes everything but the core themes of the story. In summary, the short novel “The Birds” is about a small family that lives near the sea shore in England. As the East wind blows it brings winter with it, and large flocks of a variety of birds. The birds act apart from their usually instincts and start attacking people during the tide changes. The movie, however, follows...
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...Auteur is primarily the French word for ‘auteur’. In film criticism, an auteur is a director whose individual style and skills influences his film so much as to be considered one of the authors of the film. Films of an auteur reflect the director’s own personality, personal creative vision and has their own style which is unique from others. According to the auteur theory, all of an auteur’s films have similar styles, themes or characters. Therefore, Audiences can distinguish an auteur’s film from films of other directors. Zhang Yimou, perhaps the most critically acclaimed film director to emerge from mainland China is famous for his rich use of colour and visual modelling. Zhang is the representative of the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers, he is also a film producer, actor, writer and former cinematographer. Zhang Yimou was born in 14th November 1951, he studied cinematography at Peking Film Academy and was sent to work for Guangxi Film Studio as a cinematographer as well as an actor after he graduated. His work in ‘Yellow Earth’ (1984) as the director of photography won the Golden Rooster Award in China. Two years later, his performance as an actor in Old Well (1986) help him winning the Best Actor Award at the Tokyo international film festival. The long and empty shots in Yellow Earth serve a similar poetic purpose and also come from a particular style of painting. Because of his early career as cinematographer, Zhang Yimou’ s films all have a unique features in aesthetic...
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...The Power of Voyeurism in “Rear Window” Through the experience of a man named Hal Jeffries, “Rear Window”, depicts the different factors leading to voyeurism. The short story’s author, Cornell Woolrich, exposes Jeffries’ simple curiosity to spy on his neighbors from his bedroom window and “constructed a time table of their coming and going…” (Woolrich 67). However, it slowly progresses into an obsession, especially when he is convinced he witnessed a murder. Jefferies sets out to unveil the truth of his murderous neighbor and leads the readers in a mental process to convince them so. Different factors, such as isolation and curiosity, kindled voyeurism within Jefferies. However, Woolrich magnifies the empowerment Jeffries experiences through voyeurism, which mirrors McCarthyism that dominated late 1940’s through the 1950’s. McCartherism was a movement in which “political and cultural fears converged” of many American citizens affiliated with Communism, thus threating the American democracy (Sbardellati 497).“Rear Window” is a cognation to McCarthyism through the means of beholding power to anonymously infiltrate into private lives, alter other’s fate, and project an illusion of heroism. To begin with, Jefferies enjoyed the power to secretly intrude into his neighbors’ lives just as McCarthyism took protocols to expose innocent American citizens. Jefferies took the excuse of spying on his neighbors due to his restrainment to a wheelchair. As a pastime, he eventually knew his...
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...Thrillers and Drones: Morality vs. The Greater Good in Eye in the Sky Directed by Gavin Hood and written by Guy Hibbert, the independent British film, Eye in the Sky, is a thriller which centers around the premise of assault drones. The film falls between multiple subgenres of thriller, with elements of war film and crime drama. Several relevant criteria factors into this kind of genre including political and technological themes, suspense narrative, and an unexpected conclusion. To rank the criteria in order of genre importance suspense would be foremost, followed by an unexpected conclusion, and lastly political and technological themes. Using the aforementioned criteria to evaluate Eye in the Sky illuminates the manner in which the film adheres to – or defies – genre tropes. Ultimately, Eye in the Sky is a relevant and emotionally challenging work of film mastery. Foremost, thriller films must be evaluated in terms of suspense. Common subgenres include war films, political dramas, and spy or assassin films. Eye in the Sky borrows elements from the aforementioned categories, but adds realism and relevancy through the narrative of drone warfare. The primary tension is achieved through the growing complexity of the film, which revolves around whether or not the British government will kill one innocent girl via drone missile in order to eliminate a terrorist cell. The uncertainty as the question is tossed back and forth, subliminally highlighted by the looped drone footage...
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...Taylor Nichol Dr. Ade History of Film 12 December 2014 The Compelling Scent of a Woman On December 23, 1992, Universal Pictures released the film Scent of a Woman (IMDb, 1993). Martin Brest both directed and produced this film. Brest is also credited for directing Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, and Gigli (IMDb, 1990). Bo Goldman wrote the screenplay for Scent of a Woman. He also created the screenplays for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Rose and Shoot for the Moon (IMDb,1990) (IMDb, 1990). Donald E. Thorin was the cinematographer for the film. Along with this film, he also shot for An Officer and a Gentleman, Bad Boys, and Purple Rain (IMDb, 1990). William Steinkamp and Michael Tronick teamed up to edit this film. The principal actors in the film are Al Pacino, Chris O'Donnell, James Rebhorn and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Pacino plays Lt. Col. Frank Slade, a blind military veteran with a bitter outlook on life. Chris O'Donnell plays Charlie Simms, an innocent preparatory school student from Oregon who needs a job to pay for a flight back home for Christmas break. James Rebhorn is Mr. Trask, the Dean of Baird Preparatory School. Philip Seymour Hoffman portrays George Willis, Jr., a classmate of Charlie's, and the son of a wealthy businessman. The plot revolves around Charlie, a poor student, who reaches out to a potential employer. He accepts a job offer to take care of Col. Slade over Thanksgiving Break for a three hundred dollar compensation. However,...
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...Rear Window Film Review Dawn B ARTS/100 Introduction to the Visual and Performing Arts June 24, 2013 Alfred Hitchcock was considered the master of suspense, and with very good reason. Hitchcock had a very productive film making career in which he made 53 major films. His production of Rear Window, a movie based on the short story by Cornell Woolrich titled, “It Had to be Murder” ("A Work In Progress,” 2013) is one of his most famous. I have seen Rear Window several times over the years, the first time in an art house theater in Lake Tahoe, California. It is my favorite Hitchcock film, and I looked forward to watching again. I relaxed in my recliner with a glass of wine to enjoy this Hitchcock masterpiece after everyone had gone to bed on Thursday evening, June the 20th. Rear Window opens on an apartment complex courtyard- peering into the windows of the people who live there. The camera tracks up and shows the audience a woman getting ready for the day. The camera tracks down and to the left to see the milkman walking away and into the street behind the building before tracking back around to the protagonist, L.B. Jeff Jefferies (James Stewart) in his apartment. A close up on Jefferies reveals the sweat on his forehead before cutting over to a wall thermometer showing how hot it is. Panning over, viewers get a closer look at the various people from the apartment across the street. The viewer sees a neighbor with shaving cream on...
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...Understanding Movies Film Critique # 4 John Cruz University of Maryland University College ARTH334/ 5160 August 11, 2013 VERTIGO I do not whether I like this film or not. I say this because, the film had a dark yet dry feeling to me. I am not saying that the story was not good. Somehow the film’s sound and effects and plot did not really capture my attention. That being said, I thought that the film had many good qualities to make it a great film for this time. The acting was pretty dry, by that I mean that movements and dialogue were slow at times. My guess is that the director intended to create a feeling of confusion or build a sense of feeling of that of someone with vertigo. The script was good, and it really follows the story it intends to tell, in its dark dramatic ways. It was a drastic way of telling a romantic story, but very much inline with Hitchcock’s The scenes transitions were very fluid, motion, the landscape was complementing to the plot. This film was very diverse in the use of colors, sounds, and especial effects; from the introduction to some of the screenplay action, all of this effect added to the emotion it intended to produce. The locations were suiting to the setting in which the story could be more effective. The actors seemed to be very original or involved into their characters. The editing of this film must have been very complex, especially when the soundtrack had to be match to the scenes. The scenes in which the director wanted...
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