...The Pursuit of Happiness Jun Xi Zhou DeVry University The Pursuit of Happiness I would like to comment on a movie called “The Pursuit of Happiness”. It is based on a true story of the famous self-made millionaire Chris Gardner. When I saw this movie, I thought it might be another old story of inspiring people to stick to their dreams, nothing new. But I decided to watch it for the reason that it stars Will Smith who was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for Best Actor because of his performance in this movie. I believe that a good movie must have a good plot, wonderful acting, and the most important thing is the audience’s feeling when they have finished watching the movie. I expect the movie to give me the strength and let me feel happiness. Protagonist of the story is the American black’s investment expert Chris Gardner. Film tells a bankrupt salesman through their unremitting efforts, finally become famous financier of the inspirational story. The most important thing is that what people will know and what are people’s feelings after they have watched the movie. When watching the film I was considering whether to continue to go to college, and I don't know direction. I considered whether I should continue to pursue my dream. After I finished watching, I found that unlike a usual success story, this movie is realistic because there are many failures, defeats and missed opportunities before success happens. An important clue in the film is the change...
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...The Pursuit of Happyness The Pursuit of Happyness Le Genia Millsaps | Introduction to Film | March 29, 2015 Le Genia Millsaps | Introduction to Film | March 29, 2015 The Pursuit of Happyness was released on December 15, 2006 as a documentary about the life struggles of Chris Gardener from homelessness to great success. At the box office The Pursuit of Happyness bought in an amount of $307.10 million after being produced by Will Smith, Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal, James Lassiter and Steve Tisch on a budget of $55 million. Written by Steven Conrad. The music was produced by Andrea Guerra, cinematography was done by Phedon Papamichael. There were many aspects used in the creation of the film to make a lasting impression on the viewers. The development of the film started after Chris Gardner did an interview with 20/20 in January 2002. After the airing of the interview Chris realized the Hollywood potential of his life story due to the overwhelming national response to his story. Chris soon published his autobiography on May 23, 2006 and later meet with an associate producer for the film. The movie was produced with many liberties of Gardner’s true life story. Many details and events that took place over a span of many years was compressed to a shortened time frame for the creating of a film to be played in theaters, the roll of Christopher portrayed as a five year old was being played by eight-year-old Jayden, when in reality Christopher was a toddler. The...
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...Film showing "Pursuit of happyness" paper The pursuit of happyness was mainly a movie about a hardworking father that is trying to give all the best for his son. As for selling processes, the salesperson forms a working relationship with his customers to be able to connect with the customer on a more personal level in order to know what kind of things they like, and how to approach them when they are to sell something. Also, I have learned that no matter how hard things get, I should always find a way to look at the brighter side of life and try harder to escape the misfortune that I am in; and that if I do my best, it will all pay off in the end. Another thing that I would like to point out in the movie is when Will Smith, whilst dialing the numbers of people during his internship, didn't put the handset back in the cradle. This to me was a symbol to not waste time, to do the work efficiently and to not spend time and extra work by putting it back. I also realized that by not showing buyers the personal feelings that you currently feel, and instead act like everything is okay, it may be more of plus since they won't be scared if you are tense while presenting a product. Customers would want a salesperson to be confident, and when they see otherwise, it may be more of a reason to turn you down. Also, as a student, having my parents alongside me is a reason why I never give up, to do my best. So that one day, I can give them a life they deserve, like Will smith did for his...
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...Pursuit of Happiness Happiness is state well being characterized by emotion ranging from contentment to intense joy. In the movie the pursuit of happiness Will Smith is left with his son and struggles to get by day to day with him. Through all of that Will Smith is still managed to be a happy person. In the movie he tries to get a job and became a professional endeavour without having any education. He worked so hard that he finally got the job and was the happiest moment for him. It was very touching and movie, with some mild profanity. It also teaches people a lesson on how fortunate they really are, and you should appreciate what you have. It shows that anything is possible if you put your mind into it and work hard. This movie is inspiring. It gives hope to those struggling, and shows the wonderful relationship between a father and son. I also like the message of showing a strong father figure. Through the movie “the pursuit of happiness” I have learned to think about how to pursuit of happiness. The movie recorded a real life of Chris Garden. By facing many difficult in life; finally, he overcame all and became a business man. When I watched this movie, three points in this movie I have influenced are; father can do everything for his children, if we got a dream and we have got to protect it, and don’t ever let somebody tell you that you can’t do something. First of all, all fathers will always try his best in order to bring a better life for his children. Mostly though...
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...The Pursuit of Happyness Based on the true life events of Chris Gardner, now an American entrepreneur, investor, stock broker, author, and renowned speaker, The Pursuit of Happyness explores Chris Gardner’s ups and downs with homelessness in the early 1980’s. Gardner faces multiple struggles in his conquest to take care of his child as a single father, while also attempting to maintain a job and provide the basic necessities for primarily his son and himself when possible. Even as things begin to appear like they may be getting better for Gardner, they suddenly and continuously get much worse. However, through these crests and troughs in Gardner’s life, one can see Chris reflecting on and learning from his past, moving from a more individualized identity to a collective one, and displaying the spirit of generosity with what little he had. One of the most prevalent aspects of the movie from the beginning is Gardner learning from his past, more specifically his parents past, a theme also prevalent in Bordas’ text “Salsa, Soul, and Spirit”. In the text, Bordas uses the word Sankofa to mean reaching back and collecting experiences, values, and culture and to learn from them in order to avoid the drawbacks and stalemates of history. She says, “Sankofa rests on the foundation of the past, its feet are facing forward. This ancient symbol counsels us that the past is a pathway to understanding the present and creating a strong future.” (Bordas 28). Within the first few minutes of...
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...A movie named “The Pursuit of Happyness” is inspired by the real life story of Chris Gardner, who struggled with homelessness while raising his toddler son. Chris is a single father since her wife no longer able to cope. His wife could not handle under the constant strain of financial pressure, so, she decided to leave and went to work in a restaurant in New York. He continues tenaciously to pursue his life and his son using every sales skill he knows. His top priority was to be a good father to his son, Christopher. Finally, he rose from being homeless to become a stock market tycoon and eventually as everyone knows he now is a multi-millionaire. From this inspirational movie, I need to choose any four scenes and do analysis based on the six theories, which are social morality, personality virtues, utilitarianism, egoism, the principle of duty and the principle of existentialism. The first scene I chose is when Chris plays basketball with his son. His son says he really likes to play basketball, and wanted to become a famous basketball star. Then, he said to his son, “Don’t ever let somebody tell you, you can’t do something, not even me.” Scene closes. This dialogue from the scene makes people feel a father’s love, and it is the point impressive people. Based on his dialogue, it is clearly shown that he wants and teaches his son to practice the theory of egoism. It means that, Christopher must take consideration of his self-interest the most in making decision and doing something...
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...Show Me the Money (The Pursuit of Happyness) FIS/200 Pursuit of Happyness is a movie based on a true story about the life and financial struggles of Christopher Gardner. Christopher Gardner is an African American man who begins making a living selling bone density machines. Christopher, along with his wife chose to spend their life savings on these new yet unpopular instruments. During the early stage of their investment; life seemed to be promising until a stream of bad luck arrived. Mr. Gardner became unable to sell these instruments which caused a downward spiral of events to happen such as: losing his car, losing his home, losing his family, and sometimes even losing “his mind.” However during his fight towards financial stability he ran into a guy who decided to give him a chance based on his ability to quickly solve the rubric cube puzzle in such a short amount of time. Throughout the movie money plays a pivotal role in the direction of the story. Money is revealed throughout the story as a matter, means, and measure. Matter. When considering the matter of money there are two different things that you have to consider; (1) physically having it or not having it and (2) being or having the ability to successfully manage it. During the movie Chris Gardner goes through a roller coaster experience with physically having money. He lets us know that when he first decided to embark on his journey of entrepreneurship the profit came very easily, However when...
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...Introduction In 1981, in San Francisco, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a smart salesman and family man . Yet he is struggling financially in his life. He invests all family savings in Osteo National bone-density scanners, an apparatus twice as expensive as an x-ray machine but with a slightly clearer image. He sells them personally to physicians. Despite being a better product than x-rays machines, they are also far more expensive, meaning that they are an unnecessary luxury for most physicians. He needs to sell three scanners per month just to meet the basic necessities to support his family, his wife, Linda, and their five year old son, Christopher. Their child Christopher is studying in kindergarden. They are a poor family and with a low monthly income. Their total monthly income can only pay the tax and kindergarden fee tightly. But lately, he doesn’t sell one still three months. So his wife Linda has to work two jobs doing manual work at a laundry for maintaining their livings. But it’s still not enough to pay the basic costs, three months rent. Chris can't afford to pay his parking ticket, meaning that he has to take the bus everywhere. Finally, the family breaks up, the relationship between him and his wife Linda ( Thandiwe Newton) has big troubles . One day, Linda leaves them because she cannot put up with this kind of life anymore. She moves to New York where she has taken a job in a pizza parlor. Their son Christopher (Jaden Smith) stays with Chris because he and his...
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...Pursuit of Interpersonal Communication Pursuit of Interpersonal Communication Interpersonal communication is a very vital part of everybody’s life and success. This is because in our everyday lives, we communicate with people directly even if we do not want to. It was said by Confucius “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.” This is very true because people tend to forget things that they are not interested in. So if your interpersonal communication is good, they will be more interested in the conversation and will recall that information more precisely. For this reason, interpersonal communication has been studied and perspectives or views have been made to distinguish whether certain communication is considered interpersonal. One of the earlier perspectives that were created is called the situational perspective. The situational perspective is a view that communication between people is interpersonal depending on the factors that are distinct to certain situations. There are five factors or characteristics that make communication interpersonal in the situational perspective. These factors are small number of communicators, in close proximity, maximum sensory inputs, no intermediaries, and immediate feedback. Small number of communicators means that there cannot be a lot of people involved in the communication. Usually two or three people are the norm for interpersonal communication in this perspective. Other...
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...The year is 1981, and Chris Gardener (Will Smith) is trying to make a living by selling bone scanner machines in San Francisco to doctors and medical centers. It's a bother to lug around the clunky machines but he enjoys making connections with people. Although he is a natural born salesman, this African-American believes that he is destined for a better career path. His wife Linda (Thandie Newton) is working at two jobs to help pay the bills, and they are behind on their rent. Their five-year old son, Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith), goes to a day carecenter, and it bugs his dad that on the outside of the building, the term "the pursuit of happyness" is misspelled. He is convinced that these little details make all the difference in life. The constant strain of financial pressure is too much for Linda to handle so she decides to take a job with a relative in a restaurant in New York. Although her husband is a disappointment to her, she does have confidence that he will find a way to take care of their son, and so she leaves Christopher with him. Chris's persistence pays off when he is chosen for an internship program at a prestigious stock brokerage firm. The determining factor seems to be that he impresses one of the top officers by solving a Rubiks Cube in record time. It is obvious that he has a special gift for numbers in addition to his flair for sales. The only hitches to his new lease on life are that the program does not pay any salary and only one of the...
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...Introduction: “The Pursuit of Happyness,” was released by Columbia Pictures in December 2006 and is inspired by the true story of a real-life leader, Chris Gardener. Chris Gardner is the owner and CEO of Gardner Rich LLC with offices in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Gardner Rich LLC is a FINRA registered broker-dealer specializing in servicing public pension funds and Taft-Hartley plans for some of the nation’s largest institutions and unions. Conquering grave challenges to become a successful entrepreneur, Gardner is an avid motivational and inspirational speaker, addressing the keys to overcoming obstacles and breaking cycles. Gardner is also a passionate philanthropist whose work has been recognized by many esteemed organizations. Will Smith starred as Gardner and received Academy Award, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for his performance. Gardner was an associate producer on the film. In the early years of his life, Gardener was a scientific supply salesman. In the movie, he sells bone scanners which are hard to sell and no one needs. As a result he is shown to be financially distraught from the beginning. In 1981, as a new father to son Christopher Gardner Jr., he was determined to find a career that would be both lucrative and fulfilling. He was also determined to raise his child in the best way he could because he himself had spent his entire life not knowing who his father was. Fascinated by finance and in his pursuit of happiness, but without...
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...Many people have thought for many years about the question of what happiness is. So far, no one can give an exact answer to the question because everyone has his or her own idea of happiness. The only question is how far we can go in pursuit of happiness. In “We Have No Right to Happiness,” C.S. Lewis argues that pursuing happiness cannot conflict either with state nor natural laws. We only have the right to happiness within the limits of those laws. He asserts that to have lasting happiness, we have to control our impulses, especially sexual impulses, because if we all give into our impulses, society will be morally degraded which will lead to its destruction. I agree with Lewis because I believe that to build our happiness, we need obey both...
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...Project & Task Management: The Pursuit of Happyness Project & Task Management: “The Pursuit of Happyness” “The Pursuit of Happyness” is a movie about an African American man, Christopher Gardner, and his journey to reach “happyness” in his life. Christopher was abandoned by his father as an infant and met his father for the first time when he was 28 years old. Because of this Chris vows to be nothing like his father when he has a child of his own. Chris and his son Christopher Jr. are homeless. He takes on a competitive unpaid internship as a stockbroker in hopes to be hired on as a full time employee, all while caring for his son. This movie is a story of determination and hope while being faced with disappointment and provocation. There are so many lessons that can be taken from Christopher Gardner and of those I’ve decided to use a clip from “The Pursuit of Happyness” and teach a lesson on project & task management. The scene that I used to teach my lesson is called: Cold Calling. This is where Chris Gardner demonstrates how to reduce wasteful activities in the office to make a bigger impact in his productivity. Out of necessity to care for his son, Chris has a shorter day and does what he can to make the most of the resources he has. In the clip as Chris is calling potential clients he doesn’t hang up the phone in between calls to save precious time. He also eliminates time wasted using the restroom by not consuming water during the day as well as time...
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...Have you ever felt at any moment in your life that you cannot handle things anymore? Feeling powerless and you want to give up everything you have done so far? In the films The Pursuit of Happyness and Hustle & Flow it is noticeable a very important ideology that a lot of people have at some point in their lives, this is The American Dream. It is also significant to talk about the Mise en scene, the costumes and the angle of the camera in both films. In the film The Pursuit of Happyness shows how hard it is to be a single father with minimum resources to survive and all the struggles that he passes through to create a better life for him and for his son. Christopher is a black man and he does not have a lot of money, looking for ways to get money with different ideas but things did not get any better when he was kicked out of his apartment where Christopher and his son were living because he could not pay it anymore. Things kind of looked better when Christopher got an internship in an important brokerage firm but sadly that position does not pay him until he gets hired for a full-time position in the company and earn much more money than he thought he would have. The ideology in this film of The American Dream is very clear, it began with the fact that Christopher might be considered a failure dad to a lot of people at the beginning of the film because he does not have any properties, luxury things or anything for his own use, no job and problems with his partner. Christopher...
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...Go back in time, a couple thousand years and imagine a woman sitting in her window trying to comprehend the bad news the doctor has just told her. Tears’ streaming down her face, all hope has dissipated. She has spent the last of her money on more disheartening news. Once, such a vibrant and vivacious woman, now only a mere skeleton of what she was. After twelve years of hemorrhaging she has no energy to even think of death. Life once was so full of possibilities and the world was hers for the taking, but now it takes an immense amount of strength and energy that she doesn’t possess to even move. With all hope rapidly disintegrating, and no cure in sight, she decides to give the one they call the “Great Physician” a chance. As she slowly moves to her front door and into the streets, she is overwhelmed at the sight of the crowd that has come to see this Jesus Christ. People quickly brush by her, attempting to make their way to Jesus. And as she stands there watching them go by, she gets this crazy notion that maybe, just maybe, if she could get to him he could heal her too. She starts to walk toward the way they say Jesus is and is quickly engulfed by the crowd. Too late to turn back, she decides that she has nothing to lose! As she’s walking, a rather enlightening revelation is birthed in her heart and she finds that she’s been given a new found determination to reach this Jesus. Randomly, she thinks that if she could just touch the hem of his robe, she’ll be made whole. Restoration...
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