...immersed in his career right now, viewing all of the silent features and many of the shorts with students at the University of Chicago. Having already written about Keaton's "The General" (1927) in this series, I thought to choose another title. "The Navigator," perhaps, or "Steamboat Bill, Jr.," or "Our Hospitality." But they are all of a piece; in an extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies. Most of these movies were long thought to be lost. "The General," with Buster as a train engineer in the Civil War, was always available, hailed as one of the supreme masterpieces of silent filmmaking. But other features and shorts existed in shabby, incomplete prints, if at all, and it was only in the 1960s that film historians began to assemble and restore Keaton's lifework. Now almost everything has been recovered, restored, and is available on DVDs and tapes that range from watchable to sparkling. It's said that Chaplin wanted you to like him, but Keaton didn't care. I think he cared, but was too proud to ask. His films avoid the pathos and sentiment of the Chaplin pictures, and usually feature a jaunty young man who sees an objective and goes after it in the face of the most daunting obstacles. Buster survives tornadoes, waterfalls, avalanches of boulders and falls from great heights, and never...
Words: 6535 - Pages: 27
...It was a chilly, dismal, night; very scarce in these parts. It was dark and stormy when I saw it; the light blue film of the vulture eye. It looked right through me like I was transparent, it was very accurate. It burnt like fire, smelled like death, and moved like a old, crusty, rotten rat that is versatile. It scares me worse than the mole on his nose. I had to be versatile on my actions. This must be what the narrator was experiencing in the fictional short story “The Tale Heart”by Edgar Allan Poe. I can't imagine the feeling of the servant who killed the old man. He conton handle the guilt of killing the old man. He was messed up in the mind. “The Tell Tale Heart” written by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1843.The setting of the story...
Words: 330 - Pages: 2
...In March 1956, the French protectorate ended and Morocco regained its independence from France as the "Kingdom of Morocco". The very first Eurovision Song Contest is televised. An event that invited countries across Europe to each submit original songs. This time-period is united by the release of portable televisions allowing a global audience to view the world unfolding (World History Project, n.d.). This year is also marked by the release of The Red Balloon (Lamorissse, 1956), a short film which explores childhood through a lens. The opening shot captures the back drop of what appears to be monochromatic colored town and a vibrant red balloon. This is captured by a deep focus shot that follows the boy’s journey to secure...
Words: 375 - Pages: 2
...Levine’s information on the waxing and waning favor of the essay was news to me. I didn’t realize it had ever been a genre that writing programs avoided in favor of poetry, fiction, and screenplays. I’ve learned about great writing from focusing on nonfiction forms more than any other genre here at Lindenwood (and I’ve had many more hours that are fiction focused). The essay is fascinatingly complex. I’m so glad it’s in favor here at Lindenwood! This bit made me chuckle a bit: “Maybe you’ve noticed, there are no good cheery essayists.” I can’t argue that one. Even the essays that are lighter in tone (The Chase by Annie Dillard) are still far from cheery. Can anyone think of an exception? I am coming up short. Good story = conflict, right?...
Words: 311 - Pages: 2
...(2007) is a short story written by Adam Marek. It’s about a father and his son watching the stormy weather outside, when the father thinks they should go out looking for tornadoes. Jakey (his son) is afraid of tornadoes, so it’s comforting that his father will go with him. Jakey’s mum is ill, or at least that’s what Jakey believes, so she is in bed. But during the storm chase, something goes wrong with the mum and when the father and Jakey comes back, their house have been hit by a storm, or what seems to be a storm atleast. The topic is about a father and his son having a great time together, while mum is home being ill. Storms can appear without cloudy, stormy weather. Also even in small countries like England. During the story the father and Jakey is out chasing tornadoes and only approach mummy once. The chat about them going outside is very short, and the mum doesn’t seem to care at all. Although she asks them where they are going, but when the father asks “Can I get you anything?” she is just being direct, maybe even rude, and answers “no”. Normally when people ask you if you want something you’d answer “no thanks” or “yes please”, so maybe she is actually sick or maybe even mad in this case. Also when Jakey asks her if she’s feeling okay, she just answers with “Just go away”. This is all on page 11, line 25-31. The way she answers her son with “just go away” is also kind of rude. Perhaps she is very upset because the father and Jakey are going out to have a great time without...
Words: 1199 - Pages: 5
...The Man Who Was Thursday The story of The Man Who Was Thursday, It is a very symbolic Story. The writer G.K. Chesterton takes you inside a mysterious anarchist group. One of the more symbolic characters of the story is Sunday. Sunday is a very intricate character and Chesterton decodes Sunday in a very spiritual way. He is portrayed in a very interesting way. Chesterton suggests ideas of that of which Sunday represents. In the book The Man Who Was Thursday, takes place in London, in the early 1900's. It stars the main character Syme. Syme is a poet who was recruited to a secret police force. The police force that he is recruited into is looking to stop an anarchy group. He gets into the organization and becomes a top member of the group. He is sworn to not tell the police about the group by a fellow poet named Gregory. The top member Sunday has organized this anarchy group and has named the top members of the group after the days of the week. Thursday or Syme, learns that the other days of the week members are also undercover police officers. By the time he figures this out, the whole town has turned on them as anarchists. Even through everything Thursday never breaks his word and tells the police of the group. In the end he is rewarded for keeping his word and staying true., but who is Sunday? Sunday, portrayed by Chesterton in once sentence can be described as a larger than life man. Not only large in the physical sense but in a spiritual sense. In the book Chesterton...
Words: 1363 - Pages: 6
...“The Story of an Hour” Brian Williams English 125 Melissa Eidson April 8, 2013 “The Story of an Hour” I have chosen to describe the theme for “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin in 1894. Theme in fiction is associated with something abstract, something broad. The theme in a story is associated with an idea that lies behind the story. I will give great insight on identifying two of the literary elements in the short story that contribute to the theme. The point of view and symbolism will be the two literary elements, I will provide with examples. Explaining how the selected literary elements affect the narrative theme will be a vital point to this literary work. The theme of Chopin’s piece is essentially a longing for more freedom for women. Chopin reflects her rejection of the “postures of femininity” through her character’s descriptions. She describes her as young with a fair calm face whose lines bespoke repression. Men in the 19th century looked for young and calm attributes in a wife. They wanted a submissive woman to tend to their needs as Chopin’s description suggests. Chopin says that Mrs. Mallard would live for herself. Mallard believes she will be free of marriage, and won’t be repressed as aforementioned any longer by her husband. Chopin displays her character as having a joyous moment after the death of her husband because she is let go being forced into her femininity. Chopin displays a need for more independent women in this piece, suggesting that wronged...
Words: 865 - Pages: 4
...cultural identity. As human beings, we have a constant need to hold on to what we define as safe, but in order to chase happiness some people must let go of their fundamental basics. Travelling to another country can be very hard especially the lack of friends, family and the fact that you need to learn an entirely new culture. The short story “Where the Gods fly”, written by a Chinese American writer, Jean Kwok. Jean Kwok tells the story about a family that emigrates from China to America, and how the Chinese mother struggles to give her daughter, Pearl the life she affords. She is bound to her old culture and protects her daughter through her religion and hers decisions. A first person narrator tells the story, from a mother’s perspective. Her, her husband and her daughter migrated from China when her daughter Pearl was a child. While reading the story we notice, that the narrator shifts in the grammatical tense, which is what structures the plot of the story. In the present narrative tense, we find the mother in some sort of religious state of mind, where she prays to specific gods and spirits, for example “Ah, Amitabha, Buddha of great compassion, I whisper…”(p 2 l. 24). While she finds herself in this state, she is reminded of her family’s, life since they moved from China to America, obviously these parts of the story is told in the past tense. The story begins in the present tense, as a sort of description, where she is reflecting about her daughter, how she wants...
Words: 1421 - Pages: 6
...movies don't you? Well it's a thing. That's why I'm so happy to give you National Lampoon's Vacation! Starring Chevy Chase (Stay Cool, Hot Tub Time Machine, Caddyshack) as your typical road trip dad Clark Griswold and his always exasperated wife Ellen Griswold played by Beverly D'Angelo (Bounty Hunter, Sugar Town, The Pope Must Diet). The movie starts with Clark and his son Rusty played by Anthony Michael Hall (Dark Knight, The Breakfast Club, Edward Scissorhands) going to pick up the new family car that is supposed to drive them all the way from their hometown in Chicago all the way to California for the greatest family fun theme park ever: Wally World! The fact that the car pick up does not go accordingly is just a taste of what disasters are to come. All packed up and ready to go the family, not forgetting daughter Audrey Griswold; Dana Barron (Heartbreak Hotel, City of Industry, The Invited), head off on their 2049 mile cross-country road trip to Wally World. The goal is an end of the summer family...
Words: 585 - Pages: 3
... but I honestly wasn’t impressed. I don’t like all his focus on Toyota and other industries. I’m assuming the goal of this book was to show us different challenges that organization may face while they are all on the chase for the rabbit or money or success I should say. I get that the main focus of a company is to bring in revenue and to compete with other companies in their industry, but I don’t see why he need to focus so much of the book on Toyota’s success, I get that his little stories showed us something in the end but I do feel like it was too much at times. The books message is to show how much can be accomplished with less cost. Giving us the debate of weather an even trade off is how much we give up for something we really want which is taught in microeconomics. Life is all about the trade and what we have to lose in hope of a bigger gain or the better good. This much I can agree with. I think his chasing the rabbit metaphor is a good way to look at it because when you open a business we are competing with other companies and we all start at the same beginning but we get to the ending (which is the success level) differently. I like the capability 3: “Sharing new knowledge throughout the organization” (pg 25-26) I think that was a great idea, lots of time things happen in a company and you don’t know about it until months later, so I agree once you have new knowledge of something let everyone else know so we can all be on the same page. Let’s all do...
Words: 633 - Pages: 3
...fortunate until the point that he wound up set up as a legal counselor in Springfield. Washington had great associations with Virginia's nobility; Lincoln's family was dark and undistinguished. Washington had broad involvement in the military, and progressed to the rank of general. Lincoln's military experience was restricted to half a month as the chief of a regiment of volunteers operating at a profit Hawk War. Washington was a good looking man, glorious in his bearing. Hardly any at any point utilized the words "great looking" or "superb" to portray Lincoln. Similitudes Both were tall men for their circumstances: Washington 6'3" and Lincoln 6'4." Both wedded ladies who were short. Mary Todd Lincoln and Martha...
Words: 876 - Pages: 4
...were once great friends. One day, they went out together to look for food. After travelling for more than 3 hours, they noticed gazelles grazing from a distance and agreed that the cheetah would go into the open land and chase the gazelles to the forest while the leopard would lay waiting in the forest and make a kill as the gazelles passed by. The cheetah spent more than 4 hours diverting the gazelles into the forest. Very late in the evening, the leopard rushed into the already tied gazelles, pounced on one and climbed with it to one of the huge baobab trees. The cheetah tied as it was, looked at the leopard enjoying the meal, but could not climb the tree. He tried to use its claws to climb the tree for the whole night till the claws could not retract back and due to the pain, tears rolled down its cheeks. This is why the cheetahs’ claws are not retractable and the tear marks on its cheeks to date. The leopard however, had to come down after the meal was over to hunt alone from then henceforth. Nonetheless, the myth about non retractability of the cheetahs’ claws as well as the tear marks has greatly changed due to the heritability information currently known. That is, scientists argue that for any phenotypic characteristics to be passed over to the offspring, it must be inherited as a genetic composition of the organism. This implies that the non retractability of the cheetahs’ claws and the tear marks must have been factors in their genome. This story managed...
Words: 381 - Pages: 2
...Time can manipulate and beautify even the harshest of memories. Love in particular is almost always better and more powerful in retrospect than when it actually happened. That one beautiful girl that broke your heart many years ago. Memories that are a part of you, and have helped shape you later in life. You have learned from them, drawn from the experiences and accepted how love, and indeed life, works. They have taught you to appreciate what you have, and know what you have lost. These are some of the topics put forward in the short story “In the National Gallery” by Doris Lessing. We follow the narrator (whose gender is unknown to the reader, though I will assume it is Doris Lessing and therefore refer to the narrator as “she”) into an art gallery. The intention is to sit in the middle of the room and spend an hour just looking at a single painting. This painting turns out to be a painting of a chestnut horse painted by George Stubbs. It is a huge painting of a big red horse. “And there it was, the Stubbs chestnut horse, that magnificent beast, all power and potency, and from the central benches I could see it well.” L. 4. The narrator assumed she would be all alone in observing the painting, but soon a man sits down near her. He is about sixty years old and seems very absorbed in the painting. Moments later he is joined by a younger man, who is evidently his student, or younger family member. He starts telling him about the painting, which results in the younger man exclaiming...
Words: 1182 - Pages: 5
...Analysis of All Four Versions The story begins with Miles Bennell, thought to be insane,being held in a local hospital and telling another doctor an incredible story. In the perfectly normal town of Santa Mira, California, residents seem to be suffering from mass hysteria: certain people feel that their relatives are not actually their relatives, even though by all objective counts they are. Things become more suspicious when Miles' friend, Jack Belicec, finds an unformed, unmoving body in his house that later disappears. Jack and his wife decide to stay at Miles' house, with Miles' former girlfriend Becky who is showing a renewed interest in him. At night in Miles' greenhouse, the four find giant pod seeds that begin to sprout duplicates of all of them. Jack and his wife leave to find help, but they return transformed into emotionless replicas of their former selves. Most of the town has already been converted, and Miles and Becky are chased by a mob ofpod people. In 1956, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, along with several science fiction films of that era, intentionally chose to mirror society in a way that was quite direct. McCarthyism had turned people against one another, and soon Americans began to think they were being invaded by Communists. They began to look at their neighbors with increasing fear andsuspicion, which created an air of paranoia that felt like smog permeating humanity. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, starring the great Kevin McCarthy was a blueprint...
Words: 2369 - Pages: 10
...cf Of Mice and Men The novella “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck teaches a lot about human behavior. We learn that each character’s past experiences, attitude, emotion, and their authority all have a great affect on the way they behave. The whole concept of human behavior is what ties together the themes of this short novel. Some of these themes include the impossibility of achieving the American dream, loneliness vs. companionship, and the predatory nature of human existence. Throughout the story these are reoccurring themes that are vital to comprehending the story. The theme of the impossibility of achieving the American dream is a huge part of the story. Many of the characters did not end up where they wanted to be in life. Some of them include Crooks, Curley’s wife, Lennie, and George. Crooks, the black ranch hand, is unable to reach his dreams because of his race. He is segregated from the other men and is viewed differently also because of his crooked back. He wants to be accepted by the others because he feels so alone that it drives him mad. Curley’s wife is also unable to reach her American dream because of her mother, along with her husband. She has dreamt of being an actress for a very long time and because of her mother is unable to move away in order to achieve her goals. Her husband holds her back because he could care less about her; he just wants to be able to show her off, to him she is just a trophy wife. Curley’s wife also tries to...
Words: 1068 - Pages: 5
