...Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 Vertigo is known as Hitchcock's “masterpiece” because of the use of different memorable techniques. The film is about Scottie, a retired detective due to his development of acrophobia, who was hired by Gavin Elster to spy on his wife, Madeline, due to her strange behaviors. Madeleine is apparently haunted by her dead family member, Carlotta Valdes, and as the movie progresses she becomes Scottie’s love interest and his dream girl. Looking at Vertigo through the feminist lens, it is evident that through Hitchcock’s representations of women’s appearance and their interactions with men portrays women in a negative image compared to men. This film suggests that women are inferior to men in all aspects of life, such as women’s reliance on men. Analyzing Vertigo through the feminist lens, Hitchcock is degrading women by creating their existence solely in their relations to men. For instance, Madeline is...
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...iconic characters in film. Since his inception, the secret agent has been depicted as a white man who has a talent for killing people, alcohol, and dominating women. It’s hard to separate these defining characteristics from the Bond we’ve grown to know over the years. Recently however, there has been speculation that Bond may be undergoing a major change to his identity. There is some speculation that the next Bond may be casted as a Black actor or a female actress. This comes as a surprise to some fans of the series, as the dominant narrative of James Bond frames him specifically as a white man. Some people believe the time has come to update Bond, while...
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...plays with gender issues to create such a resilient comedy? 2) In the movie "The man who shot liberty valance", John Wayne plays the archetypical western hero, a man who is at once outside of the law who is also committed to upholding justice. Please discuss the contradictions inherent in his role in the film. "SOME LIKE IT HOT" The all-time satirical, comedy farce favorite and outrageous “Some like It Hot” produced in the year 1959, is one of the most comical films ever made. This film has had the combination of several elements, which include a part of 1920-1930s gangster films and romances. The director had one major objective, which was to include deceptive and entangled identities, cross-dressing, and reversed sex roles. It was for these reasons why the film gained so much popularity during the time and this lead to the director receiving six Academy Award nominations. Among the major themes presented in the film, the paper will discuss some of the ways the director plays with gender issues in creating such a resilient comedy. According to Martínez, María Jesús (p. 146), aspects of cultural negotiations among others has affected for long the sexual definitions and gender representation generally. Therefore, the representation of a woman has long provided a powerful and undecided patriarchal character, heavily determined as the expression of the male awareness. Similarly, the film in question, ‘Some Like It Hot’, is viewed as a patriarchal product in which it is acting...
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...Many parents feel that Disney animated films are pure and wholesome, and they are perfectly suitable for children to watch starting at very young ages. On the surface of Disney movies, they are quite wholesome and they try to teach life lessons, but do these movies really portray positive images of men and women that will help a child become an individual, or do Disney movies place ideas in children’s heads, at early ages, telling them how they should act, feel, and live. In an article printed on December third 1966 in Time magazine, the author proposed that Disney films were just as much for adults as they were for children. “Disney always maintained that he made films not for children but for "honest adults."”(time.com). Anyone who has seen a Disney animated film can see that most of these movies are based on adult situations that involve the union of man and women in one way or another. For as long as Walt Disney animated films have been around, spanning eight decades, they have made a great impact on the way children view themselves and others, and they help shape how children view the opposite sex in a negative way. Most people were exposed to the wonderful world of Disney animated films when they were still toddlers. And since people are exposed to this material at such young ages, these films tend to give children an early idea of how men and women, according to Walt Disney studios, interact with each other. They also show children at an early age how people of their...
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...melancholic place to live. People are poor and they do not seem to write much about hope and improving life, except for exaggerating the beauty of Irish women. I like the poem from Nancy Sullivan to Yeats called From One Who Never Made Young Men Catch Their Breath When She Was Passing. In Yeats’s poetry, he would often describe women as very beautiful. I do not think there is anything wrong with this, but it can create a false sense of reality. I thought Nancy Sullivan’s response to Yeats was intriguing because she responded in a way that talked poorly of herself. The fact that she does this, by describing herself a “sooty-haired” woman with eyes the color of an unprized marble”, really drives the point she wants to make that all women are not this beautiful in real life. Yes, there may be some women that beautiful, but it is not describing the general female population. Since Yeat’s writes about how beautiful women are, females may look down on themselves because they cannot reach this nearly unrealistic goal. I think that this is a problem with society, even in todays world. Women all over the world are influenced by media, whether its Yeats, magazine, billboards, or television shows. The problem is that there are methods, such as Photoshop, that enhance the appearance to viewers. Photoshop has many practical applications in creating images, but I do not think it is ethical to make people look so good that it cannot be done without the assistance of digital alterations. Our society...
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...Women in film have been stereotypically portrayed since the invention of film. In an industry that is extremely male dominated stereotyping is very common. In film women make up 16.7 percent of directors, 4.1 percent directors, 12.2 percent of writers and 20 percent producers . In 2012 out of 67 top films of 2012 only twelve leading characters were female . This essay will be taking a look at various films from different time periods and analyze the way that women are portrayed. The research will focus on how feminine characteristics are considered inferior, women being portrayed as sexual objects, the importance of looking at issues that women face in, also taking a look at stereotypes that don’t seem to be going away regardless of when the films are made. This essay will focus on the evolution of film and how it represents modern day society. It will explore both the negative and positive aspects of the evolution of how women are...
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...Name: Course: Date: Film Essay Antonia's Line (Marleen Gorris 1995) This is a 1995 film revolves around Antonia who is the main character. It is a “feminist fairy tale” film. Antonio returns to her place of birth, a Dutch village and establishes a matriarchal community (Kooijman, pg 19). This film covers several themes including sex, intimacy, lesbianism, friendship, and love. It is after World War II that Antonia, a widow and her daughter, Danielle decide to travel back to their home town. Antonia’s mother dies just after their arrival. Farmer Bas opts to offer a marriage request to Antonia, but she turns it down. However, she develops a romance relationship with him. On the other hand, Danielle becomes an artist and later decides to have a child. She does not accept to have a husband (Kooijman pg 19). Therefore, Antonia takes Danielle to the city so that they find someone who will serve her. This leads to the birth of Therese, and she emerges to be extremely intelligent. Danielle later starts a lesbian relationship with Therese’s teacher as she fell in love with her at first sight. Pitte, a young man rapes Therese. Pitte had also raped her mentally ill sister, Deedee. Antonia curses Pitte because of raping Therese. This eventually leads him to his death whereby his younger brother drowns him in the water tank (Kooijman pg 20). Therese fails to find a partner with intelligence that matches hers. She decides to have a relationship with her...
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...The film Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1943) follows the protagonist Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) who is quite the bitter, cynical club owner residing in the city of Casablanca, Morocco since leaving America. After an encounter with a past lover, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), Rick enters a conflict concerning two life changing decisions. He could either help Ilsa and her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), escape the Germans by providing them with letters of transit visas or rekindle the whirlwind romance between the two of them. Ilsa’s world is completely turning upside down as she also must decide whether to choose her husband or the man to whom she once held a flame. Whereas in the film His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940) the protagonist...
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...Media has played a large role in creating social norms. Most people have access to some form of media: television, phone, and film. Through the use of media, society has applied the stereotypes perceived on the groups being stereotyped. Through the use of advertisements, television shows, and films, the media silently manipulate how the audience views each gender. Advertisements are to blame for the constant reminder of gender roles. In one advertisement for a neutral product, sidewalk chalk, a group of girls were coloring on the sidewalk while one boy rapped and performed a small dance routine. It was very apparent that the young boy was the leading character. Allison Lantagne asked, “Are consumers of sidewalk chalk actively trying to send this message of submission to their 9-year-old girls?” This is likely not the case, but the advertisers are continuing to send these messages to the consumers. There are other advertisers who are breaking the stereotypes. Tide has taken measures to move in a better direction. In one commercial, a man makes the statement “I’m a stay-at-home dad,” and later goes on to braid his daughter’s...
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...Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film, Taxi Driver, seen through the maladjusted protagonist, Travis Brickle, is both of seeing and of being. Taxi Driver affirms Laura Mulvey’s idea of the “male gaze,” a combination of the interaction of looks, fetishism, voyeurism, and pleasure in (Hollywood) cinema. Mulvey outlines three different looks within film: of the director and camera, of the spectator, and of the male protagonist. Film, as Mulvey argued, perpetuates the “male gaze.” In the film, emblematic of the “male gaze,” Travis is presented as the dominant male while most female characters are treated and seen as objects of sex and desire—cheapened, eroticized, submissive—though he one female, Betsy, is treated and seen with reverent affection. In addition,...
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...English Essay Practise #1 You have studied two texts composed at different times. When you compared these texts and their contexts, how was your understanding of each text developed and reshaped? (HSC 2003) Understanding of these two texts may be developed and reshaped with the further analysis into what context and values they both have in common, whether they are contain similarities or differences. Such texts which can be compared is Blade Runner is a film created by Wrigley Scott which was released in 1982, more than a century after the world renowned novel of Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley in 1818. With such concerning issues as technology advances and their impacts on the environment, class structures and the language styles and techniques used to convey these messages. Developing and reshaping a clearer and more concise understanding enhances the ideas and meanings within each text. As the creature from within the novel, Frankenstein, is created from the, what was seen as, advanced technology in a new way of writing and thinking was created for the audience of the 19th century. The ability to create life in a way which was deemed impossible, unrealistic and yet completely compelling to those which were exposed to this style of gothic horror fiction. This reflects on the time period of Mary Shelley although was not a typical way writers were expected to write and to appease their particular audiences. This developed my understanding of the technology and writing...
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...Introduction Within a traditional patriarchal society women are normally valued far less than that of a man. They are usually subjugated and oppressed in various ways both directly and indirectly within their given society and culture. The country of Japan is no different with its long history dating back centuries of female subjugation. However, recent generations of both men and women have been working to try and change that and director/producer/writer Hayao Miyazaki is one of these people. Within this paper it will be argued that Hayao Miyazaki is a cultural feminist and that he uses several of his animated films to de-popularize the cultural acceptance of oppressing and subjugating women, while simultaneously promoting new cultural views and the independence of Japanese women. Miyazaki has used such films as a dog of...
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...Justin “Film 1401 2013-4” Sequence Analysis Tutorial 13 A) Explain the plot structure and the story duration of the film. To explain the plot structure, we need to break down the five main components of the plot. Breaking down the five main components of the plot structure will allow us to get a better understanding of our film. The five components are: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and the resolution/denouement. I will be using the plot structure that incorporates all five of these components into three acts: 1. Setup, 2. Conflict and Obstacles, and 3. Resolution. Set up Act 1: The protagonist in the film is the little boy/teenager/man. We can look at him as our Luke Skywalker, and the older man (the Master Buddha) can be our Yoda. As seasons pass, the boy turns into a teenager. The master allows the boy to learn many life lessons on his journey to adulthood. A woman and her daughter who happens to be the same age as the boy enter the story line. At this point, we can establish that these three people will be our main characters. A floating temple on a beautiful lake is our setting. The boy, who has never been around a woman, falls in love with the girl immedialy. The film becomes enticing when the boy has a sexual awaking with the girl, and they get caught in the act. After being caught, the master then decides the girl is finally healed and her spirits are high. The boy decides to run to the outside world with her...
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...The Romance Genre One of the most common themes in films is love. In Bordwell and Thompson’s study The Classical Hollywood Cinema (1998), they calculated that 85 percent of Hollywood films has romance as their main plot. Which means in most Hollywood films, Romantic Love is a major concern. Contemporary American cinema still uses the same formal in romance films. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl and then boy gets girl in the end. Bellour a film critic, identifies this convention as pattern that constitutes classical Hollywood cinema as a whole (“Alternation” 88). This illustrates that Hollywood often portrays and idealized version of love. Hollywood’s emphasis on romantic love and courtship, is almost like a reflection of America’s commercial enterprise. Producing movies only for mass entertainment purposes. We happen to live in society in which the choice of partners and marriages completely free. Although Pierre Bourdieu (1990) has argued that our relationships and marriage patterns have been heavy influenced by cultural institutions. As Hollywood film is particularly addressed to young people, film can be seen as an institution that has influenced their formation of ‘habitus’ or their behaviour towards courtship. Popular romantic films are often provocative and complex. They tell us about ourselves as men and women. Sexual desire, love, relationships and our fallibilities and fears. They show us how our beliefs, what we should think and how we should behave. They...
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...Setting The Bar for Documentaries Recently I watched Man With A Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov and I must say, it changed my life. Not only that, as I’ve researched the film, I discovered that it also changed filmmaking in many different aspects as well. While many people may not personally enjoy this wild documentary, there is no denying the time and skill put into each and every aspect. In this paper, I will describe how Man With A Movie Camera set the bar for future films in how it was edited, how it was filmed, and how it has further impacted how movies are made today. To begin, while Georges Méliès invented the editing techniques of double exposures and dissolves and Edwin S. Porter improved them, Vertov and...
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