Bunny:
The most striking aspect of this Pixar short is its ability to create and maintain a coherent narrative (and resulting symbolic message) without using a single word. AS we discussed in class, the most powerful symbolic image in the short was the oven. Representing the transition from mysterium to tremendum, the oven, just as cooking is the transformation from one state to another, meant a change from one life to the next for Bunny. While I (as noted in my previous blog posts) would argue that the general mood music as well as the motif melodies in any film piece are key in creating feeling, the sharp close ups of Bunny throughout the short really connected the vier with the feelings the creator meant to elicit: feelings of fear, sadness and nostalgia, and acceptance of/ peace with death. The appearance of Bunny shows that life has been a long one. The transitions from oven walls to beyond this world paired with Bunny's change in demeanor and the subsequent flashback to the old wedding photo creates a feeling of closure.... the viewer understands that she has passed into the next life to be with her husband once again.
Northfork
There was a lot of striking, conflicting imagery in the clips we viewed from this film:
1. While the missing wall in church design paired with the amazing view during the church service made the viewer feel closer to God, the fact that the wall was indeed "missing" and the church on stilts created a dissonant sense of being torn away from the people, from the town (given the narrative background).
2. The image of the crossroads with the cars going in all three directions further created that sense of scattered people; the town's inhabitants giving up and moving away.
3. The coffin on top of the car--even the dead can’t rest as a result of this uprooting of the community of Northfork. Gives the viewer a very disturbing feeling, amplified by the ominous clounds on the mountains in the background.
Northfork weas a great example of the mysterium tremendum.
Paris, Texas
There was a lot of imagery in this film that helped the viewer to commit to certain feelings the director was trying to evoke. From the mountains in the background being representative of those who are talking at the moment (Travis’ mountain being knarled and rough, his brother’s mountain being smoother and smaller) to represent the scope of their inner conflict, to the twisted freeway under which Travis works to repair his relationship with his son and talk about his long gone wife. The most striking imagery was during Travis’ conversations with his wife in her brothel hotel room: talking to her on the phone represented that emotional distance they were feeling, supplemented by the use of the two-sided mirror in between them. The whole scene created a very real, emotional narrative.
Pink Floyd’s The Wall
This film was all about the evils of technology, and was incredibly symbolically constructed to demonstrate the destruction of ideals and the limits on our freedom. Images related to the destruction of the Church and of religious institutions symbolized the worship of consumer goods. The message from the last clip we watched which was about Pink’s judgement showed rock and roll as having originated as rebellion against dominant culture, yet became an operator of that very system that destroyed our society.
Cabeza de Vaca
Like Apocalypse Now, this film combined the ideals of religion and war with transcendence. The Captain was captured and forced into slavery by the tribes people, only to find out that once he embraced their way of life, he would shun the one he came from that worked to impose religion, take land, and corrupt the lives of the natives he began to feel akin to. If was interesting to see how again one coming to terms with the animalistic, naturalistic tendencies of sacred transcendence clash with the world of the profane. This was best exemplified in the scene where the Captain begins to feel emotioanlly and physically a part of the spiritual healing that took place in the tent.
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