In today’s class we watched several film clips that all were interesting in their own right. Some of the clips were moving pictures and others were still images. The first clip was a short movie titled Bunny. This short film was on the DVD Ice Age and it was very interesting. It was an old female bunny who seemed very tired and very sad. These conclusions could be made by examining the surroundings in the short film. such objects in the film are old pictures of her and her husband that have not moved in a long time. This indicates that she has not moved the picture in a long time and that she is in fact old and she represents old life and how time progresses. She is annoyed by a moth throughout the short film. This moth is constantly going to the light in the room where the bunny is cooking a cake. The moth is telling the bunny to go towards the light and almost acts as if some sort of angel, maybe death angel. The bunny hits the moth in the cake batter and cooks the moth in the oven while she falls asleep. the bunny makes up and finds that the oven opens by itself and there is a huge light coming from the oven. The bunny looks inside and the oven takes her on a ride into space where the moth is there with thousands of other moths. This clip is very comforting at the end because the bunny is now safe in heaven and with the love of her life.
Clip number two was a series of images in the film Northfork. The first image was that of a church. This church was very interesting because the back of church was not there. It was open and you could see the mountains in the background and the cattle that roamed the fields. Seeing this gave the church a much added appeal. It made the church feel as if it was touched by God itself and that God was forever present while people were around. I had never seen a church portrayed as this and it was an interesting perspective.
The second image in Northfork showed to us as a class was a crossroads. This was a crossroads on the road. I saw this and immediately thought of Cast Away, the movie starring Tom Hanks. There was a part in Cast Away where the main character, Tom Hanks, comes to a crossroads and has no idea where to go. In Northfork the characters all go one direction. I saw this as knowing where and why we choose to go places and as long as you do not hesitate, your life will stay on track.
The third image in the film Northfork was a layering effect of a boy running and buffalo running. I do not know what to think of when I saw this clip. They were moving in opposite directions and the buffalo were shown in slow motion. I cannot grasp what was trying to be said in this clip and it was hard to understand. It could have meant nothing and it was just an effect, but who knows, anyone can interpret this however they feel.
The last clip shown in Northfork was the transporting of a casket. The movie took place in 1955, and the town of Northfork was being moved so that a man-made lake could be formed. This of course meant that the dead had to be moved and the character James Woods had to move is wife, who had passed away. The dead should be left alone, most would argue and this what most argued in the film including Woods son. Woods character felt that it just had to be done and he did it. The clip is moving because he was moving his wife and he eventually moved her to a very nice spot looking over a mountain valley. The clip showed sign of nature the human spirit and the human life cycle.
The third clip were clips from the movie Paris, Texas. There were two clips shown from this film both of a man named Travis walking. The first clip is Travis walking in the desert with a gallon of water. Travis is following phone lines where they seemed to fade off into the distance. The journey seems it could last forever and there is no end, the phone lines giving that illusion. Travis is stopped by his brother Walt and taken home. The desert had symbols of death and symbols of life and hope. A vulture followed Travis in the desert and the mountain range gave the slip a sense of nature and spiritualness. Life was represented by Travis and the will power he had to finish the walk. Walt, Travis's brother, represented logic and human worry because it made no sense to keep walking like that and he saved Travis.
The Second clip in Paris, Texas was again about walking. Travis again begins to walk and now he is walking the streets of L.A., where he now lives with his brother Walt. The walk has the same meaning just the surroundings make it a tad more interesting. Travis begins walking at night and into the morning. He seems to have no destination, and he seems to be thinking about a lot of things. As he walks he comes up on a bridge where a man is yelling in the middle. Travis stops to at first say something but realizes to just walk around him. The man yelling was an obstacle for Travis, just as Walt was in the desert. Travis did not let the man stop him and instead found an alternating route. As Travis walked around him he gave the man a pat on the back, almost saying you do not need to yell, everything will be ok. Travis seemed to have a clear mind and he seemed to know what he wanted in his journey.
The forth film that clips were shown from was Pink Floyd’s The Wall. This movie was very weird and I have to say I've heard stories of bad trips watching this movie and the clips seemed to be the reason why bad trips seemed to happen. The movie in general was creepy and strange. The first clip shown was the clip with the song Another Brink in the Wall playing in the background. It showed kids walking in straight lines in to a meat grinder and kids revolting against society. It seemed to be symbolism for fighting the system and for believing in one self and doing what it is you want to do. The movie progressed and another clip was shown of a wall being made of material objects. The objects ranged from computers to cars and cloths and it was forming a wall that surrounded today’s youth. The clip served as another form of symbolism for material things influencing the youth and creating monsters. The clip was full of colors and morphing. The morphing was trippy and creepy because it almost always resulted in a violent form.
The fifth and final movie shown was Cabeza De Vaca. This movie out of all of the move clips seemed to have more of a spiritual aspect. The man in the movie was a Spanish missionary and he was trying to pass Christianity to the natives in Florida. The natives instead captured the man and he was captive for many years. In captivity the Spanish man seemed to take a lot of abuse and he tried to escape in one of the clips. The native witch doctor performed a ritual involving a lizard tied to a rope. The ritual was performed as the Spanish man was running. The lizard ran in circles and so did the Spanish man until the Spanish man fell right next to the place the witch doctor was performing the ritual. This whole sequence was amazing to watch and examine because he seemed almost effortless for the witch doctor and extremely strenuous for the Spanish man. It was in this clip that the Spanish man felt he was not going to ever escape and he tries to hold on to his humanity. This scene was moving because he is yelling into the sky describing what it is that makes him human. It is not until he copes with where he is and he embraces the culture when the tribe lets him free. The clip serves as an understanding of different cultures and how different cultures value spirituality. People cannot force religion on others because it is only up to the person to decide in their own heart what religion if any, they want to believe. That is what makes religion so special and something worth fighting for.
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