One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
~ Helen Keller
It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.
~ Helen Keller
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
~ Helen Keller
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Getting Wet: Shower or Bath?
Xizao / Shower (1999)
Directed by Yang Zhang
Cinematography by Jian Zhang
Most films are filled with meaning, though those involved with a project may have intended a different meaning than certain members of the audience takes away with it. Still, there are some projects that are written and produced with the intention of a meaning being evident and shared by all: Shower is definitely one of these films.
The referential meaning of Shower is that–though Da Ming (Pu Cun Xin) has a “successful” life in the city with a job that pays well, a wife, and nice clothes–he is not happy because these things are sterile and impersonal. When he returns home he finds his father (Zhu Xu) and brother (Jiang Wu) in a simple life that is full of hard work, respect, and customs. This way of life does not appeal to Ming: he’d rather take a quick shower than spend the day in a bath house.
But his family is happy; the fact that their way of life is about to be torn away–when their home and business are torn down–hangs over the father. He is being displaced and has nowhere to go. When he dies the same happens to Ming’s brother because he loses the sheltered life that his father built for him. Many of us can identify with this explicit meaning because we remember visiting older relatives in our childhood. They always seem to live in another world, one that is being torn away from them, and they always seem to ignore it or be unaware that it is happening. They hold onto the past because of how meaningful it was. The old men come to the bathhouse to socialize, to compete, to assert their authority and knowledge. The young men come to this bathhouse because it is a haven from the problems of life: marital difficulties, lack of self-confidence. The implicit meaning is that everyone understands one another here and cares about what happens to their companions. They strengthen one another as they share their experiences and troubles. The simplicity of life as it was in the past is more meaningful than modern life is becoming.
The motif that is woven through the fabric of the film expresses the symptomatic meaning: it is the water. It cleanses body and spirit. It strengthens the mind and soul. The water is what brings everyone together, what is always there for them when they need it. It is a valuable commodity that is necessary for life in a town where a well has gone dry and it is valuable in a city that is expanding too quickly to think of the consequences of who and what is being destroyed as a result.
Shower is coherent throughout and travels at a slower pace than most American audiences are used to and prefer. The historical stories lend to the intensity of effect, as do the characters’ trips into the park where the whole town comes to meet. The film is complex in how it weaves the different character’s lives together: the father cares for the son who believes in the boy who can only sing when water is falling on him who is disliked by the man whose wife beats on him (and these are only a few of the storylines). The movie obviously has originality because there aren’t many films out there set in bathhouses or with cricket fights. Even the park has its elements that are foreign to westerners even if it is reminiscent of a plaza. Most of all, this movie is a heart-wrenching look at doing the best one can with what life gives one and the fact that life isn’t always peachy.
Directed by Yang Zhang
Cinematography by Jian Zhang
Most films are filled with meaning, though those involved with a project may have intended a different meaning than certain members of the audience takes away with it. Still, there are some projects that are written and produced with the intention of a meaning being evident and shared by all: Shower is definitely one of these films.
The referential meaning of Shower is that–though Da Ming (Pu Cun Xin) has a “successful” life in the city with a job that pays well, a wife, and nice clothes–he is not happy because these things are sterile and impersonal. When he returns home he finds his father (Zhu Xu) and brother (Jiang Wu) in a simple life that is full of hard work, respect, and customs. This way of life does not appeal to Ming: he’d rather take a quick shower than spend the day in a bath house.
But his family is happy; the fact that their way of life is about to be torn away–when their home and business are torn down–hangs over the father. He is being displaced and has nowhere to go. When he dies the same happens to Ming’s brother because he loses the sheltered life that his father built for him. Many of us can identify with this explicit meaning because we remember visiting older relatives in our childhood. They always seem to live in another world, one that is being torn away from them, and they always seem to ignore it or be unaware that it is happening. They hold onto the past because of how meaningful it was. The old men come to the bathhouse to socialize, to compete, to assert their authority and knowledge. The young men come to this bathhouse because it is a haven from the problems of life: marital difficulties, lack of self-confidence. The implicit meaning is that everyone understands one another here and cares about what happens to their companions. They strengthen one another as they share their experiences and troubles. The simplicity of life as it was in the past is more meaningful than modern life is becoming.
The motif that is woven through the fabric of the film expresses the symptomatic meaning: it is the water. It cleanses body and spirit. It strengthens the mind and soul. The water is what brings everyone together, what is always there for them when they need it. It is a valuable commodity that is necessary for life in a town where a well has gone dry and it is valuable in a city that is expanding too quickly to think of the consequences of who and what is being destroyed as a result.
Shower is coherent throughout and travels at a slower pace than most American audiences are used to and prefer. The historical stories lend to the intensity of effect, as do the characters’ trips into the park where the whole town comes to meet. The film is complex in how it weaves the different character’s lives together: the father cares for the son who believes in the boy who can only sing when water is falling on him who is disliked by the man whose wife beats on him (and these are only a few of the storylines). The movie obviously has originality because there aren’t many films out there set in bathhouses or with cricket fights. Even the park has its elements that are foreign to westerners even if it is reminiscent of a plaza. Most of all, this movie is a heart-wrenching look at doing the best one can with what life gives one and the fact that life isn’t always peachy.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit
John Singer Sargent painted The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit in 1882 using oil on canvas. The painting is 87?” x 87?” and was exhibited in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in the June-September 1999. The painting is featured on page 181 of A World of Art.
Daughters is a portrait of four sisters in their apartment in Paris. The youngest sits on a rug near the bottom center playing with a doll. Her next oldest sibling stands on the left with her hands behind her back. The two eldest daughters stand in the shadows in the center, the second oldest standing facing the viewer as the third oldest, the oldest turned away so we cannot see her face. The oldest is also leaning against a huge vase; its companion stands before a red screen on the right.
The line in this painting seems to follow one girl throughout her adolescence. She is sitting on the rug playing, and the two edges of that rug point to her next stage, which is still obvious but more proper. A wall behind this girl forms another line against with the vase is standing. One’s eye jumps to the red screen which forms two more lines that lead the eye back to the rug.
The two oldest girls appear to be standing in a dark box, but the whole apartment feels closed and confined like a box. This darkness makes one feel sad, depressed to see the confined and restrictive world that the girls live in. The red draws one’s eye to the beautiful things that these girls are surrounded with but are surely not allowed to touch. On the top right there is a bit of undefined light that continues to give the painting depth.
The girls are all dressed in almost exactly the same way, with a pinafore over a dress, black tights, and black shoes. The youngest’s dress and pinafore is blindingly white and undefined, the next oldest is in dark red and slightly rumpled, and the two eldest are in black with pressed pinafores. The vases are pearly grey and black, the rug predominantly a sage green. The floor and wall are a warm golden-toned wood.
The rug itself has texture: it looks a lot like any rug one would see on the living room floor, bristly or soft. The youngest girl’s doll has a dress that is pink and white, made of fluffy and beautiful sheer fabric one expects to see made into a gown for dancing. The wood throughout the apartment looks smooth, the vases smooth and glossy. The pinafores of the three eldest girls all have a sturdy cotton texture to them.
The two vases help draw one’s eye across the room. The rug has a pattern of diamonds set in rings. The floor has a diagonal inlay that points both to the left and the right at the same time. The first thing one’s eye is drawn to is the youngest girl: she is the center of interest. The girls are all in scale with and proportionate to one another, but the vases are both taller than the oldest girl. The eye moves easily around the work and finds balance except in the dark box: it seems to suck one inside if they let it: its dimensions are vague so the negative space seems to go on almost forever if it weren’t for the undefined reflection near the back. Because of the painting’s large size, the girls are probably larger than life size.
In A World of Art Henry James likens this painting to an Alice in Wonderland experience but to me this painting is about growing up. When one is young it is as if they are in the center of the universe. As they age they draw away from others and become less open about their identity. Though a parent doesn’t forget their children they seem to focus more on their younger daughters than their older ones. These girls are also losing innocence as they age and becoming weighted down with the expectations that are placed on them as they mature. None of the girls look happy though they clearly want for nothing… nothing physical anyway. They are provided for but seem emotionally detached. Perhaps the red screen, which brings the eye back to the beginning again, symbolizes how the cycle always continues and life always begins anew but in the same way it did for the generation before us. It is a beautiful painting but kind of depressing, too.
image similar to the one in A World of Art (though smaller)
a better image (that would have influenced my critique had i seen it while i was writing it!)
Daughters is a portrait of four sisters in their apartment in Paris. The youngest sits on a rug near the bottom center playing with a doll. Her next oldest sibling stands on the left with her hands behind her back. The two eldest daughters stand in the shadows in the center, the second oldest standing facing the viewer as the third oldest, the oldest turned away so we cannot see her face. The oldest is also leaning against a huge vase; its companion stands before a red screen on the right.
The line in this painting seems to follow one girl throughout her adolescence. She is sitting on the rug playing, and the two edges of that rug point to her next stage, which is still obvious but more proper. A wall behind this girl forms another line against with the vase is standing. One’s eye jumps to the red screen which forms two more lines that lead the eye back to the rug.
The two oldest girls appear to be standing in a dark box, but the whole apartment feels closed and confined like a box. This darkness makes one feel sad, depressed to see the confined and restrictive world that the girls live in. The red draws one’s eye to the beautiful things that these girls are surrounded with but are surely not allowed to touch. On the top right there is a bit of undefined light that continues to give the painting depth.
The girls are all dressed in almost exactly the same way, with a pinafore over a dress, black tights, and black shoes. The youngest’s dress and pinafore is blindingly white and undefined, the next oldest is in dark red and slightly rumpled, and the two eldest are in black with pressed pinafores. The vases are pearly grey and black, the rug predominantly a sage green. The floor and wall are a warm golden-toned wood.
The rug itself has texture: it looks a lot like any rug one would see on the living room floor, bristly or soft. The youngest girl’s doll has a dress that is pink and white, made of fluffy and beautiful sheer fabric one expects to see made into a gown for dancing. The wood throughout the apartment looks smooth, the vases smooth and glossy. The pinafores of the three eldest girls all have a sturdy cotton texture to them.
The two vases help draw one’s eye across the room. The rug has a pattern of diamonds set in rings. The floor has a diagonal inlay that points both to the left and the right at the same time. The first thing one’s eye is drawn to is the youngest girl: she is the center of interest. The girls are all in scale with and proportionate to one another, but the vases are both taller than the oldest girl. The eye moves easily around the work and finds balance except in the dark box: it seems to suck one inside if they let it: its dimensions are vague so the negative space seems to go on almost forever if it weren’t for the undefined reflection near the back. Because of the painting’s large size, the girls are probably larger than life size.
In A World of Art Henry James likens this painting to an Alice in Wonderland experience but to me this painting is about growing up. When one is young it is as if they are in the center of the universe. As they age they draw away from others and become less open about their identity. Though a parent doesn’t forget their children they seem to focus more on their younger daughters than their older ones. These girls are also losing innocence as they age and becoming weighted down with the expectations that are placed on them as they mature. None of the girls look happy though they clearly want for nothing… nothing physical anyway. They are provided for but seem emotionally detached. Perhaps the red screen, which brings the eye back to the beginning again, symbolizes how the cycle always continues and life always begins anew but in the same way it did for the generation before us. It is a beautiful painting but kind of depressing, too.
image similar to the one in A World of Art (though smaller)
a better image (that would have influenced my critique had i seen it while i was writing it!)
Thursday, February 16, 2006
the rundown
i know, it's been way too long since i've written... the trouble is, i haven't exactly known what to say. I don't want to talk just to talk, i want to be saying something meaningful, something from my heart. How much is too much, is too honest and angry and broken and ugly?
Around the time i had those two Relient K songs stuck in my head i quit working at Powderhorn. A member of my church needed someone to babysit her daughter overnight while she had someone else's shift for three weeks. I only did this twice a week (as i recall) and i didn't think it would conflict with work at all. I've done this for her in the past and felt obligated to do so again: she only asks me when she's having problems with her older daughter. So i suddenly realize sometime later on that the girl is going to a new school, her mother is working later in the morning than normal, and i can't leave in time for work. So i call in and quit saying that i have a new job.
I had been wanting to quit working at Powderhorn for a while. It seems to me that the places that i work that are "Christian" in ownership and creed always turn out to be the ones with the most anger, bitterness, rudeness, etc. I didn't enjoy working not because of the work but because of who i was working with. I felt surrounded by negativity and was exhausted. I would be gone around twelve hours a day simply going to work and coming home from work. I no longer had a life or the energy for one. I had been planning to just stick it out, quit if i could find workstudy, but now that i had given my word... i felt obligated to quit and watch the girl.
Working during school would bring me just as much money as workstudy would. I hadn't gotten to snowboard more than fifteen runs (on the bunny slope or midway) my entire employment. Plus i thought i would be housesitting for a coworker of my father's for about a week and a half and i knew that would pay well. I just didn't have the time to do the things that needed doing before school. The pay was a pittance. I was nearly at my breaking point.
Not working was bliss. The housesitting job fell through (they took their pets on the trip) but i didn't let it bother me. I started snowboarding once a week with lessons at a discounted rate through a homeschooling support group my mother is in. My snowboarding really improved a lot and i felt that i was actually starting to recover and do something worthwhile with my time, knitting and reading and rest and cleaning.
When school started back up again i didn't realize until Thursday when i received a call to inquire why i hadn't been at Spanish the night before. I thought--because of my catalog--that classes didn't start for another week. It was really stressful to me only making it to one class my first week back. My teacher's perception of me (if they noticed the absence) must be that i am not responsible or punctual and that's so not me. Worse than that i've been tardy for Spanish the past two weeks (this week because of a wind storm that forced me to drive ten miles under the speed limit most of the way). And i've been unable to find workstudy. There was simply nothing advertised or available that seemed plausible.
So now of course my family disapproves of me yet again. My mom wants me to pay her back. I didn't get to bond my car yet (though i did find out that it will be a lot easier than i originally thought so now i feel stupid because, despite numerous searches through Google, i was unable to find this info myself and had to be informed of it by my sister). I'm not virtually broke and still need to file FAFSA for next fall.
All this have led up to the past four days of depression. i had been ignoring everything for so long, trying to suck it up and just forget it. Feeling sad doesn't help anything, i don't have the time to be human, to be real, to do anything but try to shut out the dark. But it was hanging over my head that i have been trying so very hard to pull myself out of this abyss and once again i have failed miserably. I think it was Friday or Saturday night that my parents started making not very subtle comments about how stupid i am to want a tattoo or to pierce my navel, especially a barcode "mark of the beast". And as i had just spent the past week slowly working my way through Dark Angel season two i too special offense at this because i was starting to rediscover...
~ i'm not fighting the dark anymore
~ i don't have hope anymore
~ i don't have a love (not even one that i've lost) and Valentine's Day is around the corner again
~ i love Dark Angel even more now that i've been away from it for a while
~ the barcode still has meaning to me as a symbol
My parents don't seem to care that i'm trying to do the right thing because it's not their definition of right. My mom said to me sometime over Christmas break that i'm too hung up on my definition of truth... but it doesn't matter what my definition is to me. Sure, i have big ideas, and if God tells me that they're wrong than i'll freely admit it and adopt his ideas. All of this begins and ends with truth, and Jesus is truth. Am i honest about the truth God shows me? As much as i can be when surrounded by people who just don't give a ---- what i think. So it's not my truth that i'm talking about from my perception, it's His.
On Sunday morning i didn't even have to think about it, i knew i was going to have a bad day. You try to keep your chin up, you try to ignore it, it still comes. In Sunday school it felt like no one cared what i wanted to contribut to the class and for weeks its seemed clear to me: 1, this is where God wants me and is speaking to me the most, and 2, my parents are getting uncomfortable about me being here because they don't feel free to speak openly about their relationship with me and their perceptions of me. The rest of the day was like the heavy silence before a storm. At the end of AWANA. See, we have a drawing each week for a small prize and you get more tickets for each section you say. There are special sections that you don't have to do, but if you do them all you get a special sticker to put them on your badge. There are four of these activities at the end of every group of sections, two "silver" and two "gold." My mother (the Director of T&T) said at the beginning of the year that you get one ticket for each of the silvers you do. My sister did two and had only gotten one ticket. She was upset because in the excitement of a game she's lost some of her tickets. i was trying to make sure that my sister Katie (who is in my team) had gotten all the tickets she deserves before we drew for the prize.
And then my father came into the room. I could tell right away that he was stressed out from something and was bringing it with him. The air was tangible, was heavy, with his mood. He said it didn't matter without even knowing what the whole deal was about. I tried to continue the conversation with my sister (she was really upset and thus being very disrespectful and stubborn towards me) and... well, i don't quite remember what my father said, but basically it was to shut up. I just looked at him for a second and all i could ask was:
"Why do you have to be like this?"
Because i was quibbling about symantics or some such. He didn't throw anything, he didn't yell, he didn't need to; the message was clear, that i am worthless, that i am stupid, that i have nothing to offer, that he will never see me as anyone worthy of respect or praise. i said fine, i'm leaving, and i left. i couldn't stop crying for half an hour. It still makes me cry. i have been afraid of my father for longer than i can remember. When i was about three he spanked me for being too close to the road after he told me not to play in it (it seemed to me that i was obeying, that i was far away from the road after he had been unhappy that i was near it). When i was four he once gave me some gum when he picked me up from preschool, and i accidentally swallowed it and started crying because i thought he would be angry.
The reasons i didn't want to move back to Colorado are many, but the main two are because i didn't want to be a financial burden to my parents and because i knew that i couldn't handle living with my father. The wounds are still too fresh.
I've tried so hard not to care what anyone else thinks of me (anyone but God) but it never works. As a female i am wired to see the approval of my father and husband. I don't have a husband and it seems my father will never approve of me. Worst of all, it seems like God doesn't approve of me either when He is so silent and seems so far away. I don't know how to forgive my father no matter how hard i try because i am afraid of him and he still offends nearly every time we are together. But no matter what God does i cannot hate Him or turn my back on Him: my life is still focused on Him even though i've subconsciously been trying to ignore it because it's too painful and too hard for me. I don't know what to do.
Around the time i had those two Relient K songs stuck in my head i quit working at Powderhorn. A member of my church needed someone to babysit her daughter overnight while she had someone else's shift for three weeks. I only did this twice a week (as i recall) and i didn't think it would conflict with work at all. I've done this for her in the past and felt obligated to do so again: she only asks me when she's having problems with her older daughter. So i suddenly realize sometime later on that the girl is going to a new school, her mother is working later in the morning than normal, and i can't leave in time for work. So i call in and quit saying that i have a new job.
I had been wanting to quit working at Powderhorn for a while. It seems to me that the places that i work that are "Christian" in ownership and creed always turn out to be the ones with the most anger, bitterness, rudeness, etc. I didn't enjoy working not because of the work but because of who i was working with. I felt surrounded by negativity and was exhausted. I would be gone around twelve hours a day simply going to work and coming home from work. I no longer had a life or the energy for one. I had been planning to just stick it out, quit if i could find workstudy, but now that i had given my word... i felt obligated to quit and watch the girl.
Working during school would bring me just as much money as workstudy would. I hadn't gotten to snowboard more than fifteen runs (on the bunny slope or midway) my entire employment. Plus i thought i would be housesitting for a coworker of my father's for about a week and a half and i knew that would pay well. I just didn't have the time to do the things that needed doing before school. The pay was a pittance. I was nearly at my breaking point.
Not working was bliss. The housesitting job fell through (they took their pets on the trip) but i didn't let it bother me. I started snowboarding once a week with lessons at a discounted rate through a homeschooling support group my mother is in. My snowboarding really improved a lot and i felt that i was actually starting to recover and do something worthwhile with my time, knitting and reading and rest and cleaning.
When school started back up again i didn't realize until Thursday when i received a call to inquire why i hadn't been at Spanish the night before. I thought--because of my catalog--that classes didn't start for another week. It was really stressful to me only making it to one class my first week back. My teacher's perception of me (if they noticed the absence) must be that i am not responsible or punctual and that's so not me. Worse than that i've been tardy for Spanish the past two weeks (this week because of a wind storm that forced me to drive ten miles under the speed limit most of the way). And i've been unable to find workstudy. There was simply nothing advertised or available that seemed plausible.
So now of course my family disapproves of me yet again. My mom wants me to pay her back. I didn't get to bond my car yet (though i did find out that it will be a lot easier than i originally thought so now i feel stupid because, despite numerous searches through Google, i was unable to find this info myself and had to be informed of it by my sister). I'm not virtually broke and still need to file FAFSA for next fall.
All this have led up to the past four days of depression. i had been ignoring everything for so long, trying to suck it up and just forget it. Feeling sad doesn't help anything, i don't have the time to be human, to be real, to do anything but try to shut out the dark. But it was hanging over my head that i have been trying so very hard to pull myself out of this abyss and once again i have failed miserably. I think it was Friday or Saturday night that my parents started making not very subtle comments about how stupid i am to want a tattoo or to pierce my navel, especially a barcode "mark of the beast". And as i had just spent the past week slowly working my way through Dark Angel season two i too special offense at this because i was starting to rediscover...
~ i'm not fighting the dark anymore
~ i don't have hope anymore
~ i don't have a love (not even one that i've lost) and Valentine's Day is around the corner again
~ i love Dark Angel even more now that i've been away from it for a while
~ the barcode still has meaning to me as a symbol
My parents don't seem to care that i'm trying to do the right thing because it's not their definition of right. My mom said to me sometime over Christmas break that i'm too hung up on my definition of truth... but it doesn't matter what my definition is to me. Sure, i have big ideas, and if God tells me that they're wrong than i'll freely admit it and adopt his ideas. All of this begins and ends with truth, and Jesus is truth. Am i honest about the truth God shows me? As much as i can be when surrounded by people who just don't give a ---- what i think. So it's not my truth that i'm talking about from my perception, it's His.
On Sunday morning i didn't even have to think about it, i knew i was going to have a bad day. You try to keep your chin up, you try to ignore it, it still comes. In Sunday school it felt like no one cared what i wanted to contribut to the class and for weeks its seemed clear to me: 1, this is where God wants me and is speaking to me the most, and 2, my parents are getting uncomfortable about me being here because they don't feel free to speak openly about their relationship with me and their perceptions of me. The rest of the day was like the heavy silence before a storm. At the end of AWANA. See, we have a drawing each week for a small prize and you get more tickets for each section you say. There are special sections that you don't have to do, but if you do them all you get a special sticker to put them on your badge. There are four of these activities at the end of every group of sections, two "silver" and two "gold." My mother (the Director of T&T) said at the beginning of the year that you get one ticket for each of the silvers you do. My sister did two and had only gotten one ticket. She was upset because in the excitement of a game she's lost some of her tickets. i was trying to make sure that my sister Katie (who is in my team) had gotten all the tickets she deserves before we drew for the prize.
And then my father came into the room. I could tell right away that he was stressed out from something and was bringing it with him. The air was tangible, was heavy, with his mood. He said it didn't matter without even knowing what the whole deal was about. I tried to continue the conversation with my sister (she was really upset and thus being very disrespectful and stubborn towards me) and... well, i don't quite remember what my father said, but basically it was to shut up. I just looked at him for a second and all i could ask was:
"Why do you have to be like this?"
Because i was quibbling about symantics or some such. He didn't throw anything, he didn't yell, he didn't need to; the message was clear, that i am worthless, that i am stupid, that i have nothing to offer, that he will never see me as anyone worthy of respect or praise. i said fine, i'm leaving, and i left. i couldn't stop crying for half an hour. It still makes me cry. i have been afraid of my father for longer than i can remember. When i was about three he spanked me for being too close to the road after he told me not to play in it (it seemed to me that i was obeying, that i was far away from the road after he had been unhappy that i was near it). When i was four he once gave me some gum when he picked me up from preschool, and i accidentally swallowed it and started crying because i thought he would be angry.
The reasons i didn't want to move back to Colorado are many, but the main two are because i didn't want to be a financial burden to my parents and because i knew that i couldn't handle living with my father. The wounds are still too fresh.
I've tried so hard not to care what anyone else thinks of me (anyone but God) but it never works. As a female i am wired to see the approval of my father and husband. I don't have a husband and it seems my father will never approve of me. Worst of all, it seems like God doesn't approve of me either when He is so silent and seems so far away. I don't know how to forgive my father no matter how hard i try because i am afraid of him and he still offends nearly every time we are together. But no matter what God does i cannot hate Him or turn my back on Him: my life is still focused on Him even though i've subconsciously been trying to ignore it because it's too painful and too hard for me. I don't know what to do.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Chinatown
Chinatown was directed in 1974 by Roman Polanski but the film feels older. The settings, the costumes, and the way the actors talk all lend to the idea that this film could have happened just the way it unfolds in a time not so very long ago. This is accomplished because the movie unfolds showing only one point of view—Gittes (Nicholson)—and entirely in temporal order. While certain events most likely aren’t entirely original—such as Gittes and Evelyn (Dunaway) having a smoke after sex—it only lends more to the perception that these events are realistic because so much about them and the setting are familiar. The film is coherent because the sense of expectancy and normalness (despite outrageous events occurring) is never broken.
Clues and foreshadowing (such as a lost shoe or a gardener replacing grass) are seamlessly woven into the story. It is impossible to catch all of these clues in one viewing, nor fully understand the plot, because this is the type of film that has so many things happening on multiple levels that one cannot take it all in at once. The restricted narration that Polanski uses keeps one guessing and wondering what will happen next. Because there is only one line of plot development the viewer empathizes strongly with Gittes, further, one comes away wanting to see it again and wondering what Gittes could have done differently. All of this lends to the intensity of effect and the complexity of the film.
Clues and foreshadowing (such as a lost shoe or a gardener replacing grass) are seamlessly woven into the story. It is impossible to catch all of these clues in one viewing, nor fully understand the plot, because this is the type of film that has so many things happening on multiple levels that one cannot take it all in at once. The restricted narration that Polanski uses keeps one guessing and wondering what will happen next. Because there is only one line of plot development the viewer empathizes strongly with Gittes, further, one comes away wanting to see it again and wondering what Gittes could have done differently. All of this lends to the intensity of effect and the complexity of the film.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Form in the Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz was directed by Victor Fleming in 1939. In this movie our heroine Dorothy Gale feels that her pet Toto is being treated unfairly and she is being ignored. She longs to visit a place where dreams come true. She gets her wish when a tornado dumps her house in Oz. But she instantly wants to go home. With the help of three new friends she defeats a wicked witch, uncovers the deception of the wizard who can help her get home, and discovers that the power to get home has been inside her all along.
The Wizard of Oz follows the form of a musical. As each step of Dorothy’s journey progresses we learn something new and then there is a song before the journey continues. This form guides the viewer along and as well as fulfilling our expectations so much that the only place it doesn’t occur (when Dorothy and her friends leave the Emerald City to go to the Witch’s castle) leaves a huge and ominous gap that helps change the tone immediately.
The film also fulfills some of our expectations from prior experiences. The good witch is beautiful, the bad witch is ugly. What is so humorous to me about this is that Glinda and the Munchkins do not know at first whether or not Dorothy is good or bad, which in a large way is an insult. She also does not have a broom as they expect so she has to use the yellow brick road to reach her destination.
The Wizard of Oz could have several meanings. One possible referential meaning is Kansas is boring and normal being in black and white and Oz is obviously an exciting escape being in color. Dorothy’s return to Kansas and black and white is a return to normalcy. An obvious explicit meaning to the film is that home is always where your heart is even if you long to be somewhere else while you are there. An implicit meaning that I’ve always seen is that none of us need God, that he is a phony like the wizard and all of his powers are smoke and mirrors. The film strongly emphasizes the fact that all one needs is inside one’s self. But as with many great films one cannot watch the Wizard of Oz without taking away any hidden meaning; the film may only do it more subtly that some.
The Wizard of Oz follows the form of a musical. As each step of Dorothy’s journey progresses we learn something new and then there is a song before the journey continues. This form guides the viewer along and as well as fulfilling our expectations so much that the only place it doesn’t occur (when Dorothy and her friends leave the Emerald City to go to the Witch’s castle) leaves a huge and ominous gap that helps change the tone immediately.
The film also fulfills some of our expectations from prior experiences. The good witch is beautiful, the bad witch is ugly. What is so humorous to me about this is that Glinda and the Munchkins do not know at first whether or not Dorothy is good or bad, which in a large way is an insult. She also does not have a broom as they expect so she has to use the yellow brick road to reach her destination.
The Wizard of Oz could have several meanings. One possible referential meaning is Kansas is boring and normal being in black and white and Oz is obviously an exciting escape being in color. Dorothy’s return to Kansas and black and white is a return to normalcy. An obvious explicit meaning to the film is that home is always where your heart is even if you long to be somewhere else while you are there. An implicit meaning that I’ve always seen is that none of us need God, that he is a phony like the wizard and all of his powers are smoke and mirrors. The film strongly emphasizes the fact that all one needs is inside one’s self. But as with many great films one cannot watch the Wizard of Oz without taking away any hidden meaning; the film may only do it more subtly that some.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
life verse
O my people, trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart to him, for God is our refuge.
~ Psalm 62:8 (NLT)
~ Psalm 62:8 (NLT)
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