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Cinema

Marrying Guido to the Spectator: 8½ and Fellini-Spectator Verification

Federico Fellini composes 8½ according to the limits of his own subconscious, giving his spectators an interesting take on the inside of a director’s mind. The film weaves between dream and reality, sometimes confusing the two, but other times introduces a surreal fantasy that projects an unconscious vulnerable to Freudian speculation. The spectator is stuck in a place not exactly known, but felt and experienced. This, … Continue reading Marrying Guido to the Spectator: 8½ and Fellini-Spectator Verification

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Cinema, Literary

Isolation and Western Perception in Satrapi’s “Persepolis”

Oppression and misplaced representations of Iranians as foreign ‘Others’ led Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian in exile, to publish Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood; a graphic novel released in Western countries to communicate the unknown virtues of Iranian culture. These virtues unknown by Westerners, Americans specifically for this essay, include the perception of Iranians as being hostile and fanatic fundamentalists, which is only being spread … Continue reading Isolation and Western Perception in Satrapi’s “Persepolis”

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Cinema

Where is Freddie Mercury: The Need for a Hero in Science-Fiction Films

Experiencing the uniqueness of Queen’s Freddie Mercury, an occidental bystander will mark him with the distinctness of being both masculine in his rock-star stage persona and feminine in his private-life affairs and outfits (by no means is this observation made in full). According to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Mercury exhibits heroism in avoiding the binaries of illusion—these illusions accounted by Nicholas … Continue reading Where is Freddie Mercury: The Need for a Hero in Science-Fiction Films

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Cinema

South Central as a Prison in “Boyz N the Hood”

Confined in the streets of South Central Los Angeles, Tre Styles navigates the ghetto sufficiently to the point of liberation by the end of John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood (1991). The location is a prison of death for those that willingly assume roles within the system (the Baker half-brothers) instead of those breaking free to find a heterotopic site of resistance (Tre). Michel Foucault … Continue reading South Central as a Prison in “Boyz N the Hood”

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Literary

Genre in A Song of Ice and Fire

Fantasy as a genre is a problematic discussion to most critics because of their inability to cooperatively locate a coalesced definition. They oftentimes examine the fantastic in their research in order to understand the nature of the genre from different novels and stories in the fantasy canon. Todorov defines the fantastic as the hesitation created when “there occurs an event which cannot be explained by … Continue reading Genre in A Song of Ice and Fire

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Cinema

A Look into “The Tree of Life”

“The ‘I’ who speaks in this story is not the author. Rather, he hopes that you might see yourself in this ‘I’ and understand this story as your own. Paradise is not a place here or there. The soul is paradise; it opens before us; here, today. The humblest things show it. We live in the eternal, even now.” -Terrence Malick The Tree of Life … Continue reading A Look into “The Tree of Life”

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Cinema

“Interstellar”: A Lengthy Analysis for a Lengthy Film

Interstellar is the film Christopher Nolan has been trying to make his whole life ever since he saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. He regards this movie as a “seminal” film in the production of Interstellar. Nolan went to go see 2001 during a 1977 re-release in theaters around his seventh birthday. He went on to make super 8 epics as a child growing up until it dawned on him that … Continue reading “Interstellar”: A Lengthy Analysis for a Lengthy Film

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Cinema

Subjectivity and Form in “Shame”

Subjectivity and Form in Shame Director and writer Steve McQueen really proved his worth in the filmmaking world with this film. He utilizes a shocking ecstasy of emotions to give loneliness and sex an overwhelming appeal. The film begins with a montage of sorts with Brandon (Michael Fassbender) living his white-blue desaturated lifestyle. He often employs hookers and clearly is not committed to anybody. The … Continue reading Subjectivity and Form in “Shame”

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Cinema

Thoughts on “Boyhood”

Boyhood is wonderfully happy. IFC Films called this a “nostalgic time capsule of the recent past and an ode to growing up and parenting.” I couldn’t agree more. Throughout the film we watch a young boy, Mason (Ellar Coltrane), grow up from seven years of age until moving into college at eighteen. And this film is literally showing him grow up; it took twelve years to shoot (and … Continue reading Thoughts on “Boyhood”

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