Auteur Theory - Fellini

What can be said of one of the world's most influential filmakers? Federico Fellini was a master, a psychologist, a thinker on par with that of Aristotle and Sophocles.

Screenplay "Chinatown"

  


 Robert Towne's "Chinatown" and later visualization by Roman Polanksi has proven to have a ubiquitous effect on film's and screenplays that followed. It is a film noir crime drama that follows a private detective named Jake Gittes. The film is about water, but is it really?

If filming were to happen today, my ideal cast would be Vincent Cassel as J.J. Gittes and Diane Lane as Evelyn Mulwray. Notes for actors to follow.

Are Video Games Literature?

      I will be discussing the 2009 game entitled "Call of Jaurez: Bound in Blood". Set in the 1860's, the game follows two brothers, Ray and Thomas, who are outlaws in the American West as well as in Mexico. The story begins with them as Confederate soldiers fighting off the advancing Union army. They decide to desert their companies and travel to their home to defend it from Union troops. When they arrive, they find that their mother has been murdered and their farm set ablaze. They have an altercation with their Colonel in Arkansas and kill him. Forced into hiding, they set their sights on a lost treasure in Mexico. While there, a women comes between them and creates a rift in their already strained relationship. Before each mission, the player is able to choose which brother they will be playing as.
       Story line aside, and going back to the original question of wether video games are literature, I believe that the same steps were taken as if an author were to write a novel with the same story line. Much thought was put into making the story historically accurate as well as entertaining.
    Is literature anything that is a story? Is a radio play literature? Is it only novels, short stories, and poetry? In my understanding the last sentence is the truth. This game has done well in building a creative and believable setting, with interesting characters that develop through the game. The story offers multiple twists and conflicts that can be overcome if you succeed in beating the level.
    Yes, this can be literature if the story was written down on paper and handed to me. It is not however in the same category of "East of Eden" and "Heart of Darkness". The dumbed down aspect of shooting people for 15 minutes to gain access to the next 2 minute animation that tells the story, takes to much away from the process that is required when "experiencing" literature. Films are not literature, screenplays are. A live play is not literature, in written form it is. We cannot draw parrallels and label things when they are of a different animal.
  Although entertaining and engaging, playing a video game is a cop-out to gaining knowledge of the world when compared to good old-fashioned reading.    

FEMALE BODY

Florence griffin Joyner: The picture conveys strength because of her muscular frame and athletic pose. This is important and captivating because strength in our culture is predominately a male characteristic and is expected of them while women are suppose to be weak and fragile.

 This woman has achieved the fastest woman in the world title and her victorious and ecstatic emotions are clearly portrayed through her stance (both arms up, fingers pointing to the sky) and her facial expression (big smile and closed eyes).

There is another cultural issue that arises with this photograph which is that women in the view of some men are traditionally supposed to play or take part in girly activities like yoga, ballet, tennis, etc. but in this photo she is coming in first in a sport that is played by both men and women.

MEDIA in 5 and 15 years

Seeing how the public has a very short attention span, the fact that we don't know anything about foreign relations or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because know wants to listen to a political scientist explain something for 45 minutes. We want headlines not stories.
    So in 5 years I believe that media will all be 30 second videos that can be viewed on small pocket screens.  We will move farther away from books and magazines, and more to new ways of reading info digitally, albeit dumbed- down and about celebrity gossip.
    In 15 years there will be some type of new technology, basically a tiny iphone with super fast internet. Gimmicks will come and go and I'm sure a few will catch on. The world of Video games will immerse the sloven masses into fast-food eating larvae.  Reality will not be entertaining enough.
     In 50 years we will have INFO tubes connected to our spine and nourishment will be sponsored and provided by the McDonald's Corporation. Not really, but it is hard to fathom the technologies that do not yet exist or the world events that will ultimately shape the future. When I am 74, I hope this World is somewhat more aware of itself than it is now.

"There Once Lived a Man"

                                    There Once Lived a Man   by N.M. Morgulis

            There once lived a man who had some strange behaviors.  He feared what he didn’t understand and hated anything he had never seen before. He knew this to be true, so he kept it in his heart, and only spoke of it to his family. He knew how he felt, but he also knew the world was a callous place, where people could be crucified for what they said. So he kept his hatred inside. All day he would look around him and count the things that he hated. He also counted what he feared, but to him it wasn’t fear. He thought that was also hatred. Because hatred is a conscious decision and fear is not, he chose to believe that he was not a fearful man. And so he went about his life counting the things he hated. He filed them away until he got home. When he was safe inside the four walls of his calm predictable home, he told his son and wife about all the things he saw that day that he hated. The son kept listening and listening.  And he listened everyday for the whole time he went to school. It seemed to become a regular routine for the Father and Son. But the boy didn’t realize he was talking about fear, but he never called it that, so the boy never knew.  Soon the boy also started listing the things he hated. Because a man wasn’t a self-sufficient man,  until he drew a hard line in the dirt and figured out what he was going to be hating. So the son got a job and a wife that hated the same things. He would come home and tell his son about all the things he saw that day that he hated. 

Nick & Nellie's thoughts about 'media'