Mr Lee's Film Commentary 1: A New Hope
Hi everyone,
For next TUESDAY, October 25th, please post a commentary about a film of your choice connected to our ideological discussion. You may use the ideologies we discussed in class, as well as your own.
I expect to see a high level of analysis, not a plot summary - how does the film connect to your ideology? What is the ideology of the film? Does it support an ideology or is it criticizing one?
12 comments:
I watched the movie “Source Code”. American government designs a machine called “Source Code.” Captain Colter Stevens wakes up in a train in a different body and identity. While he is trying to understand the situation, suddenly a bomb explodes and he wakes up in a machine. This machine is regenerating the reality and gives the opportunity to change it. Captain Stevens died in Afghanistan and now he is working in a mysterious government experiment. His mission is to find the bomb in the train and save the country from a terrorist attack that already happened. He has 8 minutes to do all these things. Source Code puts him in the train in another person’s body. He is observing people and tries to find the bomb.
Main ideologies in are patriotism, terrorism and a bit imperialism. It is a patriot movie because it is all about Ameircan soldier saving innocent people from terror. And making U.S such a great place “as always.” Movie shows American government as they are just working to save and protect the people of USA. Terrorism is another ideology because attack on the train is a terrorist act and movie actually tells terrorists are always aiming innocent people of America. Captain Stevens is trying this hard and so many times to save them from the terror. In the other hand we see terrorism in the other subject in movie. U.S army is in Afghanistan right now and Captain Stevens is there in order to “save” the innocent Afghan people from Taliban terror. Imperialism is actually related with last example. US government says army is in Afghanistan to finish the terrorist acts but US also using that areas as an imperialist force. They are using the oil, they are using the human sources and tons of other things. So 3 main ideologies in the movie “Source Code” are “patriotism, terrorism, and imperialism.”
I watched the movie "Sicario". The movie is basically about USA's war against drug trafficking which takes place at their border with Mexico. FBI Agent Kate Macer -who examines specialized cases like kidnaps and homicides- gets involved in a special task to stop the Mexican Drug Dealer gang. At this task she cooperates with CIA to get rid of the head of this Drug Dealer gang -who also kill innocent people, torture their victims and ruin people's lives for their financial benefits. However, nothing goes the way Kate expects as she realizes that even CIA doesn't follow the rules and procedures. This movie is a must watch movie if you want to see the dark face of the world, in which even police can't be trusted.
The themes are;
Capitalism: Mexican drug gang doesn't avoid killing plently of people to gain more money and continue their illegal business. They declare their power by killing people and gaining more money.
Racism: Mexican criminals are tortured and shot by the American Police. Also, many Mexican people are forced to exit the bus and are interrogated by the American Police at night.
Sexism: Kate isn't treated like the men at her team, her boss Matt insults him a several times.
Militarism:USA solves every problem by police power, weapons and guns.
I watched the move '' Oblivion ''. I watched it when it first came out to movies with my friends, it was 2013. From the background picture of the movie we can understand that it is about the new world after apocalypse. A soldier named Jack was sent to the ''world'', he was looking how is world and can other people live here. He was not excepting another alive animals or living creature but he had to be face to face with them. He had a girl in there. They were like a couple and they were fighting together. I think there was imperialism because the creatures that the soldiers against are like a country and they had a headmaster so it was like hierarchy. I think there were militarism too because the other creatures had an army and they had power and weapons and they use them to kill.
In the movie Mad Max Fury Road, the man who claims to save them, Joe, he keeps water to himself. He is king to them. And his soldiers think that they are doing a good thing by helping him. He doesn’t give all he has to people. It is like the western civilizations to African poor countries. The Fushima is like utopia to most of the people. The woman who run away is the activists in present. He gains gas and other materials by his other colonies. They are xenophobic because when they got someone who doesn’t belong to their community, they use he or she for blood bag.
Themes are colonialism, militarism, xenophobia
I watched the movie “Source Code.” In before telling about the plot, it is a science-fiction movie. The protagonist of the movie Captain Stevens is a U.S Army pilot. He died in Afghanistan and now he falls asleep in the train and wakes up as another person called Sean Fentress. His body and identity both changes. He has been missioned in a machine called ‘Source Code’, a machine that U.S government created to prevent bad events in public, particularly terrorism. So, Captain Stevens is on a mission before a bomber explodes a bomb in Chicago which has already happened before. He gets to experience the last eight minutes of someone else’s life multiple times, until he manages to disposal the bomb. At the end the woman working in the Source Code machine lets Captain Stevens go his normal life and his duty is over.
The ideologies seen in the movie are; skepticism, preternaturalness, patriotism, and terrorism. Skepticism is seen multiple times as Captain Stevens suspects from people in train which he thinks they will manage to explode the bomb. He walks over to innocent people and searches their bags and asks them questions. He loses his mind. Another ideology seen in the movie is preternaturalness. As the movie is a science-fiction all the things happen in the movie might seem normal. However, I think preternaturalness should be included as an ideology. Captain Stevens is in someone called Sean Fentress’ body, each time he fails he is sent back, bomb explodes several times and he still tries to ‘save the world.’ All these bring my mind the idea of preternaturalness. The next ideology seen in the movie is patriotism. It can be understood very easily from the way Captain Stevens is an army pilot. If someone works in army, then that person ought to be loving his country. Besides, as Captain Stevens isn’t willing to work in ‘Source Code’, for the last time, to save his country from the explosion he wants to be sent back. This shows that he is patriotic. Finally, terrorism is seen in the movie. As I understood, the ‘Source Code’ machine is designed to prevent terrorist attacks in country. Throughout the movie Captain Stevens searches to find the terrorist in order to dispose the bomb. As a result, the ideologies seen in the movie are; skepticism, preternaturalness, patriotism, and terrorism.
I have watched the film Moon, It was so shocking and every moment of it was perfect. It gave a lot of messages about our society, and how are we being slowly manipulated by it. There is a person called Sam, and he is a clone of an original Sam. Later in the movie we learn that an industry has been cloning the same person for years and making them work for a lot of time. Its a refenrence to our current society in my opinion. We are being manipulated by news and tv. We are being forced to change our culture and forget the things that we learn and become a one single person. We are being transforming to a single character type. Nowadays everyone is becoming a clone of each other and the film references to that. At the end the chacter escapes from the reality and returns to earth and shows the other people that the industry has been using clones for years and years
I watched the movie "Oblivion" when it first came out with my friends. The movie is about how a utopia and a dystopia can't be seperated from each other and a utopia will eventually turn into a dystopia. The movies plot is about the last days of Jack(Tom Cruise) and Julia(Andrea Riseborough) Harper before they leave their space station and complete their mission at a post-apocalyptic Earth to go to their "utopian" community at a different planet. However their so called utopian community and the system falls apart and quickly turns into a dystopia. Some of the themes are utopian/dystopian society and corrupted hierarchy.
Film Commentary About Mad Max Fury Road
We all know the series of Mad Max films and we all know that they are awesome. But the last one was amazing especially with Tom Hardy. “Mad Max Fury Road” is the latest film of the series and it is awesome. This blog, I will talk about hierarchy, because we have been talking about hierarchy in our classes. This film is taking place in future and there is classification in population. There were 3 groups of people in that community. There were slaves for the community’s needs, there were slaves for the king and there were high leveled people near the king. Slaves were always being crushed from the community. As always, King had the best life. He controlled the slaves. Sometimes he didn’t give water to slaves, because there was drought in earth.
I watched the film “Source Code” directed by Duncan Jones. In the movie, a soldier, Captain Stevens, losts every part of his body in an explosion in Afghanistan but fortunately his brain and heart is still functioning. So, the American government uses him as a test subject for their “Source Code” programme, which makes time travel possible by quantum physics and parabolic equations. The goverment uses “Source Code” to find out the terrorist who exploded the innocent people in a train. Stevens takes one of the passengers place, and relives the last 8 minutes before the explosion until he finds the terrorist . The ideologies of patriotism and terrorism takes place in the move. It shows that America and soldiers of a country cares a lot about the society and their security that they use science, high technology and military to solve problems. They give assurance that with the technology of new programme terrorist attacks will be prevented for the future. The movie also shows that because there were lots of terror attacks in previous years, the government have been working on finding a solution to this situation and they finally have. From then on, society is protected better with the new technology, soldier and governance.
Film commentary about Oblivion.
I watched it last year with my friends at his house. First I didn't look a specific point or idea but after the movie I recognized some of the messages. First of all our main character is Jack Harper. He was sent to the "world" by the mission control and his main point is to find someone or something alive. He looked for someone because of loneliness he talked with his girlfriend Julia. Julia came to world too and they fight for their lives. They fight with a dystopian worlds army. They think they are powerful. The army works like first weak dies then a bit stronger then stronger but the top of that "hierarchy" example only talks and orders. In our current world it goes on like that what a coincidence. From ancient time to our current 21th century. Top of that pyramid is stronger, richer and powerful than anyone lower than him. In the movie the enemy soldiers have that leadership too. At the end clone remembers everything it shows that you can kill someone but can't kill his/her idea.
Snowpiercer
The movie is about a failed attempt to prevent global warming by using CW4 gas, which led the world to froze and demolished life on earth. The only solution was to board the train by Wilford Industries and sort of a caste system occurred as First Class, Economy, and freeloaders. Living miserably for 18 years with hunger and misery, people from freeloaders section -named as the "tail" part or "shoes" by Minister Mason, "A shoe belongs on your foot. A hat belongs on your head. I am a hat. You are a shoe. I belong on the head. You belong on the foot." -attempt a revolution with the leadership of the main character, Curtis. The movie and the characters represent capitalism; the head part has the best possible comfort that a train can provide, while the tail part must live with darkness, hunger, foulness while the people from the head kidnap the children -stolen to sustain the motion of the engine-. The %74 of the population of the people from the tail must be annihilated to establish the order and resource of supply (water and food). The movie contains materialistic beliefs, such as naming the train as the "divine and sacred engine" and worshipping Wilford. The movie ends hopefully; the train is demolished, only two "train babies" have survived (train babies were born and lived on the train), the two (Yona, 17-year-old and Timmy, 5-year-old) see a polar bear, which proves that life on earth exists. The film has several plot twists. With a speech of Curtis towards the end, Curtis can be seen as a villain; Curtis murders Edgar's (comrade of Curtis) mom -as Edgar was a kid- to eat Edgar, meaning that Curtis is capable of attempting any act to survive and suppress his hunger. During a chaotic moment of the riot, Curtis chooses to catch Mason rather than rescuing Edgar. Gilliam (mentor and a comrade of Curtis) is a villain due to forming an alliance with Wilford. Another plot twist occurs towards the end of the movie while Nam and Curtis talk; Nam explain that life exists and people can survive without the "divine engine"; revealing the fact that Yona and Nam (Yona is Nam's daughter) intend to leave the train. So conflicts occur while Curtis wants to confront Wilford and Nam wants to open the gate to the outside world. The conflicts and plot twist about the bad guys/good guys, make us ask ourselves, whose side we are on.
I watched the movie "Mad Max: Fury Road". IT is a film in the future. The king or the leader he is often called as the warlord his name is Joe. He consumes everything. He keeps water to hisself. He gives the water by a ceremony to people, he determines the amount but the people need that water and the y get in the line for it. He owns the people because of their need to water. The guy who is the main character he is a prisoner which they consume his blood but in a battle he escapes and helps the activists.
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