Film/Text/Culture Autoblog -Summer 07

While reading the book Portrait of Jennie, having previously seen the movie, I was struck by two things. The first one was Eben’s behavior while painting Jennie’s portrait, which differed radically in the book and the movie. The second was the almost-romance (or at least sexual tension) between Spinney and Eben. In the scene(s) depicting Jennie’s portrait being painted, the Adams of the book was much more brusque and impatient to the point of insensitivity (case in point: he rationalizes making her cry because it makes the portrait turn out better) than the Adams of the film. In fact, what was one of my favorite scenes in the film turned out to be one of my least favorite scenes in the book, and the scene that cemented my dislike of Book Eben. For Movie Eben, on the other hand, the scene of painting Jennie was not so much a purely […]

Original post by anniek

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/coma/index.html
Here is a link to the HBO site that talks about the documentary “Coma.” There is also a video preview of the film on this site as well.

Original post by ellie

I wanted to talk a little bit about a documentary film I saw over the weekend on HBO. The title of the film is “Coma,” and it’s a gripping account of four people who have endured severe head injuries, and the struggles that face them, and their families. The film maker, Liz Garbus follows each of these patients at JFK Medical Center as they try to recover. In watching this film, I couldn’t help but compare it to the Errol Morris’ films we viewed in class. I previously posted about the differences between films such as “The Thin Blue Line,” and “Gates of Heaven,” vs. others like “Super Size Me,” and “Farhenheit 911.” “Coma” is in complete contrast to all of these films. There are no reenactments, no background music to influence a certain mood, zero narration, and the interviews are rare as well. […]

Original post by ellie

Original post by ellie

The only two documentaries I can recall seeing prior to the Errol Morris films we saw in class were “Fahrenheit 911,” and “Super Size Me.” Errol Morris kind of opened my eyes to the complexities involved in producing such a film. While I found both “Fahrenheit 911,” and “Super Size Me” to be very interesting, and entertaining, I can also understand now that while they are all classified as documentaries, there are monumental differences in the way all of these film makers choose to go about expressing their message, and point of views. Both Michael Moore, and Morgan Spurlock seem to center their films in many ways around themselves. In Spurlock’s case, in attempting to prove that Fast food (McDonalds in particular) was unhealthy, he involved himself in an experiment for a month I believe, where all he ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner was McDonalds. […]

Original post by ellie

I knew I’d finally come full circle back to the Heart of Darkness. Anyway, after finishing Portrait of Jennie, I stopped at a couple of sections that reminded me of the the visual, and exterior motifs we as a class discussed after reading (and watching) The Glass Key. I’ll cut and paste 2 parts to compare these two:
“The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding […]

Original post by elizabethomas

After our FTC day, I decided to do a little reasearch about male and female roles in the cinema, when I came across this interesting article.
According to studies, male roles dominating female roles is on the rise, or at least it is in children’s movies. Children are at an important stage where they learn their values, and I’m sure this has some impact in the future decisions they make.
I also came upon this artcle in the Washington Post that wonders why all the main characters in Pixar movies are male.
It’s an interesting conflict when you discuss children’s films. In class we talked about the impact of children’s toys, but we didn’t mention the movies they watch. Are films like the ones mentioned in the articles above going to perpetuate the gender stereotype found in movies for adults?

Original post by khusband

All the talk about gender in class today reminded me of a book by former LA Times columnist Norah Vincent called Self Made Man: One Woman’s Journey Into Manhood and Back. It’s about the 18 months she went undercover as a man named Ned in order to see the difference in how people treated her. It ended when she suffered a nervous breakdown.
While participating in a bowling league, she had to opportunity to observe the way the guys on her team would treat their sons. She weighed in on the matter during an NPR interview:
There is a toughening process boys have to go through [where] emotional expression is beaten or laughed or teased out of them…The only emotion left to them is anger.

I can’t say that’s been my personal experience, but I can see how she might come away with that view. I do think there is truth in the […]

Original post by crain2mn