For this assignment, this review will be about the documentary The Central Park Five by Ken Burns. Ken Burns the director of the movie is also known for his style of using archival footage and photographs in his documentary films. Other documentary films he is known for is The Civil War, Brooklyn Bridge, and Baseball. His other works don’t seem to be significant to the analysis of the film because they are mostly just about different types of topics that aren’t like this one but with the way that he does his types of films will help could help with the analysis because it gives an idea at the way that he convinces people. The Central Park Five are 5 young men who were convicted of a crime of raping a jogger in Central Park. They implicated themselves in the crime after hours of pressure and aggression during the integration. They were all released at different times but they spent six to thirteen years in prison. The goal of this documentary was to revisit what had happened and to review the injustices of what had happened. In this review, I’m going to be talking about how Ken Burns uses pathos and ethos to convenience the audience/whoever …show more content…
The film starts out talking about how it started introducing everyone then going into detail about how it happened and where it took place and how the boys ended up in the situation in the first place. Then it goes on to talk about what happened once they were convicted and how they ended up in jail in the first place. Then it went on to talk about the trails and how long they served in jail and finally in the end how they got out of jail. Throughout the whole film the boys who were convicted talk about what is happening/narrating the story. Other people talk throughout the film such as family members, other people who were involved in the case and physiologists but it was mostly all narrated by the boys who were
"Brooklyn Cop” written by Norman MacCaig, a Scottish poet, is about an American cop who roams the streets tackling crime. Our impression of the stereotypical cop changes throughout the poem as we find that he isn’t all that he is made out to be. This essay will look at how the cop is portrayed and the techniques used to give this impression of him.
This movie really tied everything we’ve been discussing in class and seeing it unfold was actually really eye opening. I found it important going forward to make sure I do not fall into that tunnel vision mentality and to make sure I follow the evidence rather than fitting the suspect to the evidence. Again, I found it interesting like in the Norfolk Four case and in the Central Park 5 case police neglected to look at surrounding crime areas to see if any other cases matched the same modus operandi. If the police did look at surrounding cases they would have established a link between previous assaults and the assault that took place in the park that night. I was amazed how the detectives did not connect how each of the confessions varied by who did what and how they attacked the victim. It was Korey Wise in the video that kept putting up his hand when asked how big was the rock and he was just moving them back and forth. Police also neglected to look at the attack patterns of where the group first was hassling people in the park. They would have found that the boys were at one end of the park, while the victim was being attacked and there was no way they could have been in two places at once. I also found troubling during the time was the media portrayal of the Central Park 5, how they were painted as vicious young men, who brutally attacked a harmless white women. Even after each one of them was exonerated from the crime the media still portrayed them as vicious men. As we discussed in class, I think a lawyer like a magistrate should be available 24/7 when it comes to juveniles, because I believe that this five did not know their Miranda Rights and what they were entitled. If they knew what their rights were I believe the confessions never would have happened and none of them would have gone to
On April 19th, 1989, Trisha Meili was the victim of violent assault, rape, and sodomy. The vicious attack left her in a coma for 12 days and The New York Times described it as “one of the most widely publicized crimes of the 1980’s.” The documentary, The Central Park Five, reveals the truth about what happened the night of April 19th, and how the subordinate group of young black boys were wrongly convicted. Analyzing the conflict theory of crime in association to the case of the central park five, understanding the way they were treated based on setting, why it was so easy for the law enforcement to pin the crime on the young black boys, and how wrongly convicting someone has great consequences along with relating it
Documentaries serve to draw a response through the use of literary techniques in order to present a particular point of view. Michael Cordell’s Music and Murder subscribes to this principle, the documentary focuses on three men serving prison sentences for taking a life and how music has changed and shaped their outlook on their own lives. Music, structure, verbal language and selection of detail all work on the viewers emotions which serve to draw a positive response towards rehabilitation in prisons.
Touching upon one specific case of this growing problem, she incorporates “Michael Brown,” who was an “18-year old unarmed black man shot down by a white police officer.” As heartbreaking as it sounds, it has happened on several occasions to men similar to “Michael Brown.” Accordingly, Myers formulates that it “is the same story. It is just different names.” Myers logically lists the other names of several black men who unfortunately fell victim to hate crimes, (Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin), as well as flashing their images on the screen. Not only does Verna Myers use imagery in order to show that there is an evident issue with brutality and racism, but she knows it will tug on her viewers heartstrings. Likewise, this makes her audience become wary and sympathetic towards the situation at
The Narrative or storyline is much the same as any other film noir movie. It has a ‘hard boiled’ cop (Russell Crowe) who we grow attached to. The narrative of any film must have certain ‘key conventions’ which are apparent for the audience to tell the genre of the film. The narrative can be used to provide an explanation as to why the film contains certain things, or why a character does something.
Imagine experiencing the events of your life in a random order. How would you view your life if it seemed more like a collection of moments rather than a story? In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim is a chaplain’s assistant during World War II who claims to be "unstuck in time." Billy seemingly jumps from one moment in his life to the next without his control or consent. Billy also believes that aliens, known as Tralfamadorians, abducted him. These events may seem silly considering all of the serious and grim experiences that Billy faces in the war, but they are far from comical. Billy Pilgrim 's time travels and experiences on Tralfamadore are not real experiences, but rather coping mechanisms Billy has created.
The documentary Ken Burns: The War, provided an in depth view on World War II and its impact on the United States from the vantage point of Americans. Residents from Minnesota, Connecticut, Alabama and California attested to the many effects of the war. There were many testaments of the lackadaisical attitudes Americans displayed at the beginning of the war, the impact that the war had on the economy, as well as the impact on the lives of women of every race, the strong sense of family and community, as well as the many issues with race relations during the war given from the viewpoints of actual people whose families were impacted. World War II although very
The West Side Story portrays the lives of two different gangs living in America, as well as their beliefs and examples of living a good life. The expectations of what people consider the good life to be may vary on a person’s morals and their dreams of what life is truly about. In this movie, whether or not these characters were good people, lived a good life, or lived in a good society is a very controversial topic.
The Conflict Perspective, in itself, focuses on the ruling class and the ruled class. In the perspective, the ruling class defines what is deviant based on how it helps them. In this case, the ruling class would be defined as upper-class and white. The ruled class would be defined as lower-class and black. This is illustrated through the emphasis placed on the impact of the differences between the woman who was raped and the young men who were accused of raping her. The woman who was raped was a white and wealthy business woman who worked as an investment banker on Wall Street. The young men who raped her were lower class, black, and from Harlem. Due to these extreme differences, there was immense media attention. The media was often one sided and viewed the young men as criminals and animals in order to make them social pariahs. The media and upper-class wanted to make an example of them to reinforce the laws and separate the two groups even further. Also, the court system had the woman give a testimony despite the fact that she could not remember anything that happened that night. The documentary stated that her testimony was simply used to “pack an emotional punch,” and make the young men look even more inhuman. Finally, when the men were exonerated, the media barely covered it. The news was no longer about showing the lower-class where they belonged. Anything
“The trial was brought to a speedy conclusion. Not only did Judge Evans find the twelve guilty, fine them $100 each, and committed them to jail, but five people in the courtroom who had served as witnesses for the defense arrested. […] The police were then instructed to transfer the seventeen prisoners that night to the county jail”(30).
In “Modern Theories of Criminality,” we can apply Enrico Ferri’s idea of criminality to the documentary. In Ferri’s theory of factors, crime is the product of many causes such as: individual/ anthropological (e.g., age, sex, social rank, education), physical/ natural (e.g., race, climate, seasons), and social (e.g., emigration, religion, public opinions). This is seen in the documentary because physical/ natural factors, like race, played a role for the African Americans. People like Bird and
For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within these points there are a few main arguments that I would like to point out. The first argument is the belief that you will need to accept the street code to get through life. The other one is the belief that people on the street need “juice”. For the rest of this paper we will be looking at each one of main points and arguments by going through each chapter and discussing it.
In conclusion, after view this film, it is clear that one can see how black youth are being viewed as killers and savages. This is not true. There have been many admirable scholars and scientists who come from the African American culture. This movie, though it depicts what goes on in South America, takes the violence committed by black youth too far. One cannot view a film and take it that this is what a race is like. The filmmakers depicted black youth in a harsher light.
difficult relationships present that day in the prison, and emphasizing with detail on a few inmates