Documentary films have become a very popular in the last few years with the success of Michael Moore’s films fueling interest to learn while being entertained. Two filmmakers have benefited from this new interest in the non-fiction film movement, including directors Morgan Spurlock and Lee Fulkerson. The two filmmakers both made documentaries regarding healthy eating, or the lack thereof, in North America. Spurlock’s film, Super Size Me was about a healthy man who wanted to see what would happen to his body if he ate nothing but items from McDonalds for an entire month. On the other hand, Fulkerson’s Forks Over Knives is about a man on a quest to improve his health by consuming a plant and whole food based diet only. Despite the differences in their respective journeys the films of Spurlock and Fulkerson both combine several modes of documentary cinema including, the expository mode's use of narration, reflexive mode's use of the filmmakers on screen presence and the participatory mode in that they are both on a personal, and thus relatable, quest for knowledge.
Both Super Size Me and Forks Over Knives use narration, which is prevalent in many documentaries. Both of the films know the audience in which they are making it for and are able to play to their respective audiences by engaging them with both off and onscreen narration. There are a number of facts and stats that are thrown out as a matter of evidence to support the respective thesis statements that Spurlock and Fulkerson are set out to present. On one hand Spurlock is out to discover if eating a ton of McDonalds over the course of a month is a bad idea, and what would happen to you if you did. While, Fulkerson is out to discover how healthy his diet actually is an...
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Works Cited
Forks Over Knives. Dir. Lee Fulkerson. Perf. Lee Fulkerson, Matthew Lederman, T. Collin
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Gilbert, Anne. "Super Size Me." Cineaste 29.4 (2004): 47-49. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web
I'm Still Here. Dir. Casey Affleck. Perf. Joanquin Phoenix, Casey Afflect and Sean Combs.
Magnolia Pictures, 2011. DVD.
Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010. Print.
Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography. Dir. Bonnie Sherr Klein. Perf. Lindalee Tracey,
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Super Size Me. Dir. Morgan Spurlock. Perf. Morgan Spurlock. Samuel Goldwyn Films, Roadside
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Fast food, while a quick alternative to cooking, has always been known to be less healthy than traditional preparations, but the extent of its health benefits or detriments was not known until a lawsuit came out which inspired documentarian Morgan Spurlock to engage in a 30 day experiment. The resultant documentary specifically targeted McDonald’s, the largest fast food chain in the world, which also happens to be a major recipient of lawsuits linking obesity and their food. Spurlock endeavored to spend a thirty day period eating nothing but food that came from the golden arches, with the rules that he would supersize only when asked, and every time he was asked, and that he would have everything from the menu at least once. In the 2004 film Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock explores the concept that McDonald’s contributes to the nation’s obesity problem through the utilization of statistics and scientific evidence as a logical appeal, comedy and repulsive qualities as an emotional appeal, and s...
McDonald's is one of the multiple fast food restaurants that serve greasy and oversized meals that are harmful to the human body. Throughout a thirty day McDonald's only diet, Spurlock surrounds himself with logos, ethos, and pathos to impact the viewer's opinion on the true cost of eating fast food
The American diet is becoming extremely harmful to the health of especially children. The new generation has different trends in regard to health compared to those of perhaps their parents. In the documentary Fed Up, Soechtig uses data and statistics, as well as narratives of emotional events to highlight the long run issues with American’s poor diet and also to criticize the food industry. By doing this, the director hopes to spark a change in diet.
Morgan Spurlock decided to make this documentary to investigate the fast food companies, and the effects of certain fast food chains products, particularly McDonalds, on the health of society. This Documentary explores the United States growing epidemic of obesity and diabetes as well. Morgan decides to eat nothing but McDonald's food for thirty days. He must eat one of everything on the menu at least once, and when asked to super size his meal he must do so. Another stipulation of Morgan's experiment is that he can only take 5,000 steps a day to replicate the exercise that most average Americans get on a daily basis. He must also eat three meals a day, no exceptions and if McDonalds doesn't serve it Morgan can't eat it.
In the documentary, Food Inc., we get an inside look at the secrets and horrors of the food industry. The director, Robert Kenner, argues that most Americans have no idea where their food comes from or what happens to it before they put it in their bodies. To him, this is a major issue and a great danger to society as a whole. One of the conclusions of this documentary is that we should not blindly trust the food companies, and we should ultimately be more concerned with what we are eating and feeding to our children. Through his investigations, he hopes to lift the veil from the hidden world of food.
The film enlightened me about many topics concerning the production of food. Although I would prefer not to view many of the graphic animal scenes I believe that they are necessary to present the arguments. I was also surprised to see the connections between so many political figures and the major corporations. I do not think that my eating habits will change, but I do think that I will give more thought to something before I eat it.
The film Boogie Nights provides an interesting case study of the unique nature of human relationships, specifically love and friendship. It presents a crisscrossing mash-up of various combinations of traditional love categories: friendly (plutonic or nonsexual) love, family love, lust, master/servant or apprentice/teacher love, etc. Besides being entertaining, Boogie Nights presents these combinations to provoke an insight on our part into the nature of love. This insight is exemplified in Jack’s notion of the ideal pornographic film. His ideal film also serves to echo the same flaws found in Plato’s ideal forms. Boogie Nights attempts to demonstrate the false nature of a definite, meaningful love by disrupting its categorization and presenting the absurdity of its definition. Jack’s movie cannot exist by definition, and as a product of natural language neither can the common conception of love.
In February 2010, a remarkable chef and speaker, Jamie Oliver, presented himself to a TED (Technology, Education, Design) audience as ruthlessly real and charismatic. In his speech, “Teach Every Child about Food” he shares powerful stories of his anti-obesity project and makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. Jaime Oliver’s speech aims to alter the perspective of Americans and their decisions about food and its effects. Since then, Oliver’s TED talk has been viewed across the nation and brought a reality to the issue with food education. Jamie Oliver successfully utilizes ethos, logos, and pathos to portray his belief that without the use of food education, America and its children will fall under the weight of its own obesity.
Shumway, David, R. “Cinema Journal.” Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1999. 7 – 23. Print.
The only real way to truly understand a story is to understand all aspects of a story and their meanings. The same goes for movies, as they are all just stories being acted out. In Thomas Foster's book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, Foster explains in detail the numerous ingredients of a story. He discusses almost everything that can be found in any given piece of literature. The devices discussed in Foster's book can be found in most movies as well, including in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic, “Pulp Fiction”. This movie is a complicated tale that follows numerous characters involved in intertwining stories. Tarantino utilizes many devices to make “Pulp Fiction” into an excellent film. In this essay, I will demonstrate how several literary devices described in Foster's book are put to use in Tarantino’s film, “Pulp Fiction”, including quests, archetypes, food, and violence.
Pornography as today, is the representation in books, magazines, photographs, films and media, of scenes of sexual behavior that are erotic or arouse sexual acts. Defining and classifying materials that are considered pornographic has proven somewhat elusive and has varied considerably across time and across different social and cultural context. Pornography can be divided into three categories; Erotica: which are images that express mutual pleasurable sexual expression between people who have enough power to be there by positive choice. Participants have the same power and there is no sexist; Nonviolent pornography: images that have no explicitly violent content but show unequal power relationships;
Pappas, Stephanie. (2010). The History of Pornography No More Prudish Than the Present. Web 13 Nov 2013.
The ideation of objectivity remains a highly debatable subject among philosophical elites. Some philosophers may argue that human’s understanding of objectivity is subject to the scope of understanding of the term and exposure (Livingstone & Plantinga 10). When the term objectivity is entwined with realism, it yields a complex ideation that remains highly debatable and less agreeable among erudite authors (Livingstone & Plantinga 23). However, to understand and appreciate the concept of realism and objectivity in film, it becomes critical to adopt a definite definition. First, the term reality in film is used to describe concepts that are visible in nature as experienced on a daily life by one or more individuals (Livingstone & Plantinga 24). The term objectivity in this case is used to define a set of ideations or perspectives that are incorporated in the film (Livingstone & Plantinga 24). Documentaries are used to create a form of reality, an experience or ideation of the person or group of person experiencing an event or phenomenon. The argument in this analysis is that it is impossible for documentary films to objectively capture reality.
McDonald’s, one of America’s fastest growing fast food restaurants, has made more than its share of money within the last twenty years serving more than 46 million people daily. They have twice as many restaurants as Burger King and more restaurants than KFC, Wendy’s, and Taco Bell Combined. Often children have the dream of eating fast food for every meal of every day. Well, Morgan Spurlock took the challenge to see how dangerous it would be to eat McDonalds for every meal. He also took the challenge in response to a lawsuit against McDonalds by a family whose children became obese by the contents of its meals. Directed and starring Morgan Spurlock, who is married to a vegan chef and a healthy man for his age, Super-Size Me is a film that followed Spurlock for 31 days as he follows certain rules set by a series of physicians. He was only allowed to meals off the McDonalds menu including water. Also, he couldn’t exercise but had to walk the same amount of steps as the average American. Filmed all over the United States, Super-Size Me was made to inform the public on the manufactured foods they consume daily. The film also raises awareness on the dangers of what manufactured foods do to the body. Super-Size Me showed how one of the most popular fast food restaurants around today may be leading future generations to severe health problems.
Barsam, Richard. Looking at Movies An Introduction to Film, Second Edition (Set with DVD). New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. Print.