Traffick
This saga of the so-called "war" on drugs is a masterwork of superb performance, smart writing--and, most of all, the mark of a director who not only knows what he wants, but also exactly how to make his ambitious vision a glorious reality. Unlike most multicharacter pastiches, such as the ones made by Robert Altman, or Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, the characters of Traffic's three tales don't constantly crisscross, nor are they all brought together by a big event. Intersections are rare in Traffic, and the junctions that do occur are often fleeting. Yet the stories are strongly linked by their greater thematic concern: to vividly illustrate how the drug problem touches all corners of the country, all walks of life, from people on the harsh urban streets to those in lavish upper-class neighborhoods. Soderbergh and writer Stephen Gaghan, working from the '80s British miniseries Traffik, steadfastly refuse to force easy, comforting conclusions from difficult and complex situations; as in real life, one is left to decide for oneself who or what is right, and what it all means.
While Traffic is essentially about the war on drugs in America, the film's starting point is the almost-exclusively south-of-the-border (and nearly-completely Spanish-language) story of Javier Rodriguez (Benicio Del Toro, doing away with his annoying tics and delivering a career performance), an average Tijuana State policeman who is given the opportunity for greater prestige by working for General Salazar's (Tomas Milian) efforts against the drug cartels. Just north of the border in San Diego is the setting for another thread, in which very pregnant European émigré Helena Ayala (Catherine Zeta-Jones, her real-life condition adding a deeper layer to her role) learns that the pampered lifestyle provided by husband Carlos (Steven Bauer) comes from dabblings in drugs, not legit business ventures. The film also travels a bit northwest to Cincinnati, the third central locale, where Caroline (Erika Christensen), the teenage daughter of newly-appointed U.S. drug czar Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), brings her father's enemy much closer to home than he could have ever imagined.
Soderbergh effortlessly weaves the individual strands into a tapestry that is at once cohesive and characterized by its contrasting colors. The latter can be taken in a literal sense--Soderbergh, under the pseudonym "Peter Andrews" (his father's name), shot the film himself, and he gave each part of the film its own distinct look: grainy, washed-out yellow for Mexico; a solemn blue sheen for Cincinnati; sun-drenched full color for San Diego.
Once he displayed the table showing the percentage of calls in the Eastern District in one year, over one quarter of them were DCS or drugs related. This made sense because of the drug relyant nature of the Eastern District. But many of those were “bullshit calls” meaning the police did not need to be dispatched to the call. This includes competing drug dealers calling the police on each other, or prostitutes not getting paid and claiming they were raped. The themes of the chapter is
“Just Say No!” A statement that takes us deep into yet another decade in the history of the United States which was excited by controversies, social issues, and drug abuse. The topic of this statement is fueled by the growing abuse of cocaine in the mid 1980s. I shall discuss the effects of the crack cocaine epidemic of the mid 1980s from a cultural and social stand point because on that decade this country moved to the rhythms and the pace of this uncanny drug. Cocaine took its told on American society by in the 1980s; it ravaged with every social group, race, class, etc. It reigned over the United States without any prejudices. Crack cocaine was the way into urban society, because of its affordability in contrast to the powdered form. In society the minorities were the ones most affected by the growing excess of crime and drug abuse, especially African Americans; so the question was “Why was nearly everybody convicted in California federal court of crack cocaine trafficking black?” (Webb: Day 3). The growing hysteria brought forth many questions which might seem to have concrete answers, but the fact of the matter is they are all but conspiracy in the end, even though it does not take away the ambiguity and doubt. I will take on only a few topics from the vast array of events and effects this period in time had tended to. Where and who this epidemic seemed to affect more notably, and perhaps how the drugs came about such territories and people. What actions this countries authority took to restore moral sanity, and how it affected people gender wise.
Chasing Heroin is a two-hour documentary that investigates America’s heroin crisis. The documentary details the opioid epidemic and how police offers, social workers, and public defenders are working to save the lives of addicts. The documentary explores the origins and continuing causes behind the heroin epidemic such as; massive increases in opioid painkillers starting at the turn of the century, Mexican drug cartels who are now rooted in upper-middle-class neighborhoods, and the cheap price of heroin when compared to prescription pain killers. A program in Seattle called LEAD is explored. This program channels addicts into a system that points them toward help (rehab, temporary housing, counseling, methadone treatment) instead of prison
Here in this book, Eric Schlosser is keeping with the long tradition of the so called, “yellow” journalism, in wresting the black market, from the back alleys of public consciousness and putting it on display in the storefront of the eye of everyone. In the painfully, yet enjoyable essays, Eric Schlosser takes us on many numerous excursions through the war on marijuana, the lives of immigrant farm workers, and the very dirty sex industry in the United States. He paints a very graphic image of hypocrisy in the policies of the U.S. government by examining the power of the economy of the underground and the misuse of government resources in legislating morality to its public. .
The author begins his ethnography by giving us insight of the crime rate in the 1990s. He described this subject as the “age of drive-by shootings, drug deals gone bad, crack cocaine, and gangsta rap” ( ) that dominated the talk of the time. This type of ideology led our society to believe that we should put massive
Soccer began to spread throughout the world in the late 1800's. By 1900, associations had been established in Belgium, Chile, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. In 1904, the national associations founded the Federation Internationle de Futbol Association. Soccer was made an official Olympic sport in 1908. The Canadian Soccer Association was established in 1912, and the United States Soccer Federation was set up in 1913. The first World Cup was played, in 1913, in Montevideo, Uruguay. Since then, the World Cup has been held every four years, except during World War II (1929-1945), when the games were suspended.
Marriage is a commitment that seems to be getting harder to keep. The social standards placed on an individual by society and influenced by the media inevitably lead some to consider divorce as a “quick-fix” option. “Have it your way” has become a motto in the United States. It has become a country without any consideration of the psychological effects of marriage and divorce. The overwhelmingly high divorce rate is caused by a lack of moral beliefs and marital expectations.
Drugs are used to escape the real and move into the surreal world of one’s own imaginations, where the pain is gone and one believes one can be happy. People look on their life, their world, their own reality, and feel sickened by the uncaringly blunt vision. Those too weak to stand up to this hard life seek their escape. They believe this escape may be found in chemicals that can alter the mind, placing a delusional peace in the place of their own depression: “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly halucinant,” (52). They do this with alcohol, acid, crack, cocaine, heroine, opium, even marijuana for the commoner economy. These people would rather hide behind the haze than deal with real problems. “...A gramme is better than a damn.” (55).
In 1971 on June 17, President Richard Nixon delivered a special message to the Congress on drug abuse prevention and control. During the presentation, Nixon made it clear that the United States was at war with this idea of drug abuse. What baffled Americans then, and still baffles Americans today, is that we are at war with our own nation with drugs; it is not some foreign affair like the media tends to focus on with Mexico. Nixon stated that at the time of his speech, what was implemented to control drug abuse was not working…“The problem has assumed the dimensions of a national emergency. I intend to take every step necessary to deal with this emergency, including asking the Congress for an amendment to my 1972 budget to provide an additional $155 million to carry out these steps. This will provide a total of $371 million for programs to control drug abuse in America.”(Wolleey and Peters) Since the publicizing of the term “War on Drugs” in 1971, it has been used by many political candidates in elections over the years. In the movie, it was stated, “ every war begins with propaganda …[and] the war on drugs has never been actually on drugs… [Additionally] drug laws are shaped less by scientific facts, but more by political [reasoning].” (Jarecki) The movie, The House I Live In, directly relates to certain themes and terminology that were discussed in Martin and Nakayama’s Intercultural Communication in Contexts book, that have been used in class. Through the analyzing and comparing of The House I Live In and Intercultural Communication in Contexts an individual can begin to localize the ideals behind this everlasting war on drugs; some ideals focus on terms from the text like ethnocentrism, diversity training, and culture while ...
The director Antoine Fuqua vision for this film was to bring that intense love-hate relationship onto the big screen and showcase it for the world to see. To ensure a convincing film setting, Fuqua shot on location in some of the most hardcore neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Fuqua also wanted to show the daily struggles of officers tasked to work in the rougher neighborhoods of cities and how easy it can be to get caught up in a street life filled with killers and drug dealers. Overall the film displayed the city of Los Angeles in a different perspective. One which m...
Marriage is a very joyful event in a person’s life. However, unless much can be done in order to redefine the status of what marriage is all about, divorce and other marital problems will continue to arise tremendously. Divorce is tumultuous event in a married couple’s life. It does not only affect the financial status of the household, but rather it also affects the people that comprises the family especially the children. Families are experiencing many problems today, but the role of divorce in this picture has been frequently overlooked because its destructive effects have been subtle, yet insidious. When the divorce rate increased in the 1960s, few would have predicted its dire consequences three decades later. Yet divorce has changed both the structure and the impact of the family. Intimacy, time, effort trust and love is the key to have a peaceful and healthy relationship. Marriage for life is God's ideal, but divorce is a reality in our society.
Walters, John P. "No surrender: the drug war saves lives." National Review 27 Sept. 2004: 41. Student Edition. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.
The absolutely stunning film, Citizen Kane (1941), is one of the world’s most famous and highly renowned films. The film contains many remarkable scenes and cinematic techniques as well as innovations. Within this well-known film, Orson Welles (director) portrays many stylistic features and fundamentals of cinematography. The scene of Charles Foster Kane and his wife, Susan, at Xanadu shows the dominance that Kane bears over people in general as well as Susan specifically. Throughout the film, Orson Welles continues to convey the message of Susan’s inferiority to Mr. Kane. Also, Welles furthers the image of how demanding Kane is of Susan and many others. Mr. Welles conveys the message that Kane has suffered a hard life, and will continue to until death. Welles conveys many stylistic features as well as fundamentals of cinematography through use of light and darkness, staging and proxemics, personal theme development and materialism within the film, Citizen Kane.
In Craig Renarman's and Harry Levine's article entitled "The Crack Attack : Politics and Media in America's Latest Drug Scare," the authors attempts to expose and to deal with some of the societal problems that have related from the over-exaggeration of crack-cocaine as an "epidemic problem" in our country. Without detracting attention away from the serious health risks for those few individuals who do use the drug, Renarman and Levine demonstrate how minimally detrimental the current "epidemic" actually is.
Since the creation of mankind, humans all over the world have fallen in love and believe that they have found “the one.” People get married and realize that it is not always “happily ever after.” A large percentage of couples are unable to maintain their relationship, because of this, they choose divorce. Many spouses, believe that this is the best solution to deal with problems between each other. However, many people think carefully before getting entangled into marriage. Nevertheless, divorce rates still continue to increase to this very day. It certainly looks as if divorces occur more now than they did 20 years ago. There are three causes of divorce: changing of a woman’s household status, financial situations, and lack of communication.