Dramatic Structure
To Sir, with Love embodies a conventional three-act structure. However, the protagonist, Mark Thackeray, is faced with multiple active antagonists. The first act introduces Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier) as a Communications engineer who, after many unsuccessful attempts to find employment in his field, takes a teaching position at the North Quay Secondary School. Once he has arrived, Thackeray is informed of the rebellious nature of his assigned students, who mostly come from underprivileged backgrounds. The students created such conflict that the previous teacher couldn’t manage. Led by Bert Denham (Christian Roberts) and Pamela Dare (Judy Geeson), they are the antagonists of Poitier’s character. This creates a static yet dynamic relationship between Thackeray and his students throughout the film as Thackeray attempts to understand and connect with his students while keeping within the rules of the academic environment. Thackeray’s is caught in a dilemma when his teaching strategies are proved ineffective as his students display childish behavior and play disrespectful pranks upon him each day. The turning point of the film is marked by the students burning a sanitary pad in the classroom one morning. Thackeray seems to have given up on the kids when he rushes out of the room in frustration, but he returns once he figures out that it’s the sense of being mistreated that has caused the students to rebel. Act 2 is established when he comes back into the classroom. Thackeray is motivated with a new strategy and lays out a set of rules that change the way the students will learn and live.
Over the course of time his students transform, except for Bert. The students find out that Thackeray’s past has remarkable ...
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...ocusing too much on the details of what occurred during the trip.
The film opens with a distinct song that plays over the multiple establishing shots of the impoverished Docklands district of London, England which makes the viewer fill in the blanks for themselves about the film’s peculiar time period and socio-geographic setting. The music also gives the viewer a sense of the tonality but at its ambiguous lyrics make the audience question what the music is foreshadowing about the story. The soft, slow melody and the lyrics, which express the singer’s deep gratitude to someone, work together to suggest the desire for an emotional connection and understanding that Thackeray’s students have for him.
It’s clear that Clavell chose to portray the conventional story through subtle and simple techniques that drive the narrative and the emotional aspects of the film.
When the “decently dressed” Lengel tried to tell the girls to be “decently dressed” because the girls were wearing “bathing suits”, the girls first argued they “are decent” and left because the girls thought what they were doing was not wrong since they have different perspective than Lengel. The result of feeling empathy for the younger generation in "Railway Club Blues" is that the older generation saw the younger generation as themselves and the protagonist mentioned that teens were the “Strange children of the simple punks we were”. Also, despite of the younger teens “clothes are odd [and] their attitudes obscure”, the protagonist saw their faces that gave him “a kindred memory” of how the teens “repeat the ancient dance”. Ultimately, because the two generations were able to enjoyed a small jazz performance together, the protagonist felt “all cardboard boundaries are erased.”. Both authors used contrast to show the results of feeling empathy for the younger generation, and in “A&P”, the result of Lengel feeling empathy for the teenagers is that he was rejected by the youth due to their contrasting perspectives. When the protagonist from “Railway Club Blues” felt the “boundaries are erased” when the music began to play, this demonstrates how the the protagonist felt how everyone shared the same feelings and empathize the teens despite
Throughout the film, the filmmaker follows the three victims around in their everyday lives by using somber music and backgrounds of depressing colors. The documentary starts off with colorful images of the scenery
In the film the music is very important. At the beginning it is set at
Initially the audience is witness to how particular sound techniques shape this film. For instance, one of the main details that the audience hears is the song that the murderer whistles. Due to the marvel of sound the audience can pick out that the whistling is related to the murderer. Along with the blind man who figured this mystery out, the audience could only put these two together with this sound technique. The director shows the audience how such a simple part of every day sound can be so important to solving such a terrible crime.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
Music plays a critical role in the narrative films as it is important technique that filmmakers use to support the narrative and influence the way that the viewer interacts, responds and interprets the events as they unfold. The godfather, which is one of all time Hollywood movies, represents a good use of music that succeeded in supporting the dramatic events that take place in the movie. Moreover, both diegetic and non-diegetic music in the godfather movie are used to achieve the overall purpose by using the different principles and functions of film music that range from setting the mood of the viewer to providing continuity within the movie. In this essay, we will take part of the godfather movie in which we can observe and analyse the role of the music in the film (00:30:52- 00:35:52)
Three discovery songs consist within act one whereby the characters reflect upon the hurdles they have faced and what they have learnt as outcome. (Rosen, 2010). During Little Red’s song, “I Know Things Now”, she learns the difference between “good and nice”, which all children come to learn with time. Red learns that a man (or wolf as Sondheim depicts him) may act nice when they want something from you. Little Red’s melodic theme, as per Figure 1, is repetitive, catchy and similar to a schoolyard. As simple and childlike as it seems, it is a transformation of what her ‘Mother said’ motif as per Figure 2, which has now been planted as a memory far in the distant. (Rosen, 2010). She has finally absorbed what she was informed and applied it as per her own realizations and conclusions. Through the use of this varied motif, Sondheim is showing the audience that she has finally absorbed what she was informed and applied it as per her own realizati...
When the more thoughtful and intimate parts of the movie present themselves, a slow paced piano is used to match the solemn moment. Sections of the movie have a positive and optimistic outlook, for example, when Karl walks through the small country town to the house of his new found friend. Karl is obviously filled with awe and enthusiasm for his resurrection into life, this is reflected through the music. An intimate moment in the movie is between Karl and the boy. Karl tells an extremely sad story. A soulful slide guitar and whistling accompanies this story, the music is extremely sad and is the emotion for the kind hearted but seemingly emotionless Karl. Another touching and emotional part of the movie is when Karl visits his father. Whilst Karl walks to the run down house of his elderly father, harmonious voices sing a haunting gospel tune.
The most enduring and alluring part of the film is the live footage of Holiday performing, either in a band with one of her idols, Louis Armstrong, or in her first film role as a maid, or in her later televised performances in the fifties. It was not Lady’s vocal talent that made her what she was. It was her delivery, performance style, charisma, and impeccably beautiful dramatization of even the most banal little number that made an impression on audiences. The footage of her singing the song “Strange Fruit” is one of the most amazing and alarming things in the film. As the audience looking in, we feel every word she sings, with a bit of awe, tinged with the horrid reality of what the song is about.
Therefore, the distinctive visual techniques employed by the composer provide a vehicle for the respondent to understand the ideas and themes prompted by people and their experiences. Tykwer’s film, Run Lola Run demonstrates the effect of the distinctive visual in Lola’s exploration of the themes of chance and time, whilst Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’ provides the audience with an evocative experience of the Australian environment.
The time is 1959, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of Welton Academy. Welton is a sort of Ivy League training school. The boys of Welton Academy are dutiful sons, their lives arranged by Mom and Dad like connecting dots. They need only move assuredly from point A, Welton, to point B, Harvard or Oxford, to point C, a prestigious law firm/corporation/band. However, that does not stop their new English teacher from encouraging them to break the pattern. With a contagious passion for verse and a lust for life, Keating exhorts his students to think for themselves. Then avocation that they strip themselves of prejudices, habits and influences.
The music if very soft and quiet to begin the scene. It is depressing, which matches well with the male character since at one point he is crying. He looks distraught and the music reflects that. After a pause, the music changes and is a little upbeat. The piano is playing lighter music to represent the man trying to free himself from the pain and voices; however it stay quiet to allow the audience to hear the conversation that is happening. For a brief moment the music stops as the audience anticipates what the man is going to to. Once he turns out of the window, the music speeds up and is just a little bit louder than it had previously been.
The first musical component I will talk about is the vocals heard in the song. In the beginning of this song, a rising sun is being shown on the image track. To give us hints as to where this is taking place, a form of verbal chanting is played in the beginning. This chanting has a tribal feeling to it, which tells us that we are looking at some rural area rather than a metropolitan area. This depicts to the audience the setting for the rest of the song along with the rest of the movie. The chanting is also in a call and response pattern, which can be heard when the other group of voices responds to the one voice. As the song progresses, an African choir can be heard, and when they ...
Ms. Johnson had overcome many challenging obstacles in her life, but had never dealt with the challenges of trying to teach troubled teens. The lyrics of this song are an important factor to the movie, since Ms. Johnson had to learn about her multi-cultured student’s backgrounds in order to better understand them.
Purpose: The main purpose of the text is indeed to entertain the listener in any way possible whether it be enjoying fab’s witty punch lines or being able to relate to the issues present. Another purpose suggested is to relate with the composer (Fabolous) and gain knowledge of the occurrences experienced by the composer e/g racism or incidents in the area . Fabolous says “I want to bring you in, and let you see my world looking through my eyes.”