Foreign films are special in their own way. They show a viewer different cultural values and views of the world. They also awaken your imagination. While American films seem to focus more on the award-winning aspects of a film, foreign films focus more on human aspects. These films reveal different aspects of nations. They portray how people within that nation may feel at a certain time. In both American and foreign films, they reveal what the filmmaker feels; so many times the truth revealed is not reality, but what the filmmaker wants the audience to feel.
Spirited Away is a Japanese animated movie which focuses on a little girl who struggles to see her parents again. I have to say this is an amazing example of a picture capturing the culture
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In the film, a family goes on vacation to run away from the dictator's regime. The family drops off their child, Mauro, at some Jewish home/neighborhood. After awhile, the movie reveals that Mauro’s parents are revolutionaries hiding from the totalitarian government. The foreign film depicts a true historical event that actually happened. Not only does it teach you about the civil war happening in Brazil, but there are other cultural elements. When Mauro arrives at the Jewish household, he experiences many Jewish traditions. The audience learns about the daily prayer holdings, and the celebrations that occur. Also, the movie shows the significance of soccer in Brazil. In America, soccer isn’t really important, but according to the movie, the world cup is like a holiday in …show more content…
Bollywood motion pictures have a certain plot structure that they used called a rollercoaster plot. My Name is Khan uses this device extensively. The movie is about a Muslim born man named Rizvan Khan who wants to speak with the president to explain to him that he is not a terrorist. The film depicts the troubles of having asperger’s syndrome and being a Muslim. Throughout the movie, there are plenty of dancing montages which invoke a message about life. The film uses plenty of emotions to get the audience worked up. It goes back and forth with the emotions. The motion picture makes you think about human experiences. At one point, Rizvan Khan’s family is receiving racism and hate, because he is Muslim. You just learn so much from watching that you start to feel like the character.
Finally, the Italian made film, Life is Beautiful, is about the relationship of Guido and the love of his life. Guido however has trouble, because he is a Jew living in fascist Italy. He and his family end up going to a nazi camp. At the camp they are forced to work and suffer. There are many cases of racism shown throughout the movie. In this case, the film depicts the hardships of Jews before the time of WWII and during WWII. Also, it depicts the lifestyles of Italians and their daily everyday
In the movie we see a native American man giving a man a woman and
poster typically has the white cowboy large, presented front and center, with the antagonists and co-stars all behind him. An iconic western, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, has a poster picturing the white cowboy alone. Clint Eastwood stands there tall, stoic, and singular. Typical of most other westerns, the white cowboy is the center of attention. Here, however, there are two non-white figures presented: Bart, the Black cowboy, and a large Native American chief. This movie poster has the same style as other westerns with the color and layout, but is unique in the fact that a black man is presented where a white man would normally be dominating. Once again, this makes a statement about racial improvements. Previously having a black man at
Now, Life is Beautiful is a very serious film. There are constant reminders of what time period the film is set in. The time of Hitler, a period of great racism towards the Jewish people. Guido knows very much about the current events, but continues to shelter his young son. We are reminded of the times with the painting of the horse. The words “Jewish Horse” are painted onto a horse that was also painted green. All of the images of the concentration camps make our spines chill as we realize and remember that hundreds of thousands of human beings had to live, and die in camps much like the one in the film. The countryside at the beginning of the film is also a great realistic moment in history—Mussolini riding into a town, the townspeople greeting him with open arms.
Within the German Democratic Republic, there was a secret police force known as the Stasi, which was responsible for state surveillance, attempting to permeate every facet of life. Agents within and informants tied to the Stasi were both feared and hated, as there was no true semblance of privacy for most citizens. Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, the movie The Lives of Others follows one particular Stasi agent as he carries out his mission to spy on a well-known writer and his lover. As the film progresses, the audience is able to see the moral transformation of Stasi Captain Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler primarily through the director 's use of the script, colors and lighting, and music.
In the documentary “Fed Up,” sugar is responsible for Americas rising obesity rate, which is happening even with the great stress that is set on exercise and portion control for those who are overweight. Fed Up is a film directed by Stephanie Soechtig, with Executive Producers Katie Couric and Laurie David. The filmmaker’s intent is mainly to inform people of the dangers of too much sugar, but it also talks about the fat’s in our diets and the food corporation shadiness. The filmmaker wants to educate the country on the effects of a poor diet and to open eyes to the obesity catastrophe in the United States. The main debate used is that sugar is the direct matter of obesity. Overall, I don’t believe the filmmaker’s debate was successful.
Gran Torino is an interesting portrayal of communication dilemmas, spread out across several characters and in particular that of main character Walt Kowalski. After the death of his wife, Walt is bombarded with unwanted attention from several angles and attempts to “deal” with the attention to the best of his ability. There are many examples of communication struggles in the film, but they all seem to follow a similar pattern, and that is distance in time and culture. I’d like to focus on some of these communication barriers between his family, neighbors and priest and see how some of these walls got broken down, or could have been removed more easily.
Youth have a certain quality and charisma that has made making films about them not only an interesting endeavor but also fundamental to cinema (Shary, 2002). Representative of hope and change, children are viewed as the future. Youth culture, with its ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ kind of dynamic, suggests that children are also the future of film. For decades the film industry has relied on young audiences for patronage and also looked to youth for inspiration and just the kind of material that makes a relevant and refreshing script (Shary, 2002). Youth-oriented film has subsequently become a genre all its own (Shary, 2002). A history of American youth cinema would indicate no different. It is thus interesting to explore youth-oriented films and how films across time, namely Lolita (1962), Marathon Man (1976), Rain Man (1988), Kids (1995), and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), have depicted youth culture, specifically the theme of “Coming-Of-Age.”
Film Analysis of Life Is Beautiful “La vita e Bella” is an Italian film; Roberto Benigni starred as the main character, Guido Orefice, and also directed it. The film was contentious because of the way Benigni presented its content of the Holocaust with an unlikely comic slant. Some people thought that it showed a misrepresentation of the concentration camp, whilst other thought it showed the triumph. However, in March 1999 it was nominated. for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
In my essay I will discuss the differences between national cinema and Hollywood cinema by using Rio de Janeiro¡¯s famous film City of God. There will be three parts in my following main body, the first part is a simple review of the film City of God, I will try to use the review to show the film structure and some different new points from this, show the how did the ¡®Shocking, frightening, thrilling and funny¡¯ (Nev Pierce) work in the film. The second part is my discussion parts; I will refer some typical Hollywood big name films such as Gangs in New York, Shawshank¡¯s Redemption, and Good Fellas to discuss the main differences between City of God and other national films. The third part is my summary, I will use my knowledge to analyse why there have big different between both kind of films and their advantages.
at the beginning of the Movie LIfe Is Beautiful, Guido seems naive but as he is forced to come to terms with the reality of his family's seemingly uncontrollable situation, his views shift and his character changes.Guido cares immensely about the well being of his family and their happiness. Seeing the pain that others are going through, being separated from his wife and not knowing whats to come makes this is an extra difficult experience for him. The Camps that they are forced to stay in are visibly inhumane; however, Giosue is able to keep his innocence because of the fathers caring and playful nature. Guido faces sees some unthinkably horrific images in the camp, such as when he stumbles across the mountains of dead jewish bodies he is
The film “Coming to America” by filmmaker John Landis, presents a dilemma faced by an African prince regarding his country’s culture and traditions. Although the film is not based on any real country, persons, or events it may affect certain individuals as they may relate to some of the issues presented within. Coming to America takes place in two different countries. One of them being Zamunda Africa a fictitious place and the other Queens New York in the United States. The main characters I will focus on primarily are Prince Akeem and his father King Jaffore of Zamunda Africa and Cleo McDowell along with his daughter Lisa McDowell of the Queens New York. Prince Akeem has approached his twenty-first birthday and now is troubled by a prearranged
The movie I decided to analyze for this course was American History X (1998), which stars Edward Norton. Though this movie isn’t widely known, it is one of the more interesting movies I have seen. It’s probably one of the best films that depict the Neo Nazi plague on American culture. The film takes place from the mid to late 1990’s during the Internet boom, and touches on subjects from affirmative action to Rodney King. One of the highlights of this movie that really relates to one of the key aspects of this course is the deterrence of capital punishment. Edward Norton’s portrayal as the grief stricken older brother who turns to racist ideologies and violence to cope with his fathers death, completely disregards the consequences of his actions as he brutally murders someone in front of his family for trying to steal his car. The unstable mentality that he developed after his father’s death really goes hand-to-hand specifically with Isaac Ehrlich’s study of capital punishment and deterrence. Although this movie is entirely fictional, a lot of the central themes (racism, crime punishment, gang pervasiveness, and one’s own vulnerability) are accurate representations of the very problems that essentially afflict us as a society.
America has come a long way with how people are treated as opposed to how things use to be not so long ago. In the film American History X (1998) we see how some parts of America were not adjusting to change in their towns which resulted in violent outbreaks and many deaths. Although throughout the movie we see the main character, Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) that at the beginning of the film is in a “white power” gang and later transforms as a character to protect his brother and the rest of his family from being hurt and corrupted by the racist world that they were living in.
The Associate is an entertaining movie that brings forth gender disparities in the workplace. Whoopi Goldberg, Laurel Ayers, portrays a financial analyst who has been stuck in a position that does not give her true credit for all of her hard work and talents. The Associate exemplifies the sexism that is occurring in the workplace through satiric wit and a strong story line.
A League of Their Own (Marshall, 1992) explicitly characterizes an American era when a woman’s place was in the home. Even our modern perspective implicitly follows suit. Although women have gained rights and freedoms since the 1930’s, sexism remains prevalent in America. This film offers an illustration when men went to war and big business men utilized women as temporary replacements in factories, sports, and so on. Here, course concepts, such as gender socialization, gender expressions, role stereotypes, emotion expressions, and language, correspond to the film’s characters and themes.