How Do We Connect To Dinosaurs?

1125 Words3 Pages

Barthes references as, “the historical interest, the studium” (57). Dinosaurs are something that many humans are fascinated with, but only in the contextual landscape of the human experience. It is curious to think that a totally different species walked this Earth before any type of human ever touched it. This thought is provoking, piercing, but by no means wounding. Dinosaurs are far removed from human experience, and nothing about the scene bruises me. I have no connection to dinosaurs, and I can feel no empathy for their experience. Even though humans are here on the Earth for such a short snapshot of time, we still find relevance with each other. Dinosaurs are abstract and far removed from us, and therefore cannot elicit true pathos. …show more content…

The director, Terrance Malick, does an effective job of exposing the viewers to the families’ sheer humanness. Watching the three boys grow up in their contained environment, which may resonate with many of the viewers, helps form an attachment to the boys. The undeniable human characteristics allows there of be connection between the actors and the viewers. I was enthralled with the little bubble of their world, and found myself developing various feelings for the characters. Through multiple flashbacks and fast-forwards, the audience is able to piece together the three boys’ lives, and you being to understand the hardships that they endured while dealing with their aggressive and strict father. Additionally, the wonders of childhood are displayed intimately. In a critical analysis of the film, David Sterritt highlights that, “Fleeting views of youngsters talking through tin-can-and-string telephones and standing on paintcan stilts seem to symbolize their dim awareness of the possibilities for connection and exaltation that the world reserves for humans just like them” (Streritt 55). The innocent nature of the O’Brien boys playing in their town is something uniquely …show more content…

The juxtaposition between the dinosaur scene and the fighting lessons scene between the father and sons points out beautifully the imperative distinctions between studium and punctum. When the one dinosaur steps on the other ,it is shocking, bizarre, removed. It has loaded studium; it caught my eye and intrigued me. It was interesting to watch, yet it did not sit with me after the fact. The mock fist-fighting scene displayed the same kind of nature, but the human interaction separated it and gave it true punctum. Watching the dinosaur step on the other one was gruesome, undoubtedly. But the near-violence displays in the scene between the father and son hit me right in the gut. I am human; I know what it feels like o be hit, to see someone else be hit. I can feel that feeling, feel that fear. The same wince has run through the crevices of my eyes. This scene had punctum because as a human, I have had that same bruising; something that I will carry with me throughout my

Open Document