Introduction: In the realm of television crime dramas, Detective Lennie Briscoe, depicted by Jerry Orbach, stands out with his wit, charisma, and sharp investigative skills. Despite the years since his debut on "Law & Order," Briscoe's character remains appealing, blending desperation with humor and echoing with audiences. As an initial author exploring visual rhetoric, I'm intrigued by Bris-coe's presence and the world he inhabits, recognizing the enduring popularity of his character and the series. In this paper, I'll examine a still frame featuring Jerry Orbach as Briscoe, using visual rhetoric to uncover its meaning, composition, and emotional impact. We'll examine how this image engages viewers intellectually and emotionally, mirroring …show more content…
Conversely, black, and white imagery conveys a sense of permanence and nostalgia, suggestive of classic film noir detectives like Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade. The difference between color and black and white depends on the desired effect and emotional resonance. For Detective Briscoe's narrative, color photography likely wins, enhancing the portrayal of the urban landscape's energy and intensity. Whether in color or black and white, the visual artifact stands as a testament to the enduring legacy of Bris-coe and the remarkable talent of Jerry Orbach. Message and Appeals: Embedded within the visual artifact of Detective Lennie Briscoe are messages and appeals that echo intellectually and emotionally with viewers. Through imagery and symbolism, the scene communicates themes of morality, justice, and the human condition. One primary message is the pursuit of truth and justice in the face of misfortune, embodied by Briscoe's unwavering determination and integrity. Orbach's portrayal adds depth, making Briscoe relatable through vulnerability and flaws. The scene reflects on broader moral and ethical questions, engaging viewers intellectually and
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.
The Breaking Bad television series has been memorable to viewers due to its diverse plot and stirring scenes. Vince Gillian incorporated Scholes matrices of power into his piece. Rhetoric has played an important roll in Breaking Bad, pathos, ethos, and logos have brought this film to another level. Allowing a sense of emotion, logic and credibility, within each episode. The series has been culturally relatable to viewers and the visually fascinating. Through narrativity the series has offered us intense plot lines and climaxes that are hard for viewers to resist and keep people watching. Through rhetoric analysis you are able to see the significance of Scholes matrices of power in Vince Gillian’s film, Breaking Bad.
1. Sobchack’s argument pertaining to on -screen violence that she wrote thirty years ago was that any violent acts portrayed in movies back then was to emphasize the importance of an element in a story, an emphatic way of engaging the viewers and forcing them to feel what the movie was about. It gave them a sense of the substance of the plot which would allow them to feel for the characters and yearn for good to overcome evil. In other words, the effort made to engage audiences through depictions of violence created violence that was artistic and well done, or as Sobchack writes, violence was “aestheticized.” Violence was incorporated into film in a stylistic way, and even though violence in all forms is offending, twenty five years ago when it was seen in film, it had a greater impact on audiences because it had meaning (Sobchack 429).
Anna Godberson once said, “She should have known that villains often come with pretty faces”. This is regularly the case in the film industry. Hollywood has an abundance of beautiful villains that steal people’s hearts. But, even though physical beauty is a common theme for glamorous Hollywood villains, there are many more means to ploy an audience to love an antihero. In a diversity of films, the audience is manipulated in to liking the bad guys in many divergent ways. With the use of enticing looks, schemas, and the fundamental attribution error (Keen, McCoy, and Powell 129-148) film developers master piloting their audience to love their villains. The directors and actors alike make these characters appeal to everyone who watches the film. Television shows including Arrow, breaking bad, and weeds all glamorize criminals that people have come to recognize and respect.
In his emotional appeal, Bogard primarily uses diction to create a subtle emotional feeling within his audiences. Using strong phrases such as “bulldozer” or “wrecking habitats and disrupting ecosystems” in describing light pollution, he is able to mold the reader’s feelings into having a negative opinion towards this problem, whether the reader is conscious of it or not. However, when discussing natural darkness, he uses lighter phrases such as “beauty” or “irreplaceable value” that capture his reader’s hearts and assists in convincing them of preserving the darkness. Moreover, personal pronouns continue to come in play as they provide the emotional connection with the audience. By using the pronouns such as “we” or “our,” Bogard goes beyond making this a personal problem and demonstrates it as a problem that everyone shares. He makes his audience become involved as he reveals the detrimental impact light pollution has on them and their environment. By doing so, his audience can be more easily persuaded to share his viewpoint as they do not want to agree to anything that can harm them or their children. Through his use of pathos, Bogard links his audience to his viewpoint, persuading them of the beauty of the world through their emotions.
Steven Johnson wrote an article for the New York Times in which he argues that back in the days, television shows use to have a very simple plot which was easy to follow without too much attention. It was just an other way to sit back and relax. However, throughout the years, viewers grew tired of this situation and demanded more complex plot lines with multiple story lines that related to recent news topics. He takes the example of the television show “24”. “24” is known for being the first show which its plot occurs in “real-time”, it is also known for not censuring the violence of its topics. It is a drastic change from what Johnson states as an example “Starsky and Hutch” where basically each episodes was only a repetition of the last one. Johnson also believes that there is a misconception of the mass culture nowadays where people think the television viewer wants dumb shows which in response makes them dumber. Johnson does not agree, for him, television shows such as “24” are “nutritional”. He also states that sm...
Symbolism plays an important role in any novel of literary merit. From objects, to traits, to the way something is portrayed, it can have a whole different meaning. Like death and taxes, there is no escaping color. It is ubiquitous. In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays a superior use of symbols such as color, light, and heat. Fitzgerald’s superior use of color as a symbol is the focus of this essay.
Touching upon one specific case of this growing problem, she incorporates “Michael Brown,” who was an “18-year old unarmed black man shot down by a white police officer.” As heartbreaking as it sounds, it has happened on several occasions to men similar to “Michael Brown.” Accordingly, Myers formulates that it “is the same story. It is just different names.” Myers logically lists the other names of several black men who unfortunately fell victim to hate crimes, (Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin), as well as flashing their images on the screen. Not only does Verna Myers use imagery in order to show that there is an evident issue with brutality and racism, but she knows it will tug on her viewers heartstrings. Likewise, this makes her audience become wary and sympathetic towards the situation at
Black shows the ability to be able to protect and provide strength and comfort to those you care for. It creates an illusion of mysteriousness around everything. It can cause mood swings and depression. There are so many different ways to see black. Black is a color that has a broad view. Either way, the best way to describe this word is to think of it as the end and the beginning of something new. Black is endless. You don’t know where it ends, nor do you know where it begins so it becomes difficult to tell if a person has a true black nature or faux one. It isn’t widely known why, but black hides what’s on the inside. It gives false pretenses which there are many of in The Great Gatsby. It hides what someone’s true nature or intentions might be. They may have ill intentions, but it won’t be realised until far too late, due to the fact that the color black cloaks what true intentions may be. The Great Gatsby was not from Tom Buchanan’s point of view, so no one really knows if he is truthful with how much he knows or not. It could all be a hoax and Tom intentionally wanted to drive Daisy to kill Myrtle. Black is represented and traced all throughout the book. It starts from mystery and suspicion to hatred and reality. There is still mystery in the book despite the fact that the story is suppose to have ended. Black creates that void of emotion or reality to the point where no one truly knows if what was being said is true or not. With black, that is what you get, confusion. There is much confusion and misinterpretation that goes on within the book. Things are hazy which is most likely due to the fact that many things are still unknown. There is so much secrecy in the book. The same as there is so much secrecy in the color
Crane's use of color allows for layers of meaning within each hue. Green, red and gray are used to describe the everyday physical objects in the text's world, and also the landscapes and metaphysical objects and ideas in Fleming's mind. Green is literally the color of the grass, but figuratively the freshness and youth of the soldiers and the purity of the natural world. Red is, overwhelmingly the color of battle, of courage and gunfire and bloodshed. Gray, however, becomes the color of human defeat. Because Crane uses each so carefully and selectively, creating for each several meanings, they take on a significance of their own; each can stand alone to have its own charged meanings.
Engelstad, Audun. "Watching Politics: The Representation of Politics in Primetime Television Drama." NORDICOM Review 29.2 (2008): 309-324. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
Relations between sympathy-empathy expressiveness and fiction have become a significant issue in the debate on the emotional responses to the film fiction. Due to their complexity many scholars found it useful to diagram them. With his essay, “Empathy and (Film) Fiction”, Alex Neill tries to develop new theory for analyzing the fiction and, especially, the emotional responses from the audience on it. The project of this essay is represented with an aim to show the audience the significant value of the emotional responses to the film fiction. From my point of view in the thesis of his project he asks a simple question: “Why does the (film) fiction evoke any emotions in the audience?”, further building the project in a very plain and clever way. Tracing the origins of this issue, he distinguishes between two types of emotional responses, sympathy and empathy, as separate concepts in order to understand the influence of both types of emotional responses to fiction. However, relying mostly on this unsupported discrepancy between two concepts and the influence of the “identification” concept, Neill finds himself unable to trace sympathy as a valuable response to fiction. This difficulty makes Neill argue throughout the better part of the text that empathy is the key emotional factor in the reaction to (film) fiction and that it is a more valuable type of emotional response for the audience.
In his essay, “It’s Just a Movie: A Teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes”, Greg M. Smith argues that analyzing a film does not ruin, but enhances a movie-viewing experience; he supports his argument with supporting evidence. He addresses the careful planning required for movies. Messages are not meant to be telegrams. Audiences read into movies to understand basic plotlines. Viewers should examine works rather than society’s explanations. Each piece contributes to Smith’s argument, movies are worth scrutinizing.
Ten years before Tarantino made Pulp Fiction, the academic and critic Frederic Jameson identified some of the key features of postmodernism, and debated whether these were a true departure from modernism, or just a continuation of the same rebellious themes. His paper on postmodernism tends towards the latter view, but at the same time prophetically pinpointed the essential departures that postmodernism has made from what has gone before. Tarantino’s film does not continue the debate in an academic way, but instead presents a virtuoso visual performance of the ideas that Jameson could only dimly perceive. These ideas include pastiche, a crisis in historicity and a blurring of the distinction between high culture and low culture.
“Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine, some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything’s okay. I don’t make those kinds of movies. That, to me, is a lie. Everything’s not okay.” - David Fincher. David Fincher is the director that I am choosing to homage for a number of reasons. I personally find his movies to be some of the deepest, most well made, and beautiful films in recent memory. However it is Fincher’s take on story telling and filmmaking in general that causes me to admire his films so much. This quote exemplifies that, and is something that I whole-heartedly agree with. I am and have always been extremely opinionated and open about my views on the world and I believe that artists have a responsibility to do what they can with their art to help improve the culture that they are helping to create. In this paper I will try to outline exactly how Fincher creates the masterpieces that he does and what I can take from that and apply to my films.