Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Ethical issues in filmmaking
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Ethical issues in filmmaking
Bathrooms are filthy. They are grimy, soiled porcelain wastelands swarming with harmful bacteria and human waste. And they’re one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite tools to use on the big screen. If one were to study the history of American media, he or she may notice that bathrooms are scarcely pictured. In fact, it wasn’t until the 1960 release of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho that a toilet was shown in cinema. The featured toilet caused quite a stir among critics, and became a symbol of American ethics. Quentin recognized the subject of morality that resided in the use of bathrooms and used it to his advantage. In his 1994 release, Pulp Fiction, Quentin frequently uses the bathroom to make the viewer question his or her ethical views.
The first instance of the bathroom being used to elicit a questioning of ethics within the audience occurs during the sub story of Mia and Vincent Vegas. In this scene, two questions of ethics are brought forth. After a long, fun night Vincent returns with Mia to Marsellus Wallace’s estate. He promptly announces that he has to use the restroom, and leaves Mia alone. Once alone in the bathroom, we see Vincent talking to himself in the mirror, trying to persuade himself to leave Mia alone for the night. Vince is quite obviously attracted to Mia, and Mia seems willing to spend more time with him. He has to decide whether to stay longer and risk taking advantage of Marsellus’ wife or to leave immediately, wishing her a good night and ending his relationship with her. This creates tension and allows the audience to consider their own moral standpoint in regards to the situation.
The second questioning of ethics that occurs in this scene begins to take place moments after Vince leaves the bathroom. We h...
... middle of paper ...
... side with. Again the audience must consider their own moral stance in regards to the situation in order to reach this conclusion.
As proved in this clever arrangement of bathroom scenes, Quentin Tarantino is a creative albeit unorthodox director. Though he draws inspiration from a vast expanse of resources, this Quentin’s productions are undoubtedly unique. Through his clever use of the bathroom as a means through which to bring forth a questioning of ethics, Tarantino has again proved his creativity as a director. This movie made me think. This movie made me reevaluate my moral values and empowered me to challenge my own ethical views. This movie literally taught me more about myself than I had previously realized. We can only hope Tarantino continues to produce such impactful films so we can continue to explore our values the way Pulp Fiction has allowed us to.
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.
2. According to Sobchack, contemporary screen violence greatly differs than portrayals of violence in years past. Today, violent scenes are careless and lack significance because we as audiences have become calloused and desensitized to any acts of violence. She states that there is “no grace or benediction attached to violence. Indeed, its very intensity seems diminished” (Sobchack 432). Senseless violence, gruesome acts, and profound amounts of gore are prevalent in movies today, and because even this is not enough, it must be accompanied by loud blasts and noise, constantly moving scenes to keep audiences stimulated and large quantities of violence for viewers to enjoy what they are watching. Decades ago, it was the story that was engaging to audiences and filmmaking was an art.
The Interaction Order of Public Bathrooms, written by Spencer E. Cahill, is an article that does a fairly well job at analyzing interpersonal relationships and individual practices in restrooms. Cahill used ideologies of Emile Durkheim, Erving Goffman, Margaret Atwood, Horace Miner, and Lyn Lofland to help construct his perspective on the individual’s expectations of bathroom etiquette through our experiences with others and how we internalize these behaviors.
There have been countless numbers of films produced and directed in the past decade that could be labeled as weird or bizarre, however, one of the most head-scratching and unusual films to hit the big screen in the past decade was Donnie Darko (2001), directed by Richard Kelly. The film depicts a troubled adolescent named Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal), who after surviving a near death experience, finds himself at the center of numerous acts of violence and vandalism in his community, possibly due to his growing insanity. Arguably, one of the highlights of the film, if not the main highlight, occurs during Donnie’s first day back at school since his close brush with death. This dreamlike and hyper amplified school-entrance montage that Kelly takes the viewer through has a major contribution to the film in its entirety because it gives a much deeper meaning to the film in terms of the audio-visual style.
it hard to choose an alternative. “When resolving moral dilemmas one is presented with two or
The plot segmentation of Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film, “Pulp Fiction,” reveals how the pieces in the nonlinear narrative structures are put together. In order for the audience to remind them when these events take place, the movie uses title cards to specify each segments’ main plot. Some of the characters would even reference events that have already occurred, such as when Mia, in the boxing match building, thanks Vincent for the dinner. The movie does not just allow the audience to really pay attention to how the story is being told, but also show how similar each of the main stories’ structures is, despite being in a nonlinear form. For example, all of them feature acts of “heroism” by resolving the issues when caught in very unexpected
Aside from its acting, the other major influence which Mean Streets had upon American film-makers was through it's use of a rock n' roll soundtrack (almost perfectly integrated with the images), and in its depiction of a new kind of screen violence. Unexpected, volatile, explosive and wholly senseless, yet, for all that, undeniably cinematic violence. The way in which Scorsese blends these two - the rock and roll and the violence - shows that he understood instinctively, better than anyone else until then, that cinema (or at least this kind of cinema, the kinetic, visceral kind) and rock n' roll are both expressions of revolutionary instincts, and that they are as inherently destructive as they are creative. This simple device - brutal outbreaks of violence combined with an upbeat soundtrack - has been taken up by both the mainstream cinema at large and by many individual `auteurs', all of whom are in Scorsese's debt - Stone and Tarantino coming at once to mind.
There are movies that make you laugh, that make you cry, that blow you away with jaw-dropping, ever-so-satisfying action sequences. And there is Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece, an homage to the old Pulp Magazines and crime novels popular in the 1950s. Known for their incredibly dense and complex dialogue and excessive violence, Tarantino adds his trademark nonlinear chronology and thorough character development to create a movie that celebrates the fact that chance governs all of our lives. The film consists of multiple stories that tell of the criminals, gangsters and outliers of Los Angeles, the underbelly of society. It follows Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield as they embark on their mission to recovering a briefcase that
Many Hollywood adaptations of novels focus on commercializing topics like sex to get viewers (Seger 4). When it comes to the topic of cinematography in “1984,” most of us will readily agree that the director Michael Radford perfectly captured the dystopian nation Oceania described by Orwell. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of commercialism incorporated to increase ticket sales. Whereas some are convinced, the restriction of personal and sexual relationships engages and captures the viewer’s perception of the dangers of a totalitarian government. On the other hand, other scholars contend that the constant concentration of sexual affairs in the movies takes away from the content Orwell was more concerned with.
Or to put it more simply, the woman is there to be looked at, by men, rather than to look. Although the film portrays Norman's voyeurism as unwholesome, the audience itself is indulging in the same activity.
Film scholar and gender theorist Linda Williams begins her article “Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess,” with an anecdote about a dispute between herself and her son, regarding what is considered “gross,” (727) in films. It is this anecdote that invites her readers to understand the motivations and implications of films that fall under the category of “body” genre, namely, horror films, melodramas, (henceforth referred to as “weepies”) and pornography. Williams explains that, in regards to excess, the constant attempts at “determining where to draw the line,” (727) has inspired her and other theorists alike to question the inspirations, motivations, and implications of these “body genre” films. After her own research and consideration, Williams explains that she believes there is “value in thinking about the form, function, and system of seemingly gratuitous excesses in these three genres,” (728) and she will attempt to prove that these films are excessive on purpose, in order to inspire a collective physical effect on the audience that cannot be experienced when watching other genres.
The Analysis of Quentin Tarantino as a Director The director I have chosen to look at is Quentin Tarantino. His films have achieved a cult ang global status and I dont think anyone is going to argue that he is not an auteur. I am more interested in examining his style and seeing how this makes him an auteur and if it has changed when he was receiving a higher budget. Tarantino was born in Noxville Tennessee on 27th march 1963. Tony
In conclusion it is clear that Tarantino’s film is postmodern, and Jameson’s insightful essay stands in relation to Pulp Fiction much in the same way as a prophecy stands in relation to its fulfilment. The postmodernist Tarantino expresses in a full and technicolour form what Jameson the modernist had only partially understood in the more static arts of painting and architecture.
One of the desirability of virtue ethics is the elasticity to measure each situation independently, searching for action guidance in bearing in mind what a naturally virtuous person would do. This would be clarified and informed by the pertinent facts and personal ethical sensitivities of that situation. This permits and heartens creative resolutions to very difficult problems, which may be harder to disc...
“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.