Casa Blanca is an amazingly put together film directed to perfection. The film Casa Blanca directed Michael Curtiz is a story of heroism describing an individual’s ability to sacrifice his deepest passion in order to fulfill a better cause for humanity. Michael Curtiz uses narrative structure, mise-en-sien, cinematography, acting style and sound to show how the main character becomes a hero by sacrificing his love for a woman.
Casa Blanca released in 1942, is a romantic drama that takes place during World War II in the Moroccan city of Casablanca. The protagonist, Rick Blaine is an American who chooses virtue over love. Blaine owns a nightclub in Casablanca that attracts a diverse group of people. His former lover, Ilsa, enters the film with her husband one night that causes a stir. Ilsa and her husband are trying to get to America because her husband escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Rick must decide whether to help the couple escape or run away with Ilsa.
The narrative structure of Casa Blanca is very clear and conforms to the basic principles of Classical Hollywood Narrative structure. Narrative structure includes the plot order, duration, story duration, plot duration, screen duration, exposition, repetition, and scope. In the opening scene the setting is luminous, with a voice over narration and world map to establish the exact location where the film takes place. This provides a brief background on the character, setting and basic conflict. The voice over explains how the Nazi’s were taking over Europe, the basic facts about World War II, and the political refugees fleeing Hitler. This type of narration allows the audience to follow the film easily. In other words, the audience doesn’t need to do any thinking to fi...
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..., “Yes, I’m ready.” When Ilsa says this she is accepting the terms of Rick’s decision to let her go. As the couple is heading to the plane we hear in the background “As Time Goes By” adding to the dramatic effect of Ilsa leaving.
In conclusion, Rick’s love for Ilsa is not as important as supporting Ilsa’s husband who is a great man fighting for a great cause. By helping her husband he is helping future generations avoid the pain and suffering that her husband had gone through living in the concentration camp. Rick states, “That day in Paris, the Germans wore gray, and we wore blue.” He is saying that he has sacrificed his feelings to be a better human being in a world that is utterly mad with violence. Michael Curtiz excellently portrays Rick as a hero by showing his final sacrifice through sound, acting, cinematography, mise-en-sien and narrative structure.
While there are many themes that can be found in this novella, Benitez skillfully uses the Mexican culture and the beliefs to improve her story, giving it understanding beyond the traditional American thoughts that many foreign writers are unable to achieve.
The Carrillo Adobe is in a dire situation. It has not only fallen into disrepair from the many years of weather and use by so many individuals, but by visitors and citizens have been less that kind and considerate of its age and the prominence that it deserves. After Carrillo’s death her house was given to three of her daughters, Marta, Juana, and Felicidad. Then her belongings were distributed between all of her children. In the first decade after her death her different children each occupied the house at different times. One of her daughters, Juana and her husband ran the home as a tavern. They then converted the adobe into the first post office in the town of Santa Rosa. After her daughters no longer had a need for the adobe it was turned into a trading post where numerous individuals...
He conveys a powerful message using pathos: “There was… suffering and loneliness in the concentration camps that defies imagination. Cut off from the world with no refuge anywhere, sons watched helplessly their fathers being beaten to death. Mothers watched their children die of hunger.” Diction like “loneliness”, “defies imagination”, and “helplessly” create a solemn and helpless tone. It evokes vivid imagery, a tragic scene of death and despair. The juxtaposition of children, this idea of youth and innocence, and death evokes pity from the audience. With this in mind, Reagan would feel guilty if he forced the Jewish people to relive their suffering by going to the Bitburg cemetery. Wiesel then appeals to Reagan’s ethos. They both share a common goal – to attain reconciliation, and to do so, they “must work together with them and with all people” to “bring peace and understanding to a tormented world that… is still awaiting
Another foundations that I can add is effect social change, this reflect the type of movement that the workers create based on the fact that they were being discriminated in the company, affecting the lives. Last foundations that connect on this film it is Chicano film language, we can see how the combination of languages, between Spanish and English and cultural codes that the people from the film shows as part of the Mexican American culture. For example these three techniques foundations create a strong image to this film in the way that we can see the scene where the woman’s are in prison because of the movement. The whole scene creates an atmosphere of anger, and desperation, referring to the woman’s expressions “queremos la formula, queremos camas, queremos baño”. I can connect this great scene for a moment of expressing the support from each other by forcing the sheriff to give them their needs and
“Like Water for Chocolate” by Laura Esquivel, is a beautiful romantic tale of an impossible passionate love during the revolution in Mexico. The romance is followed by the sweet aroma of kitchen secrets and cooking, with a lot of imagination and creativity. The story is that of Tita De La Garza, the youngest of all daughters in Mama Elena’s house. According to the family tradition she is to watch after her mother till the day she does, and therefore cannot marry any men. Tita finds her comfort in cooking, and soon the kitchen becomes her world, affecting every emotion she experiences to the people who taste her food. Esquivel tells Titas story as she grows to be a mature, blooming women who eventually rebels against her mother, finds her true identity and reunites with her long lost love Pedro. The book became a huge success and was made to a movie directed by Alfonso Arau. Although they both share many similarities, I also found many distinct differences. The movie lost an integral part of the book, the sensual aspect of the cooking and love.
A debutante’s life came at a price; for the 16 year-old Dolores it was an arranged, loveless marriage to lawyer Jaime Del Rio. Jaime was 18 years her senior, his family one of the oldest and most influential in Mexico. Their wealth allowed for a European honeymoon, where they were invited to dine with the Spanish Royal family. The honeymoon morphed into a three year romp, with Dolores delighting in voice and dance lessons at stately Madrid and Paris schools. In 1921, the couple returned to Mexico City, Jaime intent on advancing his career whil...
As a young child, Rodriguez finds comfort and safety in his noisy home full of Spanish sounds. Spanish, is his family's' intimate language that comforts Rodriguez by surrounding him in a web built by the family love and security which is conveyed using the Spanish language. "I recognize you as someone close, like no one outside. You belong with us, in the family, Ricardo.? When the nuns came to the Rodriquez?s house one Saturday morning, the nuns informed the parents that it would be best if they spoke English. Torn with a new since of confusion, his home is turned upside down. His sacred family language, now banished from the home, transforms his web into isolation from his parents. "There was a new silence in the home.? Rodriguez is resentful that it is quiet at the dinner table, or that he can't communicate with his parents about his day as clearly as before. He is heartbroken when he overhears his mother and father speaking Spanish together but suddenly stop when they see Rodriguez. Thi...
The main characters in the film include Sebastian and Costa, who happen to be lifelong friends. Sebastian is a compulsive visionary who strives to direct controversial a film about one of history’s most influential figures, Christopher Columbus. He is determined to escalate the “myth” that western civilization's arrival in the Americas was a force for good. Instead, his story is about what Columbus set in motion; the hunt for gold, captivity of, and penal violence to those Indians who fought back. His story is counteracted by the radical priests Bartolome de las Casas and Antonio de Montesinos, the first people to ra...
The story opens with Ano Sancho talking about how he previously was a labor contractor and is now a businessman. He now has opened "Ano Sancho’s Used Mexican Lot" This is a strike at those people who have been using the immigrants and the Mexican-Americans for their own personal gain. This brings the thought that no matter the place and time, there will always be someone there to exploit the weaker people. This person is sometimes someone that the people trust ands relate to, one of their own.
The story revolves around the reality that Mexican girls are raised to find a man and get married. They have a mind set about having a man in their l...
As the first major U.S. success for a Spanish language film, Como Agua Para Chocolate (Alfonso Arau, 1992) has had a major impact on Hispanic culture and the future of Hispanic cinema. This film has many implicit and explicit layers that challenge typical cultural ideals, not only in Hispanic culture, but in various cultures across the world. Based on his wife, Laura Esquivel’s novel, Arau used this film, known commonly as Like Water for Chocolate, to bring to the surface the liberation of females through the empowerment of food. Although food and cooking are often associated with the oppression and generalization of Hispanic women, Like Water for Chocolate captivates an empowering view of women using intimate and heightened cinematography of the food.
Latin American women in media are usually assigned the typical stereotypes. The stereotypes that are commonly associated with Latinas are thugs, gangbangers, laborers, servants, or seductress. In this novel we observe the experiences that many Latin American women have to endure due to the male-dominated society. The House on Mango Street is about a young Mexican-American girl, Esperanza, who dreams of a better life. Esperanza's family moves to a new house on Mango Street, but it doesn't meet the expectation of Esperanza's "dream house." The house is located in a crowded Latino neighborhood that consists of the lower income families. This book gives insight to the living conditions that many poor Latin-Americans live in.
Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo. Dir. Lourdes Portillo and Susana Muñoz. Videocassette. Xóchitl Films. 63 min.
The film of Cuerda manifests this idea through the personage of Rosa (Uxia Blanco), which plays the mother of Moncho. This imposing and articulate woman displays her conservative inclinations by being portrayed as a lady extremely devoted to Catholicism. The comparison between this convinced personality and the irreligious character of Ramon, Moncho's father (Gonzalo Uriarte), further underscores Rosa's conservative humor. Although she accepts and respects the leftist connection of her husband. With different images, gestures and actions, the director conveys his disagreement and disagreement, mainly with the atheistic character of the doctrine. There are two scenes in the film, which are used to highlight the traditionalist and anti-republican attributes of Rosa. The first presents Rosa prompting her family to shout insults to Republican prisoners who are taken to the wall. This act can be interpreted from a point of view of family protection, but if it were only something feigned, we would see this lady shouting all sorts of scorn, instead we witness how she is only mad at what really irritates her Republican ideology: his atheism. The second scene arise when they find out of the outbreak of the war. When this occurs, Moncho's mother grabs all the left-wing propaganda in her house and discards it, not without first clarifying to her son that his father never gave a costume to the teacher. To a certain extent, we may also think that these actions are the product of fear and a maternal intuition of family protection, but in an unconscious way we can perceive in Rosa a certain internal joy to know that possibly "the impious republic" has its days counted. We see how the intentional stage positioning is also used masterfully to demonstrate the differences that exist between Rosa and her husband in this scene. Both characters are divided by a pole, to the right a despondent, sad and disconsolate
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.