Self-evaluation of the viewing journal

First of all, I would like to say that when I thought about evaluating myself I searched through my ideas in an attempt to backup my point of view. I will be very specific since I looked for real facts while analyzing each of my posts and the time I posted them. I would give myself an A and here is my defense for it!!!!

1. I did all the posts assigned to the course and replied to other posts in order to see my classmates’ opinions. In other words, I didn’t leave any analysis incomplete, thereby allowing me to be up to date with the discussions and also to understand and deeply analyze each master auteur.

2. Concerning the timely completion I would have to strive hard in order to make this point clear. I can not say I did each of my posts on time because I would be lying, and as I said, I will defend my opinion with real facts, but I can truly say that I did the majority of my posts before or on the due date. At the end of the semester, I postponed some of my posts on weeks that I had too much work and exams of other classes but anyways, I followed the class material and discussion because I saw almost all of the movies before the day we planned to discuss them. I think I demonstrated this by participating in the majority of class discussions. I know I did two or three posts a little late, but as the professor used to say “It’s not the end of the world”, and I hope this is true !!!!!!!! I acknowledge the fact that some minor points could be affected during my evaluation because of these posts I made some days later, but I would compensate for this with the work I made for Bonus Opportunities about The last Temptation of Christ.

3. Concerning the quality of my posts, I consider I really did a great job in my posts and this is the reason why I made some off date, because I like to do things well and dedicate the appropriate time and effort in order to fulfill my aspirations. I consider the quality of my accomplishment to be more satisfying and relevant than the quantity of these. I followed the instructions very carefully and in some cases even searched for extra information in order to compliment my analysis. I also wrote more than 250 words in all of my posts because for me 250 words were not enough to express all of my thoughts and to make a good analysis without sacrificing essential details.

THANK YOU!!

What makes a Tarantino movie a Tarantino movie?

Throughout the course, we have studied the style and specialty of many auteurs. As we analyze their films, we could appreciate their approach or purposes in making that film. In other words, a film carries with itself the personal thoughts and ideologies of its director or auteur.

As we could appreciate, the theme of blaxploitation is present in Tarantino’s movie. Throughout Jackie Brown, we could appreciate that the protagonist is a beautiful black woman, and one of the main characters, Ordell, is a stereotyped black man with long hair. Physical characteristics of these characters are essential keys used by Tarantino in order to attract the public attention to the movie. Society makes us belief that mafia world are related only to black people, although this is not true in real life. In contrast to other auteurs, Tarantino is not a racist, but he is interested in black public, so he uses black characters in order to attract black viewers.

On the other hand, we could see that Jackie is kind of a pimp, intelligent woman, so he is not denigrating this character. The helpers of the “pimps” in this movie were all white, as we could see Melanie for example.

The use of language and other stereotypes in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, actually makes these movies also for the black audiences. Although the main characters in Reservoir dogs were all white, they followed the “black stereotypes” concerning to their vocabulary (for example, by using the word "nigger"), the cloth and the underground world they lived. Throughout Pulp fiction we could appreciate that the main characters are black, so once again we see how Tarantino uses Stereotypes (black people) using them as tools to portray his ideologies and thoughts about mafia world.

In conclusion, I should say Quentin Tarantino uses black people as tools to attract black audience to his films, as once he said, he made his movies for the black audience.

The portray of violence: Scorsese vs.Tarantino

As I saw both movies I was able to see the different methods that both directors use in order to portray violence. While one of them shows everything, the other is not that explicit.

In his film Casino, Martin Scorsese uses an explicit way to represent violence. In every violent scene we are able to see everything it involves. Nothing is left to the imagination; we see violence in every aspect of its cruelty, meanness and brutality. By doing this, we can really get into the movie and feel part of it. Everytime a violent scene is presented to our eyes, we could feel in our bones and flesh the same pain the character being tortured feels. This is achieved thanks to the cinematic elements used by Scorsese; as the music, the casting and characters, mise- en- scene and editiong.

Compared to Scorsese, Tarantino uses a different technique to portray violence. In Reservoir Dogs a great example of a violent scene is the one in which the cop is being tortured. First of all, Tarantino does not show every detail, Mr. Blonde cuts his ear but we don’t see it, he even uses a kind of joyful music while the torturing is taking place. Tarantino, in this scene, uses the acting and the sound to give it a touch of fun and at the same time letting the audience conclude their own interpretations.

Both of them are different, they have unique ways of portraying violence. While Scorsese is very real and cruel at it, Tarantino can be thought at it as funny. Nevertheless, both are great at it.

BONUS OPPORTUNITIES: The Last Temptation of Christ

As the American film critic and screenwriter Roger Ebert said about the movie:

“Paid Christ the compliment of taking him and his message seriously, and they have made a film that does not turn him into a garish, emasculated image from a religious postcard. Here he is flesh and blood, struggling, questioning, asking himself and his father which is the right way, and finally, after great suffering, earning the right to say, on the cross, 'It is accomplished.”

This movie is about a humanized Jesus, the one alike to human beings in many ways. As a contrast to the other movies about Jesus life and history, this film showed us a human being named Jesus who is a sinner like us and who experiences every feeling and behavior characteristic to homo sapiens; such as depression, confusion, fear and struggling before accomplish the right way in life.

Scorsese’s use of cinematic elements to show us a vivid play of this million years old story hardly contributes to transport us to that setting. Mise-en-scene and sound makes us feel the duality of Jesus feeling throughout the movie. On one hand, there are soundtracks representing accomplishments, and on the other hand there are the kind of soundtracks used by Scorsese in order to make us feel sadness and confusion every time the character experiments failure. The open frame composition, characteristic of this director, allowed the characters to move freely in every scene, guiding our attention to their behavior and action, instead of the exaggerated use of costumes, decoration and other artistic touch that took away the importance of the characters themselves.

As a conclusion, I should say this is an artistic film. The message transmitted through it it’s up to the viewers, as religious values and ideals vary in each person, but no matter which are your personal beliefs, you should appreciate this piece of art.

Martins Scorsese Ideology expressed throughout his films

As many things in life, moral values or ideologies vary from person to person. A way to appreciate person’s ideologies is through his “works of art”. Throughout his movies: Mean Streets, Goodfellas and Casino, we could analyze the personalization of his thoughts, beliefs or ideologies hidden in his characters.

I think Scorsese’s purpose towards the genre is to show us the real and vivid face of the underground obscure world called: “mafia”. As we could appreciate throughout these movies, he presents to us the duality or the both extremes faces of mafia. On one hand, there is the world of wealth, power and millions. We could see this very clear throug Robert De Niro’s character; Sam and in the character: Nicky. Sam bought his wife’s heart with money as if it could buy love. But at the end of the story we could see she never fell in love with him, so what apparently could buy anything (money), resulted in a not useful weapon.

On the other hand, Nicky has a millionaire life in which he could manage everyone’s life or death with his power, but throughout the movie we could see how this character degenerates into a powerless man who died suffering in a cruel murder after seeing his brother deliration before death.

So, we could see how Scorsese demonstrates the consequences and suffering alive in this world. In other words: justice will always catch you, as we used to say: “eye for eye, teeth for teeth”. This fact is also seen in Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. At the end of Taxi Driver, we saw how Travis took revenge of the owners of the little prostitute and the man who abused her, ending up as a hero for all the country. On Goodfellas, we saw how Henry told all the truth to the authorities and all the members of the gang end up paying for their consequences in jail.

As a conclusion, Scorsese’s ideology is against the mafia world. He accepts is a “cool” world for some time; a world in which we gain a lot of money in an easy way, a world of beautiful women in love with you or, in simply words; a word of money, wealth and power, but he also show us the sad end of these people who will always pay the consequences of their actions.

Goodfellas; much more than a crime movie

There are 3 main things that are essential in order to categorize a movie into a genre; the setting, mood and format. Concerning to the setting, this is definitely a crime genre movie. The previous observation is based on the fact that the main character, Henry, and his gang were placed in underground places where criminal activities such as drug trafficking and murder compose the day to day routine. It is not a simply “crime film”, it is much more than that. It highlights the life and development of a crime figure, in this case Henry, pointing out every achievement or failure his gang passed through, including all the conflicts between them and other gangs, characteristic of criminal-gangster films.

Goodfellas is under the subgenre of mafia or gangster films. We can prove this with many facts. It is relevant for this discussion to highlight the fact that the term “mafia” is present in the world since the nineteenth century with the name of “Cosa Nostra”. It was born in Sicily, (an autonomous region of Italy in Europe). Scorsese makes emphasis on one requisite to be a part of the “made men”, or the men who are highly ranked and considered leaders. They should be 100% Italians, which symbolizes that this organization grew up in this country, and explains why Henry and Jimmy could not be made man. This contributes to the fact that we were dealing with the mafia world. At the same time, one of the most important requisites to pertain to a certain mafia was to obey a law of silence, as the film constantly showed us.

During the scene in which Henry was in a trial because the police caught him sending cigarettes, he denied everything about his “gangsters friends”. By his actions, Henry represents in a very clear manner that loyalty and respect are absolutely necessary to form part of the gang. At the time the jury was off there was a characteristic Scorsese shot. Henry appeared in the middle, and all the members of the gang embraced him in a unifying hug, filling the complete frame. It creates unity between them, and at the same time, sound contributes to make the scene a happy one in order to emphasize their loyalty as members of this violent crime organization.

In conclusion, gangster films involve a type of “society ideology”. It presents gangsters as poor people who transform themselves into criminals in order to achieve success and demand respect. Goodfellas clearly shows us the transitory transformation of a child who grew up in a religious, overprotecting family and the manner in which he constantly admired the men with power, wealth and authority which overtime lead him to become one of them.

Explicit, Implicit and Ideological meanings in "Taxi Driver"

An analysis consists of a series of interpretations and thoughts which lead us to understand the essence of a fact or idea. By analyzing things in life, we could extract different meanings which made up our values and beliefs.

Throughout his movie Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese uses different types of cinematic elements in order to transmit to the viewer a social theme. There are some explicit and implicit meanings involved in this movie, as there is ideological meaning.

During the scene in the taxi with Travis, (a lonely and depressed man who returned from war), and Palantine, we notice how their interaction demonstrates some of Scorsese’s ideals expressed throughout these two characters. The shot reverse shot allows us to analyze this conversation and its meaning. When Palantine asked Travis about his opinion of society and how government can improve people, Travis criticizes Manhattan Streets using raw words: “A good government should clean streets from all scum, he should flush them in the toilet”. Right after this opinion was expressed, the shot reverse shot permits us to see Palantine’s reaction, which was one of agreement with Travis, so we can see how these opinions carries with them an explicit meaning of the scene. We can clearly see the anger or bad feelings Travis has towards the bad side of society, and it is understandable this character feels that way after returning from war. We can see it was exposed in a very clearly and detailed manner allowing us to extract in an easy way the essence of it and to understand that this movie presents us the “bad side of society”, full of suffering, injustice, prostitution, drugs, and life in the streets.

At the same time, it involves an ideological meaning, as this scene is portraying Scorsese’s personal beliefs and moral values expressed trough these two characters.

On the other hand, at the end of the movie, when Travis was appearing in all newspapers we could extract another ideological meaning: “The heroes are the ones who fight for a good cause”. Although Travis killed many men, it was for a good reason, so he was in the right path. It allows us to understand Scorsese’s thoughts, as he is showing us the victory of good people and the death of bad people at the end of the story. At the same time, cinematic elements contribute to make this meaning clear. The music track was one of victory as the camera was focusing a close up on each article, so it adequately expresses its message. It also has implicit meaning, permitting us to perceive that his goal was achieved. Hence, once again he feels as an individual with human feelings, as he was transformed in a hero to that “Scum Society”.