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.