Classical Cinema vs. Art Cinema

Originating during The Studio Era, the classical film is a staple of film culture, causing many genres and film practices to be defined in comparison. Classical cinema has set the standard for a collective set of cinematic codes that organize the narrative of a film. These codes are compiled to produce a narrative that is shaped like the structure of a novel. Classical narratives are based upon the concept of an enigma and a resolution. The story consists of equilibrium in the fictional world and an event that disrupted this equal balance. These fictional worlds are created through the highest operation of verisimilitude, or plausibility. To create a realistic world, shots are arranged in a spatial and temporal coherence by organizing them into a coherent, chronological order. This allows the movie to progress through a cause and effect method. Every shot is linked to the following shot through logic or character agency. Agency is given to those who display traits, desires or motivation. This agency is the driving force behind the cause and effect method as well as the equilibrium concept. Without agency, a character is not compelled to act. Without action, or a disruption, there is no cause for a reaction. The main protagonists in a classic film are the most common characters to be given this narrative force. One of the most effective characters to be attributed with a high level agency is the hero.

Derived from American mythology, the hero or heroine is known to possess opposing character traits. This creates a wider acceptance of the character among the audience, and creates more narrative possibilities allowing choices in the plot to possess more than one answer. The aspect of the hero as the main protagonist is divided into the outlaw hero and the official hero. These opposites both operate in the pursuit of freedom, though through different methods. At the end of the movie, both heroes will resolve the disruption, providing a level of closure and completing any story lines originating in the plot.

To ensure that these characteristics of classical cinema are achieved, certain demands are made upon the film’s form and style. A major feature of classical cinema is the system of continuity editing. The goal of this narrative system is to appear invisible to the spectator. By directing the viewer from shot to shot, the filmmaker must try to eliminate any point where the viewer may become confused or lost during a transition between shots. Fades and dissolves are used to give the viewer a temporal relation to the rest of the film, while establishing shots and following closer shots provide a spatial reference. In this space, the viewer is led through scenes with the use of following shots, eye-line matches, glance-object cuts and the shot/reverse shot system. These are worked in conjunction with match on action cutting and the use of the 180 degree rule. These tools work to create a seamless flow of narrative throughout the story. This editing can only become invisible if the plot of the movie contributes. In order for this process to disappear, the plot needs to provide clear causal links between each scene. The audience must know where the movie is going and what needs to be done, pulling them into a co-existing state with the characters onscreen. By identifying with the characters, they create a suspension in disbelief that supports the fictional world and the hero’s agency within the film. Through the acceptance of the film’s storyline, the audience takes on a subjective role in the procedure of viewing the film. They project themselves onto the heroes, or the heroes onto them, making them accept the desires and ideals of the hero.

As in classical cinema’s early years, the audience’s participation in the hero’s notion of right and wrong is very important. Studios create movies that always reflected current events and contribute to the American way of life in a positive way. These films are created to show the hero and his righteous path, or to describe the adversity of a collected nation as it overcomes a great tragedy. Furthermore, classical films are structured by studios to be conservative in their depiction of violence and lust. In most classical films, if a man is killed, it happens just outside of the frame. The camera will often pan away from a couple about to have sex, or cut to a symbolic shot, such as rain, as a substitute. These characteristics, in addition to the formal and stylistic patterns surrounding the causal connection, are combined to create a classical film.

As the classical cinema is associated with America during the Studio Era, art cinema is widely regarded as a global genre. This is not to say that all foreign films are art films and that art cinema does not exist in North America. Art cinema is loosely seen to be the opposite of classical cinema due to its stylistic choices and formal patterns. It is most commonly identified by what it is not. These differences serve many purposes, but make it very difficult to define the genre. The few characteristics that art films possess all contribute to the cinema’s inherent lack of narrative progression and credibility. This is mainly due to the unrealistic, fictional world and its questionable inhabitants. Most fictional worlds in art films seem to be based on unrealistic terms or include unannounced, fantastical sequences. These sequences would normally be introduced in a classical film by an aural signifier or a visual image such as someone falling asleep. Art films also incorporate ambiguity instead of causality into the development of the characters resulting in a loss of identification between the audience and the character. If the audience cannot understand the goals and desires of the hero or heroine, they cannot determine the strength or existence of the hero’s agency. Furthermore, character’s can lack agency within the plot while possessing goals or desires which destroys the overall credibility of the character.

With no cause and effect system in place, there is no level of closure throughout the film. This is especially true at the end. Open ended movies are not a trademark of art cinema since they are specific to the filmmaker. When making the film, art directors tend to use a high level of subjectivity within the plot. The audience is forced to visually identify with the hero instead of through their motives and desires. Many point of view shots are used, especially during dreamlike sequences creating a level verisimilitude. These subjective shots are acceptable in the continuity editing system but are often preceded or followed by a shot containing the viewer. Art films normally contain other continuity violations creating a loose arrangement of causality which opens gaps in the progression of the plot. This creates interludes where the audience is asked to question where the film is heading. Despite being a major flaw to classicism, this concept of deciphering a movie is widely accepted by art film critics. In most cases, the audience expects that they will have to think hard about what is happening in the movie and how it will end. This notion of having to figure out a film does not appeal to all. Therefore, different production and distribution methods are used in comparison to America’s studio machine.

Classical films and art films are defined through their use of causality, continuity editing, subjectivity and plausibility. The Day the Earth Stood Still and 8 ½ are two films that employ these concepts. The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Robert Wise is a classical, science fiction film that is a prime example of the continuity editing system. Driven by the nature of causality, almost every scene is joined by a causal link. One example occurs in the sequence in which Klattu and Bobby have just gone to see the spaceship. Klattu finds out that Professor Bernhardt is the greatest intellect in the area. Klattu tells Bobby that they will go see Bernhardt then a fade occurs and the next sequence shows Bobby and Klattu walking towards a house. The audience infers that this house is Bernhardt’s.

While 8 ½, which was made by Federico Fellini, contains some of these causal links, most of the major scene changes are left to let the viewer organize. The Day the Earth Stood Still doesn’t contain any fantasy or dream sequences such as the sequence in which Guido speaks to all of the women from his life. This sequence is preceded by one of Guido’s daydreams. The link is a continuation of Guido’s fantasy but there is no signpost for the audience to anticipate what is coming. Fellini does not abandon the entire continuity system. Instead of following regimented rules, it seems that he has chosen to apply certain codes when he pleases. When Guido speaks to the Writer at the spa, Fellini reframes many times to keep Guido, the Writer and Mezzabotta all in the frame. Then when Gloria is introduced we are shifted to a shot/reverse shot between Guido, and Gloria with Mezzabotta.

Wise and Fellini also differ in their construction of spatial and temporal relations. The Day the Earth Stood Still uses the system of establishing shots and closer framing to set up the setting. This space is maintained by the use of the 180 degree rule as is seen in the sequence where Klattu speaks to Professor Bernhardt in his office. While Bernhardt walks around the room we remain on one side of the action. This line is only partially broken after a match on action is made. Fellini, however, chooses to cross the line of action numerous times. Often there are moments where the axis is crossed to provide a subjective shot. In the sequence that Guido is being hounded by reporters at the press conference, the Mindreader is seen in the background. A close-up is given to the Mindreader and then a close-up a Guido is shown. In this shot Guido is traveling to the right, instead of the left in the previous shot. These types of spatial relations can be disorienting, especially when accompanied by a gap in the temporal chain. The audience believes the gap from the previous sequence to be only a day according to the Producer’s dialogue. Once Guido arrives to meet the Producer, the viewer is informed that three days have elapsed, not one. These abrupt gaps are uncommon in classical films. The Day the Earth Stood Still operates on a daily, temporal chain. When a gap of more than a day is presented, such as the closing of the scene where Klattu and Bernhardt arrange the demonstration, a verbal link is made, to accompany the fade out that ends the scene.

These opposing methods of constructing a fictional world are necessary to the viewer’s interpretation of the main characters. Guido is a weak, deviant in comparison to Klattus confidence and presence. The use of the camera to create a chaotic, confusing world only supports the motif of disorientation in 8 1/2. Fellini’s chaotic world does not present the same level of verisimilitude that Wises structured narrative can provide. This causes Fellini to rely heavily on direct, subjective shots from Guido’s point of view. This allows the spectator to create an association with Guido that is created out of desire, and not from necessity due to the restricted narrative. Even though this association is created, Fellini still manipulates the audience into a subjective trap in the scene where reporters ask questions directly into the camera. One infers that they are being delivered to Guido, but the camera pans right to discover Guido walking amongst a crowd. These instances often cause the characters to lose credibility within the fictional world.

The main characters in these films display contrasting traits and attitudes. Klattu is a strong, confident man possessing great power and control over those around him. Even as Mr. Carpenter, he is able to influence others. His goal is to warn the people of Earth and he confronts every obstacle in his path with a cool attitude. When one object is placed in front of Guido, he tries to avoid any form of confrontation. The scene in which Guido is being escorted to the press conference shows him trying to run away, and then collapsing when he is dragged closer. He avoids making any decisions about the movie, which prevents the narrative from advancing. This procrastination causes the plot to stall throughout the movie leaving the audience in a state of boredom or anticipation. Klattu’s determination to find a figure of authority cancels out any possibility for these stalls. This assertion adds to the character of Klattu and strengthens the story.
While classical cinema and art cinema are both widely popular film genres, they are created through different means. These two practices involve the same principles and techniques, but they are used to different ends. One is used to create a progressive, narrative oriented story, while the other creates a character motivated film.

The Importance of Chapter Seven In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Stephen Massey
November 19, 2004


The colonization of Nigeria by the British during the late nineteenth century brought an end to the cultural freedom of Igbo people. The invasion of the white man in Africa destroyed most of the cultural history of Nigeria. Chinua Achebe tries to reconstruct this culture for the post-colonial Nigerians with his novel Things Fall Apart. Chapter seven is significant to the themes of the novel as it examines the Igbo concept of masculinity and the father-son relationship, while also furthering the plot with key foreshadowing scenes. By examining the key points in this particular chapter, the reader will obtain a greater understanding of the novel, and how Achebe constructs his narrative.

In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, one of the most important themes in the novel is the Igbo depiction of masculinity. The Igbo believe a strong man to be a great man. Okonkwo deeply respects the traditions and customs of his tribe, and ensures that he is observed to be a strong, confident individual. He also wishes his son, Nwoye, to be “a tough young man capable of ruling his father’s household when he [is] dead…” (37). Chapter seven helps convey this theme through the use of proverbs as well as character development. Nwoye begins to display the masculine traits that his father pursues, by yearning to prove himself with the acceptance of traditionally masculine jobs like cutting wood. He also begins to disapprove of women and the childish tales they tell. This is relevant because it shows that Nwoye is finding his masculinity by oppressing those who are weaker than him, much like the white man exerts power over the Igbo people, and how his father controls those around him. Okonkwo believes that his son has finally proved himself, but once Nwoye realizes Ikemufuna is dead, he bursts into tears. Okonkwo is disgusted with this display of weakness and beats him. He sees crying as a feminine quality, and considers men to be above women. “No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man” (37). Okonkwo’s thoughts about the role of women are a powerful image that reinforces his desire for prestige, power and respect, which he chooses to obtain through his masculinity.

The relationship between father and son is a significant aspect to the novel’s overall development. Okonkwo’s fear of turning into Unoka plays a major role in his upbringing of Nwoye, and his influence on Ikemufuna. Chapter seven is a turning point for the interaction of these three characters. In this chapter, Okonkwo begins to show pride in Nwoye as he starts to take a more masculine role in the compound. This is mostly due to the guidance of Ikemufuna, and the great bond these two sons have created. Ikemufuna’s compassion towards others allows him to become the paternal figure that Nwoye has never had, and Okonkwo cannot be. Okonkwo recognizes Ikemufuna’s influence on Nwoye, and invites both of them to eat in his obi, which is a great privilege. This action of allowing the two young men to eat with him, not only shows Okonkwo’s approval of his son, but it also expresses Okonkwo’s acceptance of Ikemufuna as a son. Ikemufuna also realizes this bond with Okonkwo, as he is walking through the forest. “He could hardly imagine that Okonkwo was not his real father” (42). The fact that the impostance of their relationship is stated explicitly Ikemufuna enhances the gravity of Okonkwo’s actions. After Ikemufuna is struck by the first blow, he runs to Okonkwo begging for help, calling him “father.” Okonkwo delivers the fatal blow, killing Ikemufuna, so as not to appear weak in front of the other men. Once Nwoye realizes that Ikemufuna has been killed, he no longer trusts his father. This causes a rift between the two men and forces Nwoye to question his father and his excessive masculinity. This rejection of Okonkwo’s way of life creates an ironic parallel to Okonkwo’s rejection of his father, Unoka, as it shows that Okonkwo has inadvertently completed his goal. He has raised his son to be just like his father, as they both reject their fathers’ way of life.

Things Fall Apart is a well-crafted book that guides the reader to certain expectations and emotions. This is done as Achebe constructs certain plot elements that foreshadow later climaxes. Chapter seven contains two key events that contribute to many integral scenes in the latter part of the book. As Okonkwo, Nwoye and Ikemufuna are repairing the outer wall of the compound, the locusts arrive in Umuofia. In Igbo culture the locusts are not perceived as a bad omen, but as a tasty gift that arrives only once every generation. The locusts first come in a small group, and then a large swarm invades Umuofia. The swarm of locusts represents the later arrival of the white man, who first sent a messenger, and was followed by a larger group. This is confirmed in the second part of the novel: “… white men were on their way. They were locusts, it said, that first man was their harbinger sent to explore the terrain” (98). By the direct use of the word locust this is a clear link to the scene in chapter seven. The other major event in chapter seven that leads into future conflicts is the death of Ikemufuna. Once Nwoye has learned of Ikemufuna’s death he is reminded of when he overheard a baby crying from the Evil woods. These two instances force Nwoye to question his culture and its customs. Nwoye later refuses the Igbo and joins the Christian missionaries. The death of Ikemufuna also affects Okonkwo and the rest of the tribe. Okonkwo’s fatal blow delivered after he has called him “father,” displays Okonkwo’s ability to severe a paternal connection in order to maintain his self image. This resonates in his disowning of Nwoye after he joins the Christians and changes his name to Isaac. Okonkwo also creates a rift between himself and the clan after he disobeys advice given to him by Ogbeufi. He states it would be wrong for Okonkwo to go against traditions and play a hand in the death of Ikemufuna since, “He calls you father” (41). Okonkwo has already disobeyed a clan tradition by beating Ojiugo during the Week of Peace. This brutal act is a stepping stone in Okonkwo’s inevitable expulsion from the tribe. This death also hints at Nwoye’s later choice to join the missionaries as Ikemefuna is sacrificed for the good of the clan, and to prevent a future war between the two tribes.

Once the reader has fully grasped the concepts outlined in chapter seven, they will be able to analyze Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, with greater depth. The seventh chapter contains pertinent information to the development of the plot leading up to the climax in the latter part of the novel, as well as clearly displaying strong examples of masculinity and the paternal figure, as central themes in the novel. Chapter seven plays a pivotal role in the overall narrative of the novel, which displays the Igbo way of life, and how it was destroyed by the invasion of the white man.

Narration in Early Cinema

From the beginnings of cinema, around 1895 to the late teens of the twentieth century, cinema underwent a major reform of stylistic properties. Its initial use of displaying actualities, normally landscapes or news events, carried the industry until it became a mainstay in the artistic world. By the late teens, cinema had changed structurally to become a form of narrative. The shift from non-narrative to narrative filmmaking was caused by a desire for a more middle class audience. Along with this motion, the presentation of character psychology and the technical and stylistic innovations that arose during this time became the basis for the narrative film. While these were the most influential factors, others also led to the creation and acceptance of the narrative film. Some of these were cinema’s ability to adapt certain influences, it’s longevity as a novelty in the entertainment industry and the financial restrictions placed upon it. In order to have a greater understanding of the key reasons that led to the creation of the feature film, it is necessary to outline these minor ones first.
After the initial surge of cinema had taken place, many theatres and producers saw a drop in attendance. This was mostly caused by the repetition in the subject of most films. Many filmmakers only recorded landscapes or special events. The problem with this method is that, after a while, one begins to run out of material to use. Tom Gunning’s definition of the “Cinema of Attractions” (60) acknowledges the undeveloped nature of early cinema and it’s use as a spectacle. The use of news events as topics also created a major problem, as there were periods where the news lacked any major stories to produce. The audience might also lose interest in a particular subject before the producers found another subject to start documenting. One response was by using audience foreknowledge of other artistic materials as the basis of the film. Sadly, this idea was not well received by the mass audiences, as Charles Musser points out. The use of audience foreknowledge was not a success, since only a limited number of sources could be used that were well known by general masses (262). In order to create more material for visual spectacles, many filmmakers began to look to other cultures and modes of representation.
While American firms were producing films regularly, there was a large market for foreign imports from the exhibitors. Many producers simply copied many of the imported films for distribution within the American market. Many of the popular Italian, costume epics were mimicked as well as the French Film D’art, which was very popular throughout the European and American theatres (D. Bordwell 35). This led to the acceptance of many new stylistic techniques, since at that time the cinematic industry was still quite international in production and exchange (K. Thompson 43). The creation of the MPPC affected many of the independent filmmakers within the states. Many producers were forced to make multi-reel films due to the one-reel standard, instituted by the MPPC. This restriction also acted negatively towards members of the MPPC as they only created only one-reel films. Another restriction placed upon all American filmmakers was the financial concerns of many producers as they expressed great frustration with the large costs associated with actualities. The expenses required to venture to an exotic land were large. The endless possibilities of narrative were no match for the restriction of exotic locales. These narratives could also be rewritten to fit into a producer’s budget. By preplanning the budget with the plot, the film industry was able to create the continuity script. By listing all of the scenes in a film and organizing them by location and time, expenses were saved by not having to pay for the costs of travelling back and forth between locations to shoot in narrative order. By saving money on unnecessary spending, firms were able to use surplus funds to begin experimenting with certain genres and narrative styles.
Accompanied with these three causes, narrative filmmaking began as the film industry wished to entertain a more middle-class audience. The majority of most nickelodeon audiences in the United States were the working class, along with mothers and their children who regularly visited in the major urban theatres. Due to the reduction of hours in the workweek and the deficiency of a language barrier, many immigrants found the cinema as a cheap entertainment. During this nickelodeon boom, the many exhibitors met great criticism from many religious groups and social workers as the depicted theatres as sinister, unsanitary places. Despite it’s progression as an industry, the cinema was getting a bad image as a place where young minds were corrupted by films of executions, murder and prostitution. There was also concern over the portrayal of America to the foreign working class. Soon, enough pressure by reform groups led to many theatres deemed as health and safety risks to the public. The film industry counteracted this movement by trying to create a more respectable image of cinema as a refined art form. Exhibitors introduced the movie palace in 1913, which had the capacity of two thousand seats and were modelled by the architecture of many exotic countries like Egypt or Greece. Visiting these lavish theatres, along with the uniformed ushers and high-quality service provided was considered almost as exciting as the films themselves. Many exhibitors were also able to afford multiple projectors that established multi reel films as a part of the exhibition industry.
Producers also began to target the middle and upper class spectators by following the popularity of the French Film D’art. Many studios began creating adaptations of stage plays, or original material written by acclaimed authors, starring big name, theatre actors. Productions of historical and biblical events became an option as attention was directed towards the causal and thematic elements of certain events. As these new types of films were created, censorship boards were put in place to silence the critical reform groups about the content of the films. (D. Bordwell, K. Thompson 40) Filmmakers were now able to address the issues of how to make a more complex film that would satisfy the middle class’ demand for stimulation and engagement.
As the subject matter of films steadily shifted towards literary adaptations and cause and effect progression, the focus for many filmmakers was to increase the emphasis on character psychology. For an audience member to become engaged with a film, some level of identification is needed to allow the viewer to project their emotions or experiences onto the characters, making them seem more lifelike and believable. As agency was given to characters within the film, the original method of melodrama acting created problems as the wild gestures often could not convey the character’s emotions clearly. The act of looking into the camera was also removed from most filmmaking as it created a disruption in the viewer’s interaction with the film. In order for the audience to identify with the character, the actor needs to be presented well in a realistic environment. Filmmakers began to move the camera closer to the actors, in order to be able to read their gestures and facial expressions. By using close-ups and medium shots, actors were able to rely on their facially expressed emotions. The three-quarter shot was established in 1911, framing the character from the head to just above the knees. (Pearson 29). This created a visual balance between the character and their environment.
The credibility of the diegetic world was also required for the viewer’s ability to accept the narrative. Filmmakers tried to create a realistic set using techniques such as shooting on location and the use of key lighting to represent a diegetic light source. The point of view shot also allowed audiences to identify with the characters, as close-ups of certain objects within the scene were able to present characters’ thoughts. The use of marked camera angles and mobile framing were also useful in the presentation of a character’s point of view. By setting up a level of verisimilitude within the story and by presenting a series of subjective views of the characters, attention slowly began to shift to the causalities involved within the movie. Intertitles helped convey some of these causes. Expository titles summarized an upcoming action or situation while dialogue titles functioned as the final step in conveying the plot to the audience. As these techniques helped the audience to identify with the characters on a personal level, filmmakers used innovations within production to help the audience understand the narrative as a whole.
As films became longer and more structured, the amount of shots required to tell the narrative became greater. Many technical and stylistic achievements by filmmakers allowed for the clarification of spatial and temporal relations, the foundation of narrative filmmaking. In order to tell a story clearly, emphasis rests on the most important elements of the visual. The use of masks and irises, along with close shots and cut-ins, allowed the filmmaker to direct the audiences’ gaze towards key objects in the scene, opposed to the original system of a single, panoramic take. The use of only one long shot created the possibility for losing the viewer, as they had to take in every detail of the screen. (Cook 209). The emergence of the tripod, around 1911, also helped to clarify the filmic space as panning and tilting kept the viewer within the same space, opposed to cutting which required an unconscious check of the space filmed. The establishment of spatial relations was standardized through the creation of the 180-degree rule, and the use of contiguity editing. Characters would exit the frame in one shot on one side and emerge on the opposite side in the next shot, creating the match on action cut. Characters would also emerge from the same exit in a scene, as can be seen in the film Rescued by Rover (UK 1905) when the dog enters and exits from the same point of the frame as it runs back and forth between the baby and the house.
The development of temporal relations allowed the viewer to construct the entire narrative without being disrupted abruptly. The removal of overlapping action and the creation of parallel editing allowed for the presentation of more complex stories (Musser 269). In The Runaway Horse (France 1907), shots alternate between the horse eating a bag of oats and the deliveryman. Each cut to the horse shows the bag of oats emptier and the horse more muscular. These two separate scenes are shown together as they create an element of suspense that is inherent to the film and the chase genre, which Tom Gunning states as “the original truly narrative genre of the cinema, providing a model for causality and linearity….” (60)
During the first two decades of the twentieth century in the United States, film subject matter deviated from the original non-narrative form to a more narrative-oriented cinema. This transition was caused by the film industry’s desire for a more bourgeois audience as well as the focus on identification and narrative clarity, which required the creation of many innovations within film production.


Bibliography
Borwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film History: An Introduction. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003.
Cheval emballé, Le (The Runaway Horse). Dir. Louis J. Gasnier. France, 1908.
“History of Narrative Codes: Introduction & Early Cinema." The Cinema Book. ed. Pam Cook. London: British Film Institute, 1985. pp. 208-211.
Gunning, Tom. “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde," 1986, rpt. In Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative. ed. Thomas Elsaesser. London: BFI, 1990. pp. 56-62.
Musser, Charles. “The Nickelodeon Era Begins: Establishing the Framework for Hollywood’s Mode of Representation," 1984, rpt. In Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative. pp. 256-273.
Pearson, Roberta. “Transitional Cinema," in The Oxford History of World Cinema, ed. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. pp. 23-42.Rescued by Rover. Dir. Lewin Fitzhamon and Cecil M. Hepworth. US, 1905.

Cinema's Superiority to Stage

In this comparative paper, I will explain some of the improvements that cinema has made on theatre by looking at Hugo Munsterberg’s “The Psychogy of the Photoplay,” and Boris Eihkenbaum’s “Cine-Stylistics.” Hugo Munsterberg and Boris Eihkenbaum consider cinema superior to theatre in its ability to construct a spatially and temporally coherent world, which allows for greater ease in involving the spectator and directing their attention throughout the film

One of cinema’s most noticeable features over theatre is its method of constructing a believable space and temporal continuity. Film has many powers that theatre can never possess. One of which is the obvious realism inherent with capturing the real world on film. Plays can create lavish sets using painted canvases and elaborate arrangements of flats, but their falsity takes away from the overall impression of the work (Langdale, 84). The stage and screen also differ in their presentation of the space. Firstly, it is necessary to point out the opposite orientations. All stages are constructed to appear narrow at the back and widen towards the audience to ensure maximum visibility. Film space however is a limitless space presented by the narrow framing of the camera. Another difference of presentation is the distance of the spectator from objects in that space. Theatre spectators can lose clarity on the objects that compile a setting due to the distance between the actual stage and the spectator. Without the ability to magnify certain objects, as done in a close-up, many audience members may miss key information of the play.
As any film spectator may notice, a great advantage of film over theatre is its ability to transport the viewer to any place or time in a matter of seconds. The quick changeovers allow greater significance to be applied to the two settings. The seamless transition from one space to another allows the plot to continue without interruption for a set change. The space of the theatre integrates itself into the plot, as it is restricted to the boundaries of the stage (Taylor, 21). An audience member does not even fathom what exists past these imaginary walls, while a cinema spectator can marvel at the complexity of the limitless space presented. Whether shot in a studio or on location, something always exists just offscreen whether it is more landscape or the studio itself. As the audience never sees what lies offscreen, the sense of a vast space is always present in their minds.
Just as film is more coherent in constructing a spatially plausible world, it is also more skilled at creating a logical, compelling timeline. Time in the theatre sense is passive in nature (Taylor, 24). The time that passes for the characters is parallel to that of the spectator. On of the main theatrical problems is to fill time by condensing the written work to allow as much plot into the designated time as possible. Scenes are often laid out in chronological order and must be shown in a causal succession. Film, however, is able to manipulate time to suit its artistic needs. Film’s main temporal problem is not filling time but constructing time. As the world onscreen often digests time at an alarming rate, filmmakers are more concerned with how to link these temporal moments together as simply as they can. Film is able to cut out certain chunks of time in order to progress to the next narrative step. Unlike theatre, Film has the ability to infuse scenes from the future as well as scenes from the past. These are referred to as flash-forwards and cutbacks (Taylor, 98). While a play can reference another point in time through speech, cinema is able to return to that moment and present the necessary information in a more compelling method. Theatre’s inability to display multiple spaces also restricts its capacity to portray a character’s thoughts, memories or premonitions. The visual portrayal provided onscreen can create a state of suspense as well as begin a chain of causality. By withholding these spaces and moments visually, spectators might not be able to immerse themselves within the play as well as in the cinema.
A patron’s involvement with the material is vital to their appreciation and understanding of the play or film as a whole. While both arts do employ the audiences’ reception of plot and time, the stage treats the spectator as more of a fly on the wall while cinema treats the viewer as a secluded individual who is alone in a theatre. A similarity between theatre and film is their reliance on the audience to provide their own personal experiences that they can use to help create a more emotionally charged interpretation (Langdale, 79). Munsterberg states that each spectator has to deal with two different groups of emotions during a performance. The first concerns the emotions produced in response to the play or film and the second pertains to the emotions transmitted by the characters towards the spectator. “The visual perception of the various forms of expression of these emotions fuses in [the] mind with the conscious awareness of the emotion expressed; we feel if we were directly seeing and observing the emotion itself. (Langdale, 105).” This creation of an experience from within the mind is quite small compared to the mind’s creation of movement and depth within a film.
While the stage is unnatural, it is three-dimensional causing the actions to seem more credible. Film is also able to establish a notion of depth, which combined with the naturalistic settings, is much more accessible to the spectator than the stage. This filmic depth is created by the orientation of objects onscreen through their differences in apparent size, their perspective relations and their subsequent shadows. Objects moving away or towards the camera can also display the depth of a scene (Langdale, 68). The mind also creates the illusion of movement in film through the effect of a positive afterimage. A positive afterimage refers to the act of light causing a perception in our eye and when the light continues its path, the new perception overlaps causing an aftereffect that is different from the original perception (Langdale, 72). These mental activities occur subconsciously with the spectator. They are perceived as real actions in a real space. While these mind processes are happening, we are also conscious of other interactions. On both stage and screen, scenes are presented in a specific order so that certain ideas and emotions are aroused and maintained. The theatre neglects the transition between scenes and relies on titled acts or verbally supplied causes. Since film contains many more scenes than a play will, the use of titled cards would become redundant for every change of space. This has caused filmmakers to rely on the audience’s development of an inner speech that helps to fill in the narrative gaps. Boris Eihkenbaums definition of internal speech dictates that “the spectator must constantly compile a chain of [scenes]… to enable him to divine the meaning of an episode….(Taylor, 12).” This creation of an internal speech must be able to link together the basic connection between scenes, but also must be able to understand the placement of flash-forwards and cutbacks with regard to the present action. Another major function of internal speech is to maintain knowledge of multiple spaces when techniques such as crosscutting are employed. As the action switches from one space to another, the spectator is able to imagine what has happened since the last time a space was projected (Taylor, 27). In the theatre, this notion of internal speech is utilized to understand the motivation and causality that links scenes together. These links, which are also created for film, can base themselves upon an associative relation between the two scenes. Another form of link between scenes is the effect of suggestion. In theatre, most actions play out until their end so that the audiences’ premonitions and thought processes are not lost. In cinema, many actions are cut or interplayed with other scenes to cut down on time. When characters in a play die or make love, the actions present themselves in full to the viewer, but in film, these actions remain offscreen leaving the details of the action to the spectator to produce. This effect allows the audience member to achieve a sense of control over what is actually happening within the story.
Our involvement with a spectacle on stage or screen fuels our interest in the work. Whether a performance is captivating enough to hold our attention is the backbone of a work of art. Patrons attend the theatre and cinema to be entertained. These spectacles are based upon our voluntary and involuntary attention. Existing in both the theatre and the screen, these categories help direct us through the art’s composition as well as contribute meaning through our perception. Voluntary attention occurs when we approach the material through our own personal interest. Involuntary attention occurs when cues present objects or people for us to focus on. Primarily involuntary attention is the nature of distractions. All that is bright and shiny or emotionally controlling grabs our attention. The delicate balance of these two categories is the main challenge of a director. In theater, we may pay attention to any object regardless of its importance to the current action. When a character speaks, we are drawn to them yet through their words we may begin to gaze elsewhere. The movement in a scene controls our attention whether through a motion towards the foreground, a gesture in a motionless crowd or a quick or unusual movement. The observations apply to the structure of cinema with the exception that cinema is able to direct our attention more clearly by using certain cinematic techniques. The most important technique used is the close-up. In film, all of our attention is directed to a single object, gesture, movement or facial expression by enlarging that object or action to fill the entire screen. This magnification serves to produce detail in an object and to reduce the amount of distractions onscreen. The stage can only reduce the distraction by employing a blackout and a spotlight on a given object. This method, resembling the filmic close-up, only destroys the scene by jarring the audience with this unconventional technique. In most cases, significance is displayed through verbal reference. This only directs attention to an object; it is unable to visually present significance. Since the object is not isolated, the remainder of the scene distracts the viewer from achieving a true understanding of the significance as it dilutes the perception. In order to achieve significance, the spectators must remove themselves from the scene and consciously focus on the object, as is outlined by Munsterberg.
“As we are passing along the street we see
something in the shop window and as soon
as stirs up our interest, our body adjusts itself,
we stop, we fixate it, we get more of the detail
in it, the lines become sharper, and while is impresses
us more vividly than before, the street around us has
lost its vividness and clearness. (Taylor, 86).”

As we become more and more conscious of our focal point, our senses begin to adapt themselves to enhance the perception and absorption, isolating us from the world around us. This is one of the key fundamentals behind the moviegoers’ ideal viewing environment.
In cinema, attention is obtained using movement since audible words are not possible. This creates an even greater focus on the movement of film. A filmmaker accentuates these movements by using light, shadows, and vagueness that play on the involuntary attention. Eihkenbaum extends this structure of composition of the shot, outlined by Munsterberg, in his theory that the composition of scenes can focus attention. Since theatre cannot supply flashbacks or flash forwards as a visual spectacle, they must rely on speeches to remind or relate this information to the viewer. By asking the viewer to recall or create his or her own mental scenes, the spectator is temporarily excused from the action onstage, into a daydream (Langdale, 89). Cinema tries to avoid such periods of detachment by linking scenes together in a causal method. Film also tries to hold the attention of the audience through the concept of photogeny. Eihkenbaum describes photogeny as a way of presenting a deformed version of the world (Taylor, 15). This deformed version contains a produced beauty and an aspect of spectacle. Through faster editing and the spectator’s required acknowledgement of each shot, photogeny can create a sense of constant surveillance. Along with this method, directors can also present multiple angles of the same object, similar to the 30-degree rule of the continuity system, which can produce various stylistic effects. These multiple angles, in collection with every other shot in a film have yet another advantage over theatre. The mimicry of actors onstage is continuous and realistic, yet it still holds the possibility of being a poor presentation at that time. Film is able to rewards a performance or action multiple times on different days and choose the most expressive or captivating performance (Langdale, 101). While theatre can impart a sense of impressiveness due to its live performance, it is no match for film’s ability to present the possibility of a flawless performance, having all errors been removed through editing and multiple takes.
Hugo Munsterberg and Boris Eihkenbaum outline the relationship between theatre and film, as they describe cinema’s superiority over the stage by analyzing the construction of spatial and temporal continuity. We have seen how each medium involves the spectator and how their attention is directed and utilized to create a greater understanding of the representation.


Bibliography
Langdale, Allan, ed. Hugo Munsterberg on Film: “The Photoplay: A Psychological Study and Other Writings. NY: Routledge, 2002.
Taylor, Richard, ed. “The Poetics of Cinema.” Russian: Poetics in Translation 9. Oxford: RPT Publishing, 1982.

Spectator Identification within Five Easy Pieces

This paper will describe some of the possible meanings that might have arisen in audiences after Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces premiered on September 11, 1970 in New York City. Five Easy Pieces’ depiction of the class conflicts and social concerns during the late 1960s and early 1970s produced a diverse collection of identifications between the film’s characters and the audiences of 1970. This argument will be accompanied by a detailed look at three scenes from the film.
In probably one of the most memorable scenes, Jack Nicholson and party have stopped in at a diner for lunch. After ordering a plain omelet with a side order of toast and coffee, the waitress tell him that they do not serve side orders of toast. He becomes confused as the waitress explains the rules of the diner. Despite his efforts he is only met with statements such as “I don’t make the rules,” and “Do you see that sign?” After being asked to leave, he clears the table with his arm sending glasses everywhere. This protest appealed to a large audience, as it pointed out some of the absurdities of daily life enforced by “management.” Here, Nicholson could have been seen as a rebellious hero from different perspectives as he embodies more than one stereotype of the decade.
First, he is glorified by the counter culture with his rebellion against any form of institution. The desire to withstand control was very strong within the youths of America as the film’s debut occurred only a few months after the shootings at Kent State University. During early May, many students protested the war in Vietnam and its expansion into Cambodia by writing letters to President Nixon and protesting in sit-ins and rallies. After their efforts went unnoticed, the students turned to violence to express their demands by burning an ROTC building to the ground. The National Guard arrived the next day and broke up a rally, resulting in the unnecessary killings of four students. The National Guard responded by claiming that the soldiers were attacked by a student sniper but later stated that they were unable to find any evidence to support that claim.[1] The President also showed no remorse for the event saying, “…[these deaths] should remind us all once again that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy….”[2] The responses of the President and the National Guard were unsympathetic to the events at Kent State and only generated more outrage causing more students and schools to go on strike. The actions at Kent State sent up to 448 schools across the country to go on strike.[3] These protests continued throughout May and well into the summer.
Secondly, Nicholson’s actions also met by encouragement from the construction workers of that time by portraying an oil rigger from California, who does in fact wear a hard hat and who enjoys the blue-collar life. Many workers could have accepted his protest against the waitress and his attitude towards the hitchhiker Palm. In September of 1970, many construction workers would have still remembered the “Hard Hat Riots” that occurred earlier that year. These riots consisted of a large group of construction workers disrupting a rally of students against the Vietnam War by attacking “…those youths with the most hair and swatting them with their helmets.”[4] After dispersing the crowd, they then turned on the police accusing them of being unpatriotic by allowing these youths to protest. The actions of these workers could have materialized during the viewing of this scene as Nicholson opposes the management as well as the counter culture. When the waitress asks if he would like to talk to the management, Palm rises up to confront the waitress but is thwarted and disposed of by Nicholson with a simple, “Shut up.” Before this scene, the audience meets Palm and her bond to the hippie ideals of the sixties. The blue-collar audience member would have noticed that in one of the only confrontations between hippies and labourers, the blue collar won.
The wide ranges of responses produced by this scene are accentuated by the angling and composition of this scene. The scene is composed of Nicholson and the women at lower level and the waitress standing above them. The scene remains at a medium shot as the waitress points out the rules on the menu, but as soon as she begins to show attitude by stating he can order only what is on the menu, the shot changes to a close-up from a low angle visually showing her power over the others. A medium shot returns as Nicholson attempts to be polite, but then jumps to a shot/reverse shot of Nicholson and the waitress as they fight for control of the situation. This visual construction of oppression and jockeying for control can enforce the response by either the youths or construction workers. At the end of the fight, Nicholson sweeps the table in a surge of violence, expressive of both responses, in its visual chaos of the glasses and water flying across the screen. During the shot/reverse shot, Palm rises up and the camera follows hers. This is the only motion of the entire scene. As Palm, the stereotypical hippie and visual representation of the counter culture, tries to fight for the rights of that culture, Nicholson abruptly stops this movement with relative ease. This composition of shots would display to the blue-collar audience the ability to control this new counter culture of the seventies.
While the new counter culture was integrating itself into society through submission, they were also submitting their ideals and concerns about the country. The audiences of 1970 were well aware of the growing environmental and economic problems that were developing. In Five Easy Pieces’ Bobby and Rayette pick up two hitchhikers on their way to Washington. One of them named Palm Apodaca, played by Helena Kallianiotes, is heading to Alaska to get away from the filth and crap that is destroying America. She worries about the amounting garbage and junk that is accumulating in households and the problems of mass production. She thinks that “Man” should throw all of their possessions and garbage into a hole and burn them. Palm also blames humankind’s inability to clean up after themselves as the problem of all the filth in America. Her rant on the decay of America continues after they leave the diner.
Palm’s assessment of the environmental concerns of that year would be very influential on the audiences’ reception of the movie due to her accuracy. Many spectators would have understood her plight as pollution became a growing concern. Throughout July of the film’s year of release, New York City’s air quality was deemed ‘Unsatisfactory by the Department of Air Resources, which used to be called Pollution Control.[5] Many believed autos to be the source of this pollution, including Senator Gaylord Nelson who thought that an outlaw on the internal combustion engine by 1975 would be effective. In late September, a bill unanimously passed stating that standards for Air Pollution Control would be raised by the year 1975. At one point in the film, Palm mentions a steam-powered car that would solve the filth problem. While today this might seem as a pipe dream for a film of the seventies, Detroit had created working prototype models for the integration of steam into the automotive industry.[6] Ironically, the integration of steam and alternate power sources was rivaled by the oil industry, for whom Nicholson’s character works. Another connection between the film and real life events is Palm’s belief that “they” will not allow the steam car to be sold. Senator Nelson also acknowledged that conspiracy theory of a government keeping technology and secrets from us.



“The entire automotive industry was engaged in an
illegal conspiracy from 1953 to 1968 to delay the development
and installation of air pollution control equipment on motor
vehicles . . . .The public is justified in having grave doubts
about the sincerity of the automotive industry in its ever
taking significant action in dealing with the emissions from
the internal combustion engine, which account for some 60
percent of the nation’s air pollution problem and up to 90
percent in some metropolitan areas.”[7]

Helena Kallianotes’ character also worries about the large accumulation of crap in households and streets. The abundance of technological gadgets, like a disposal, the abundance of garbage, like the coke bottles, and street litter, her mention of the signs, are like the pollution situation, being a known concern to audiences. Supporters of the world that Kallianotes represents would view the movie as an honest depiction of the present world including many whistleblower scenes such as this one. In August of 1970, the National Industrial Conference Board conducted a survey of consumer moods and discovered that while mass production is rising, the desire among consumers to purchase a new car or home is falling. “The falling off in spending expectations from a year [since 1970] ranges from 10 percent on major appliances through 30 percent on new automobiles to 47 percent on new homes.”[8] Already an abundance of garbage and technological junk has shown itself to the public, as well as the universe. “More than 1800 objects were actually adrift in August 1970. Of that number more than 1400 were classified by NORAD as ‘Earth-orbiting debris.’”[9] Mostly consisting of retired space equipment and malfunctioning space probes and satellites.
All of the relevant discoveries would have allowed the audience to see Palm as an example of the counter culture in the right. The rebellious section of the audience would have been empowered by Palm’s speech, and perhaps taking her advice of moving to Alaska, which is a possibility of the unknown cold climate that Nicholson ventures to at the end of the film. The audience would have accepted her as credible female since she is presented as the only woman in the movie that does not adapt to another’s influence.
On the other hand, those who are politically opposed to the ideals of Palm and not caught up in her words would be able to see the film’s sarcastic approach to her. While her words express the counter culture of the 1970s, the film turns her speech into a running gag with the frequent repetition of “I don’t even want to talk about it,” and the twangy country music that intercuts each argument. Her dismissal in the diner by Nicholson shows her lack of agency within the film, and her inability to remember the word steam, the word to describe hot air. Another factor that might influence the audience’s reception is the portrayal of her motives and desires. Our first introduction to Palm tells the audience that she is going to Alaska where she thinks it is cleaner, since it looked very white in photographs. While Palm continues her rant about garbage, filth and the stink of man, she smokes for the majority. Smoking creates toxins that can affect the air though they are not as bad as automobiles, and cigarettes create a longing odour that is hard to remove. Cigarette butts are also some of the most common pieces of litter, as well as some of the slowest to bio-degrade. The oppositions contained within the audiences’ views on Palm are similar to the overall reception of Nicholson’s character Robert “Bobby” Dupea.
The film’s main plot revolves around Bobby’s return home to see his dying, nearly comatose father. The moment of stability in the plot arises when Bobby pushes his wheelchair-ridden father into a field and explains what has happened to him since he left home. He explains his nomadic tendency, and that he is not necessarily searching for anything, but mostly just running from bad situations. In this scene, Bobby finally displays some ‘inner emotion’ that has been previously avoided or denied. Bobby speaks to his father in a speech or monologue due to his father’s muteness. This scene is the explanation behind Bobby’s actions thus far in the film. At this point, the audience is given an option as to believe his apology to his father, or if he is still soulless inside. Critics and fans divided on the level of identification with the film. Many spectators considered Nicholson’s Bobby to be “…the quintessential modern man who is incapable of love.”[10] Many saw Bobby is fleeing from his “auspicious beginnings” as a true and honest depiction of their very lives, that was all too familiar to them.
Roger Greenspun and Peter Schjeldahl, critics for The New York Times, considered the movie quite poor with the exception of a few scenes. They acknowledged that the label of a ‘road movie,’ including the tagline “He rode the fast lane on the road to nowhere,” the journey between California and Washington only secures about 14 minutes of the film[11]. They also criticized the film on its ambiguous ending that did not serve a purpose, other than to fit in with the other sarcastic, ambiguous, American movies of that time.[12] Fans disagreed with their reception of the film claiming that the ending was obvious in the characters’ desires and motives for being a wanderer. So many people wrote in that the New York Times published an article called “‘Pieces’ Is So ‘Easy’ to Love,” consisting entirely of replies to the editor. One wrote, “As a matter of fact, I feel the story lends itself to the American Scene today and one could clearly identify with the characters portrayed.”[13] It must be said that this paper can only touch upon some of the possible interpretations that could have arisen from audiences of that time. While some news events have been used to describe the reception of this movie from the viewpoint of a counter culturist, a blue-collar worker, a film critic and an everyday film spectator, some news events have been passed or omitted due to the limits of the available research materials. From the available materials that have been analyzed it can be said that Five Easy Pieces’ depiction of class representation and the environmental concerns during the late 1960s and early 1970s produced a wide range of identifications between the film’s characters and the audiences of 1970. By analyzing the infamous ‘toast’ scene, Helena Kallianotes’ characterization of the “counter-culture” and the confrontation between Bobby and his father, we have seen where audiences might have generated these responses.
[1] Kifner, 1+.
[2] “Death on the Campus,” 42.
[3] Charlton, 19.
[4] Bigart, 4+.
[5] Kempton, 122.
[6]
[7]
[8] Kempton, 122.
[9]
[10] Diane Crothers Letter to the Editor in “‘Pieces’ Is So ‘Easy’ to Love,” 199+.
[11] Schjeldahl, X13.
[12] Greenspun, 26.
[13] “‘Pieces’ Is So ‘Easy’ to Love,” 119+.

Different Deceptions in 3.1 of Hamlet

In 3.1 of Hamlet, Prince Hamlet is upset that Ophelia is lying to him about her feelings and their relationship. He accuses her of deception and teasing his emotions. His attacks cause her to accept his madness and to feel sorrow for his condition.
After his soliloquy, Hamlet notices Ophelia’s presence and warmly greets her. The two immediately begin to argue as Ophelia tries to return the love letters and gifts that Hamlet has given her. Ophelia’s forceful approach causes Hamlet to feel attacked. Her actions are furthered by calling him unkind (3.1. 103). She says that his gifts have been stripped of any true meaning of love, seen in the phrase “…their perfume lost.” (3.1. 101). Ophelia offends Hamlet by her gesture to return the gifts. She also provokes Hamlet by acknowledging her appreciation of the gifts made “…with them of so sweet breath…” (3.1. 100), only to later describe them as worthless or “poor” (3.1. 103). Hamlet is further upset by Ophelia’s hypocrisy about honesty. She tells Hamlet that she was “…made to believe so” (3.1. 117) about his love and that she was “deceived” (3.1. 121). Her complaints are ironic since Ophelia is acting before him when she lies to Hamlet by calling him cruel for this deception of his love. Her complete lack of sympathy infuriates Hamlet, since she is the one who is obviously cruel and deceptive. Hamlet is heartbroken by this accusation and quickly begins to guilt Ophelia by presenting himself as a sinner with so many offences that he should not be alive (3.1. 124-125). At the end of his speech, Hamlet quickly asks, “…Where’s your father?” (3.1. 130). While this may signify that he is aware of Polonius’ presence, it is true that he has realized that Ophelia has been instructed by her father to perform this argument. Once Hamlet accuses her father of manipulating her, she no longer pays attention to him, asking for a “…heavenly power…” (3.1. 141) to restore him. Her plea signifies her acceptance of Hamlet’s madness, but also acts as a way for her to avoid Hamlet’s questioning which only irritates him more. At the moment when she should confess what her true motives are, she instead avoids the question. Her avoidance disappoints Hamlet, as he sees that she is unable to be herself in front of others.
While it is not overtly recognized in the text, Hamlet may also be upset with Ophelia’s rejection due to his stature. As the prince of Denmark, Hamlet may have expected her to accept his offer merely based on his social status. It is known that Ophelia is aware of his nobility due to the speech made by Laertes in 1.3, and her constant referral to Hamlet as a lord or lordship (3.1. 92, 95, 99, 106, 108, 111, 117, 131). While Hamlet did truly love Ophelia, it is possible that he was aware of his social elevation. His knowledge can be seen in his constant belittling of his own stature. When Hamlet states that he is “…proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck…” (3.1. 125-126), he may be referring to the many opportunities that he has to take power. The sentence can be interpreted that he is a proud and strong individual who has multiple actions that he can perform. Hamlet’s pride can be contrasted with his constant referral to himself as a lower class citizen. His depiction of himself as a “sinner” (3.1. 123) and an “…arrant knave…” (3.1. 129), along with his advice that Ophelia should instead choose a “fool” (3.1. 138) to marry, as an alternate or opposite of his position, all create a sarcastic impression of his figure.
Ophelia’s duplicity angers Hamlet, making him believe that she is not honest with him. Once she has accused Hamlet of deceiving her, he quickly turns her language back upon her and questions her honesty, “Ha, ha? Are you honest?” (3.1. 105) His accusation sets the entire mood for the following scene. Hamlet questions Ophelia’s integrity to Hamlet, and herself. Ophelia’s betrayal to Hamlet of returning his tokens of affection causes him to feel like a fool. Hamlet criticizes Ophelia for leading him on by questioning her honesty and her beauty, accusing her of using her beauty to manipulate him. He scolds her for allowing her honesty to interact with her beauty (3.1 109-110). Hamlet believes beauty to be more powerful than honesty (3.1. 113-115), which describes Hamlet’s position of honest love compared to Ophelia’s deceitful good looks. Hamlet’s accusation of Ophelia’s outwards appearance versus her internal honesty is later laid upon her when Hamlet accuses her of dancing, strutting and lying to avoid admitting to her “wantonness” (3.1. 145). Hamlet also criticizes her need to create, act and perform in front of others with regards to her physical appearance. He judges her need for the use of “paintings” (3.1. 142), or make-up, and even accuses her of defying God by covering up her natural face. These attacks on her physical appearance are paired with Hamlet’s attack on her emotions and her character. Hamlet is mean to her as she tries to give back his gifts by first denying that they are even his, “…I never gave you aught” (3.1. 98), and then by saying that he did love her once (3.1. 116), and then moments later that he never loved her at all (3.1. 119-120). The proximity of these two statements can be seen as Hamlet pretending his madness, but also as a deliberate attack against Ophelia. These attacks toward her continue as he questions her purity and virtue. Hamlet tells Ophelia to “Get thee to a nunnery…” (3.1. 122), so that Ophelia should take up a vow of celibacy to prevent hurting any other man. His command can also be meant to tell Ophelia to go to a brothel where her deceitful and impure qualities belong . Hamlet repeats this command three more times before he leaves. Hamlet scolds Ophelia by telling her that even if she marries and is as “…chaste as ice, as pure as snow…” (3.1. 136), she still will not escape “calumny,” (3.1. 137) meaning that no matter how pure she tries to be she will never be without disgrace. Hamlet finishes his verbal assault with directing her to a nunnery (3.1. 148), ending the conversation and reinforcing his disgust with her and her character.
Hamlet lashes out at shows his disgust with her actions causing Ophelia to react this by first trying to reason with Hamlet. Her reasoning results only in her acceptance of his madness and her guilt. Throughout the conversation Ophelia is purposely trying to avoid Hamlet’s questioning, which he realizes from her anxiousness and her constant brevity. None of Ophelia’s lines in this argument are longer than one sentence. This could be a sign of her guilt as she knowingly misuses Hamlet for Polonius and Claudius’ gain. Her avoidance also reveals her true emotions to Hamlet and the audience. It would be expected that if Ophelia truly did not love Hamlet and did not care for him, she would not stand there and accept this verbal abuse without putting up a fight, regardless of his social position over her. Her passive nature also creates a sense that she is merely wasting time and not acting without any true purpose.
While Hamlet is calmly before her, she forwardly tells him that she cannot accept his gifts due to their lack on sentiment. Ophelia tries to reason with Hamlet by telling him that she did believe his intentions were honest from the start and that she did believe he loved her, but as Hamlet becomes frustrated with her equivocation, she becomes more and more defensive. Her passivity takes full control at this point as she accepts his madness. At the beginning of the conversation, she seems to be lost in either his madness or wit when he questions her about her honesty and fairness (3.1. 105-112), but inevitably she makes up her mind, persuaded by Polonius and Claudius. From the point of her acceptance, Ophelia can do nothing to stop Hamlet’s malice and instead chooses to blame his cruelty on his madness instead of his character. Her belief that his madness causes his cruelty arises when she states, “O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!” (3.1. 149). By using the word “o’erthrown,” it is clear that she believes that Hamlet is helpless. She prays to the heavens to restore hamlet, in a merciful way, showing how she still cares for him. Ophelia also tries to comfort herself, by describing Hamlet before his madness developed. By describing him as having a gentleman’s charm, a soldier’s strength and a scholar’s wit through the passage, “The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword” (3.1. 150), she relieves herself as the cause of his cruelty. Although she has removed herself from the cause of his madness, she still feels remorse for treating Hamlet so poorly, after she enjoyed his loving advances. Her enjoyment is seen when she says she “…sucked the honey of his music vows” (3.1. 155-156). The use of the word sucked implies her enjoyment and appreciation for his advances, expressed through the phrase “music vows.” Once Claudius and Polonius arrive, Ophelia is saddened by the encounter, as she now believes Hamlet to be mad. The phrase “blasted with ecstasy…” (3.1. 159) refers to Hamlet’s descent, represented by “blasted,” into madness, which is symbolized with “ecstasy.” Ophelia does not speak again for the remainder of the scene, most likely from shock at what has arisen.
In the third act of Hamlet, Ophelia pretends to be disinterested with Hamlet as she follows instructions given to her by father. Due to Hamlet’s disgust with Ophelia’s deceit and her evasion of confrontation with him, Hamlet scolds her, resulting in Ophelia’s acceptance of his madness and her remorse for the way she has treated him.


WORKS CITED
1. Hamlet. The Norton Shakespeare. 1st ed.. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997. 1090-1145.

Musser vs. Gunning - Early Cinema

Musser’s article, “The Nickelodeon Era Begins,” is a response to Tom Gunning’s interpretation of the transition of film in the early 1900s. Gunning suggests that the subject matter of films and their presentation changed around 1907 in a pursuit of a more bourgeois audience, instead of the majority working class. Musser disagrees with Gunning’s theory stating that films became more sophisticated only to win the respect of art critics and to draw in more middle-class patrons. He also believes that it is the technological and narrative advances that created the major switch at this time. Since no dialogue existed at this time, the realm of storyline possibilities was quite small.

The development of accompanying sound during films made an enormous impact on the overall structure of films. By allowing for spoken dialogue from actors behind the screen or phonograph recordings to play synchronized with the movie, the narratives of movies became more complex and more engaging for the audience. This caused the temporal and spatial chains in films to become more complex as well, and required more strategical techniques for linking together shots. Some of these techniques were the match-on-action cut, cross-cutting and parallel editing. These methods were used to create a more complex narrative that the audience could enjoy. Simply changing the subject matter of these films to material endowed with the stamp of approval from the middle class was not good enough. In most cases, it backfired by relying on the audience’s foreknowledge of certain plays, operas and books. It was only when these “high class” stories were teamed with the aforementioned cinematic techniques, were they able to create an intriguing narrative for the middle class.

Originally, exhibitors obtained short, one-shot movies from the production company that altered the film so that it would fit in with the overall program. As longer films were created, studios rented out packages of films, a projector and a projectionist. This was quite expensive and the notion of training theatre employees to operate the projectors while renting the films was instituted. Once these story films became the main attraction, exhibitors were forced to narrate or lecture before the film to inform the audience of the missing narrative causality. The lecture before the film became a great solution for many, using the lecturer as a spectacle as well as the film. This created a problem though, as movie theatres began to replace nickelodeons in small towns, and the possibility of a lecture was removed. This required the producers to create a more comprehensible narrative film for mass audiences. Intertitles became more and more popular because of their ability to create a linear temporality and also by their function as written dialogue. This option was favoured over the up and coming synchronous sound and hired spoken actors. These sound techniques were not only very expensive but often gave poor quality and lessened the overall experience of the film itself. By distracting the viewer from the film, the realism factor was lost. Without spoken audio, producers were forced to use hand painted films and tinting to recreate that sense of realism in their films.
Now that intertitles were being used regularly and films had established their overall sense of linear temporality, lecturers and exhibitors were forced to take a showman role in the presentation of the films. With match cuts, parallel editing and the loss of temporal confusion between shots, exhibitors were now mainly concerned with the renting of films and the presentation of the theatre.

Materialism vs. Substance Dualism

In this paper, I will outline David Papineau’s argument for materialism and Richard Swinburne’s argument for substance dualism. I will then compare these two opposing theories, and argue the superiority of materialism over substance dualism.

David Papineau is a materialist who is concerned with the unknown connection between the mind and the brain. Materialism states that the effects that are normally attributed to conscious, or mental, causes also have full physical causes. These two causes overlap or have identical properties since it would be absurd to have an effect caused twice. His example to illustrate his argument explains that he would move to the fridge for a beer if he consciously felt thirsty and that their must be a physical process that accompanies this thirst. Papineau’s argument is constructed through three premisses. The first states, “conscious mental occurrences have physical effects (Papineau, 271).” This mainly states that our conscious feelings and other mental states cause our physical behavior. The second premiss states, “All physical effects are fully caused by purely physical prior histories (Papineau, 271).” This quote pertains to the “completeness of physics,” that Papineau deals with later on in the argument. This premiss outlines that physical behavior is caused by a chain of physical actions that occur in the body, Such as the physical contraction of muscles caused by the physical event of neurons firing throughout the brain and body. These two premisses suggest that physical effects can have two distinct causes: one being a mental cause and the other a physical cause. Yet, this implies a sense of overdeterminism, which is not always plausible. Overdeterminism is the theory that if an effect has two distinct causes, that effect would still be produced if one of those causes were absent. Papineau finds this to be highly unlikely considering his thirst example saying, “… Would [I] still have walked to the fridge even if I hadn’t felt thirsty (because my neurons were firing)… (Papineau, 271)?”
This leads to Papineau’s final premiss of the argument. “The physical effects of a conscious cause and a physical cause aren’t always overdetermined by distinct causes (Papineau, 271).” Placed together with the other premisses, Papineau argues that a physical effect has a conscious cause and physical cause and that these two causes are not distinct. From this statement, we understand that at some point the properties of a conscious cause and the properties of a physical cause must overlap. From here, Papineau states that he does not know where to find this point of overlap, but with certifiable data, it should be possible to determine the relation between these causes and when these relations occur. By investigating this claim, it would be seen that these causes are not just related but some aspects must be identical.
Papineau admits that all of his premisses can be denied but the consequences of these denials seem more outrageous. The first premiss can be denied by “pre-established harmony,” suggesting that either God has created the illusion of conscious and physical causes simultaneously happening, or “epiphenomenalism,” where the physical causes of the brain can influence the conscious causes of the mind, but not in the other direction. Epiphenomenalism is more credible in this regard since it does not rely on the teleological approach and it respects the “completeness of physics” where nothing immaterial can influence the physical brain. Papineau points out that if this theory were true, it would create a ‘causal dangler,’ an independent state that produces a cause but no effect (Papineau, 273). Between the two, ordinary science would prefer the simpler theory of materialism to epiphenomenalism.
Papineau’s second premiss is questioned over its adherence to the completeness of physics. He backs his claim that despite the fragile history of this theory’s validity, there is recent evidence that supports it. It has been shown that most natural phenomena are attributed to a few fundamental forces (Papineau, 275). With recent physiological discoveries of the neuronal network, DNA and biochemical cycles, the special forces attributed to these mental causes have not shown any trace of existence. This proves that either modern science has failed in detecting them or that these powers are beyond natural recognition. However, with now almost 50 years of supporting research and evidence it is hard to deny modern science’s established theory.
The final premiss of David Papineau’s materialist argument concerns the problem of overdetermination. In regards to the example of becoming thirsty and getting a drink, overdetermination implies that one would retrieve a drink without the notion of thirst or without the physical event of neuron’s firing in the brain. While this seems unlikely, philosophers have defended this theory by stating that the different causes are counterfactually dependant. Yet, the important reliance factor of this mechanism is not found elsewhere in nature, which according to Ockham’s Razor would suggest that it is not a plausible theory.
In contrast to David Papineau’s questionable materialism, Richard Swinburne presents the argument of substance dualism. Substance Dualism is based on the notion that humans and higher animals are conscious and the thoughts and feelings that accompany consciousness cannot be a property of the physical body. There must be a link that connects these mental properties to the physical body, which Swinburne designates a “soul.” (Swinburne, 263)
Dualism is based on the argument that the world consists of substances, such as a chair or bone or rock, and that when these substances have a property at a certain time it is called an event. A property is designated as the color, shape or relative distance of an object to another object. Anything that has a property and can cause an event is a substance. There also are substances that do not occupy volumes of space that he designates “immaterial substances (Swinburne, 263).”
Swinburne explains that history is a sequence of events that can be divided into two groups. Properties and events can be either physical or mental. Physical events are considered public, as every person is able to witness the event, of which everyone has an equal interpretation[1]. Even if someone witnesses the event of a brown table in private, the desk is available for anyone else to find and check. Also included in physical events are brain events. With modern technology, the firing of neurons in the brain can be witnessed and recorded by any observer. In opposition to these events are mental events that occur privately in the mind of a person through experience. Some of these events include the interpretation of a colour, the feeling of pain or any thoughts or feelings. While others can witness these events through behavioral patterns that are produced, the subject still has higher knowledge of the experience that is unknown to the observer[2]. Therefore, mental states must be different from brain events and other bodily events.
Brain states can cause mental states and vice versa. If the regular brain states are disrupted due to some form of trauma, mental states are often affected. However, mental states such as pain from your hand in fire can cause brain states, as neurons fire and your hand is unconsciously withdrawn from the flame by instinct. These separate states must be connected by some link. Swinburne suggests that this link is an immaterial substance, known as a soul.
If there was not a soul or immaterial substance that joined these two states together then all we would have to create, our history would be the knowledge of what material substances were created and which were destroyed. Yet Swinburne criticizes this notion by using three thought experiments. These experiments indicate that if a brain operation occurs, the patient is unable to know what will happen to the nature of their current mental states. While they can be sure of what will happen to their brain, the result of their identity endowed with its specific characteristics is unknown[3]. These experiments showed that despite having complete knowledge of the physical consequences, it is impossible to explain what happens to the immaterial substance, or soul.
Swinburne does not believe that every organism that has a brain has a soul, simply those that have the ability to produce thoughts and feelings have an immaterial soul. This is most evidently seen by which animals can experience the sensation of pain. The immaterial souls of these animals were created by through evolution due to the brain’s complexities that caused the existence of a soul and the continuing development and operation of that soul[4]. This displays the causal link that exists between the soul and the brain. Events in a specific brain act upon the events in a specific soul and vice versa. It is unknown at what point this stage of soul creation occurred so many scientists disregard the notion of a soul. Swinburne suggests that simply disavowing a theory based on a lack of explanation is a mistake.

While I agree that it is a mistake to disregard something based on a lack of clarity, I also find that it is hard to accept a theory that does not try to support itself through verifiable evidence. While materialism can be contradicted, the idea that it would be possible to discover the link between identical properties through enough research seems more promising than the existence of a soul. Papineau’s argument that conscious causes and physical causes produce physical effects through identical properties seems more likely than the fact that an immaterial substance as the soul links these causes together. Papineau argues that a claim is presented and only research is required to determine how these two areas are linked together. This is a scientific based query whereas Swinburne relies on faith and belief that this immaterial substance exists.

Another reason why I accept materialism over dualism is the believability of the suggested materialist thought experiments. It is easier for me to establish my own reasons for eating when I am hungry than to think of the performing actions of my soul. When I make myself a sandwich, I can realize the cause as being from my sudden desire for food and that since my stomach was empty, a chemical process occurred which alerted my brain through muscle contractions in my stomach and a possible grumbling noise. Combined with my feeling these contractions and the hearing of the grumbling, I realize that my stomach is empty and think back to when I last ate. Also, if I am sad or thinking that I should be on a diet or am eating less to save money, as a student at university often does, I might choose not to eat despite my body’s grumbling. I then decide based on my feelings of whether I am in the mood to eat or not, combined with my body’s physical display of a requirement of food. This displays that my actions of eating are based on a physical event as well as a mental event.

In this paper, I have outlined Richard Swinburne’s article, “A Defense of Substance Dualism,” and David Papineau’s argument entitled, “The Case for Materialism.” By viewing these opposing theories, I have argued that effects require a physical and a mental cause, proving materialism’s superiority over dualism.
[1] Swinburne, 263.
[2] Swinburne, 264.
[3] Swinburne, 265.
[4] Swinburne, 266.

"Reality Effects" in Medium Cool and The Deer Hunter

American cinema of the 1970s used editing and ‘reality effects’ in their narrative structures to convey the new, controversial ideologies that were emerging at that time. Two films that encapsulate this period are Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool (1969) and Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978). These films center on the Vietnam War and the United States internal struggle. The first film, Medium Cool, deals with America’s division amongst the population, creating an opposition between the anti-war counter-culture and the patriotic Vietnam supporters. Cimino’s The Deer Hunter is about the struggle of Vietnam soldiers and their ability to cope with the horrors of war and their reintegration with home. These films were controversial during their release due to their leftist orientation and the alternative perspective that they provide.
In these films, editing plays a key role in their presentation of the present ideologies. Medium Cool uses the process of montage to create many of its strong ideas while The Deer Hunter uses a more conventional arrangement based upon linkage. Wexler creates strong, symbolic meanings in Medium Cool through the visual synthesis of such images as a young, black revolutionary pointing towards the camera followed by a shot of a white, elderly female firing a gun at a shooting range. This graphic match creates a synthetic message that white women, and their encompassing race, are arming themselves against the black population. Another example is the contrast between the democratic convention and the riots in the streets of Chicago, which actually occurred in 1968 (Gitlin, 9) . Each side of this political war is first seen gathering at their rallying point. For the democrats, it is within the stadium for their convention, and in the streets for the masses of the counter-culture. Once the convention is underway, the film cuts back and forth between each location showing the large crowds that support the given ideology, accompanied by the screams of the masses as they support their views. As the convention progresses, the spectator is shown shots of Cassellis which contain people in the background continuing to pour into the stadium where the cheers are overwhelming. As Dede, walks through the streets amongst the protestors, more and more supporters are shown arriving and joining into the parade. The two main characters symbolize the contrast between these two locations and their supporting ideologies. Cassellis portrays the working class party as he strolls through the convention in his fancy suit. Dede wears her bright yellow dress, which can easily be associated with the bright, psychedelic colours that embody the hippy motion, amongst the protestors that seem to be dressed for guerilla warfare.
While the editing and timing in Medium Cool is often sporadic and spontaneous, The Deer Hunter is constructed in an orderly fashion where the form is created based upon the content. As Robin Wood points out (275), the entire film divides into five sections. The setting of these sections jumps back and forth between Vietnam and Clairton in an orderly fashion. These sections link together by dialogue or a foreshadowing symbol. For the first transition from Clairton to Vietnam, the linking device is the Green Beret who appears at the wedding (Wood, 283). His presence denotes the upcoming switch due to the severity woven into Michael, Nick and Steven’s desire to know what to expect in Vietnam. Another example of this connection is the second transition, from Vietnam back to Clairton, where the connection materializes in Nick’s attempt to phone home to talk to Linda. Once the film cuts to Clairton, the spectator is shown Linda preparing a homecoming party for Michael. Since Nick makes the first attempt of the three friends to make contact with home, it carries the importance for all three of them as the beginning of their return to America. This trend continues for the remainder of the sections.
The five sections are also edited in a pattern of reduction where every new section is shorter than the previous (Wood, 276). This means that since Clairton was the original setting, there is more time spent on the development of the characters in America than their turmoil in Vietnam. By showing more of the effects of the “horrors of war” than the actual war itself, the viewer is given a clear signal as to the real message behind the movie. Although Christopher Walken’s character is not present in the second and third sequences of Clairton, the film audience becomes concerned with his mental state and sanity. While being in the war country, the audience never worries about any physical threat to his character, other than himself. The reduction in screen time of each section also creates a form of suspense reminiscent of Hitchcock, as each section gets shorter and shorter until the end. The editing in Medium Cool and The Deer Hunter both create a linear story, but their lack of causality creates a confusion that hinders the overall reception of these films.
By separating the audience from the picture through moments of uncertainty, the realism of these films is affected. For Medium Cool and The Deer Hunter, realism is a strong strategy for presenting a convincing view of the opposition to mainstream America’s view on the Vietnam War. Realism in these films is achieved using ‘reality effects.’ Reality effects are devices that are used to depict real events, regardless of whether those events are fact or fiction (Wood, 273). In order to convey a convincing depiction of an event, skill and style combine with five different types of effects. These effects are identification with characters through simple emotions, the binding of the spectator to the film through subjective photography, suggestions of physical sensation, spontaneity, naturalistic acting and superfluity, or the use of mundane, redundant details to express the chaos and boredom of life (Wood, 274). Both of these Vietnam movies use these tools to help connect with the audience. The audience is compelled to identify and sympathize with the reporters of Medium Cool due to the initial scene at the beginning where reporters gather and discuss how dangerous their jobs are with the persecution and aggravation they go through involving the public and their employers. The sympathy that is created for the reporters is a more subtle association than the sympathy created for the three friends in The Deer Hunter when they are trapped in the Viet Cong camp. This moment of vulnerability is the climax of the created association between the audience and the residents of Clairton, which is established earlier by the appearance of the town. The identification with the main characters of The Deer Hunter is the strongest form of realism that is portrayed towards the audience.
In Medium Cool, the strongest and most dominant ‘reality effect’ is the process of giving the audience a subjective view of the events in the film. This process is suturing. Throughout the film, footage is taken of real events that happened in Chicago in 1968. Many scenes also include characters breaking the fourth wall and talking directly into the camera to display the sense of immediacy. This sense of realism is presented through the repetitive reminders of the presence of the camera in the film. As protestors march past, many turn towards the camera and make gestures as if they were on television. Another major effect that is used is the camera’s constant mobility. By shooting most of the film without the use of a tripod, the static image conveys a more realistic sense of movement through space. The chaos that occurs during the riots in the park are reflected in the panning, tilting and tracking of the shot as the cameraman had to climb through the mess of benches. Another major ‘reality effect’ in Medium Cool is the use of direct recording. Since most of the scenes of the film were shot on location, the sound of the film is true to the story it presents. Having the complexity of the characters, as well each voice in the masses, adds to the film’s overall impression of depicting a real event. Other effects used in Medium Cool are the physicality and immediate danger of the riots captured on film and the spontaneity of the crowds and protestors. One of the only real drawbacks of Medium Cool is that the events in the film are merely represented, not presented, due to the medium of film. Much of the bite that these images would provoke is lost in the viewer’s sense of disbelief.
In The Deer Hunter, these realist tendencies are also created by playing on the audience’s inability to identify with the material presented. Since most of the people who watched this film when it first came out were not soldiers in Vietnam, it was very simple for Cimino to create a believable setting. If an audience does not have personal experience on the subject matter, their internal speech that develops over the course of the film can only be generated by the film and not manipulated by their empirical experiences. This advantage was used to heighten the other reality effects in the film. The use of subjective camera work is apparent in many of the Vietnam scenes, where the spectator is given the position of Michael, as when they are planning their escape from the Viet Cong prison. The shots from underneath the floor in the water, begin the audience’s identification that is accented later when we follow Michael home and witness his struggle to reintegrate with his friends in Clairton. The Deer Hunter also utilizes the effect of physicality as the grotesque and deformed aspects of the war are displayed, whether it is a rat on Steven’s head in the Viet Cong camp or the stumps of the black soldier in the Vietnam hospital (Wood, 274). This physical deformity is also seen in Medium Cool as the camera captures protesters with bloody faces after being beaten by Chicago police. Realism is sought after using other techniques such as the feeling of spontaneity with the use of the method school acting, and many improvisations during shooting, referring to Meryl Streep in particular. One aspect of realism that The Deer Hunter holds over Medium Cool is the notion of superfluity. By adding in redundant details that create the illusion of real life, Cimino is able to create an alternate form of realistic representation that is adverse to the inherent reality behind the riots and protests in Medium Cool. These effects create an overall severity that is inherent in the film. By making the film seem more real and more grotesque, its anti-war message strengthens through the reactionary emotions of the spectator. These emotions are then used to create an inner sense of causality and purposefulness that are vital to the film’s narrative structure. In both films, the linear drive of the narrative tends to create one long segment instead of the classical presentation of segments linked together. In these structures, the content of the film is laid bare and the viewer is required to watch the film and extract the overall story from the film’s plot. Flashbacks are rarely used in Medium Cool and hard to find in The Deer Hunter. This demands the viewer to extract knowledge from the film based upon the actors’ performances, how they present their characters, and through a close reading of the films dialogue. In Medium Cool, the viewer chooses to extract what they want from each scene as they are presented with information of the world that is either objective or manipulated to appear that way. This is due to the film’s constructed form as a docu-drama. The viewer must decide which parts of the film happened, and which were staged. This film’s arrangement borrows qualities from some European creations as art cinema and “cinema-verité.” From these genres, the film takes on an ambiguous nature, where the viewing of the film is more of a challenge than an entertainment. The ending of the movie also creates a circular plot, which is commonplace among European art cinema, seen with the smashed windshield and the photography of the wreck. The Deer Hunter also utilizes traits from art cinema in it’s dismissal of characters for extended periods of time and the construction of the film surrounding Michael, when the film clearly dictates that Nick is the focal point of the movie. The latter point is supported by the shot of Nick at the end of the movie, after the other characters speak of him (Wood, 285). While Cimino chose to display some aspects of the art cinema, he chose not to create a circular or ambiguous ending. The symbolic meaning behind the film is the course of a human’s life. This course is expressed from birth, via the wedding and Angela’s baby, through to the death of Nick (Wood, 276). This film displays the struggle to fight for life, despite the overwhelming pressure from the country’s opposing cultures.