One of my favorite movies is Dances With Wolves. Dances With Wolves is a 1990 American epic western film directed and produced by Kevin Costner. Kevin Costner plays the star character, Lieutenant, John J. Dunbar. He is wounded in the American Civil War. He chose to try to commit suicide over having his foot amputated by taking a horse and riding it up to and along the confederate soldiers’ front lines. They failed to shoot him. The Union Army attacks the line while the confederate soldiers are distracted and the Union Army wins the battle. Dunbar survives and is allowed to recover properly, receives a citation for bravery, and is awarded Cisco, the horse who carried him, as well as his choice of posting. John Dunbar requests a transfer…
After the civil right movement, films such as Unforgiven, Posse, Silverado, and even Django Unchained paid tribute to a 1970’s Blaxploitation era. Still movies like Unforgiven, Silverado, and Posse had black leads dying, but they died in a more heroic form. The 1993 film Posse reversed the skin color of the actors from the film The Wild Bunch. The film is basically a re-vision of the film The Wild Bunch. The film Posse is also a contemporary western settings, classic west themes, classic firearms, and ideas, but staring black actors now. Also to note, rapper Big Daddy Kane’s character Father Time soon posing as Ku Klux Klan member, to rescue his group from trouble. Father Time may have got this scene from another famous film from the…
The Great Depression was a hard time for Americans. The time of the depression was a time of recession in the economy. Nobody's life was easy during this time; People tried to make the best of it though. The Great Depression affected people in many different ways.…
Director Frank Darabont wrote and directed the film “The Shawshank Redemption” which was based on a novella by Stephen King. “The Shawshank Redemption” touches our hearts and creates warmth in our feelings as it makes us a member of the family as Frank Darabont tells the slow and gentle tale of loving friendship and hope. A Shawshank newcomer (White guy who worked in a bank) in 1946 Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), bangs up a 20-year friendship with a black guy named Red (Morgan Freeman) while in prison. It uses the sweet, soothing and soft voice overs of Red to include us in the story of men forming a community in prison. It isn’t one of those films where it offers us quick, in cloud nine feelings. It accomplishes in avoiding the familiar.…
Mississippi Damned was written and directed by Tina Mabry and is based on her struggles growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi. Mabry has a history of pouring her life into her work. After receiving her masters of Fine Arts in Cinema and Television from the University of Southern California, she went on to create two emotion filled short films, Brooklyn’s Bridge to Jordan (2005) and Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007), before debuting her first feature masterpiece. Before premiering on Showtime in 2011, Mississippi Damned dominated the film festival circuit winning top prizes at the Chicago International Film Festival, Outfest, American Black Film Festival, and Urbanworld Film Festival. It now streams worldwide on Netflix and still produces numbers.…
In the film ‘The Last of The Mohicans’ directed by Michael Mann, an important idea that was shown throughout the film is loss of innocence. Loss of innocence is something that often involves a new understanding of the nature of humanity and its potential for good or evil. Cora is a character that portrays this theme well. The director uses close ups, medium shots and point of view shots to capture Cora evolving into a strong and courageous woman.…
With almost every famous novel, comes either an excellent movie adaption or a cringe worthy film that has viewers constantly reminding others to read the book instead. Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” was no exception to this unspoken rule. Although the film excelled in accurately depicting most of the novel’s content, there were some omitted details that could have improved the movie’s interpretation of the novel.…
As mentioned earlier, the way in which the mobster’s and their families are dressed is a direct visual correlation to their role and or manifestation of status within the confines of Henry Hill’s story.…
“ I will fall like an ocean on that court! Fear nothing, Elizabeth.” - John Proctor, “The Crucible” pg.45. John Proctor tells his wife, who is accused of witchcraft, that he will not stop until he frees her. This can be compared to the Majestic, Peter Appleton, the main character in the movie, was accused of being a communist. He was driving after he was told he was blacklisted. He crashed his car into a river, he lost all of his memory and washed up in a small town. The people in the town thought he was a soldier, who was lost in the war. He took up a alias of Luke Trimble. I think that the story the Crucible is comparable to many parts of the movie, the Majestic.…
John Ford built a standard that many future directors would follow with his classic 1939 film “Stagecoach”. Although there were a plethora of western films made before 1939, the film “Stagecoach” revolutionized the western genre by elevating the genre from a “B” film into a more serious genre. The film challenged not only western stereotypes but also class divisions in society. Utilizing specific aspects of mise-en-scène and cinematography, John Ford displays his views of society.…
Good Will Hunting is a movie with an all-star cast including Matt Damon, Robin Williams, and Ben Affleck just to name a few. Matt Demon plays the main character Will Hunting while Robin Williams and Ben Affleck play supporting roles as a psychology professor and best friend. The movie introduces Will as a janitor at MIT that is much smarter than he lets on. In fact, Will Hunting is a mathematical genius. Stellan Skarsgard plays a professor at MIT named Gerald Lambeau. Professor Lambeau decided to put an unsolved equation outside his classroom for his students to try and figure out but it was Will who solved it in just a few short minutes. For obvious reasons, this caught Professor Lambeau’s eye.…
The Big Lebowski (1998) by the Coen Brothers is no doubt a comedy film about friendships between three bowling buddies with differing personalities who met and stuck together as friends by choice in Los Angeles when the U.S. army invaded the Middle East. The Coen Brothers managed to capture the spirit of friendship bonding, conflicts, characters’ internal struggles as well as personal desires with exceptional cinematography and mise-en-scene through a plot that went from western to Film Noir. There is a cleverly placed contrast between violence, kidnapping, femme fatales and other dark elements that do not really go with the sunny, carefree impression of L.A. where the story is set in. Such metaphorically structured contrasts along with well-constructed dialogues between three characters from varying backgrounds bring out the contradictory nature of how the Dude (Jeff Bridges), a bearded, unemployed long-haired hippie who did not care much about this world that lived in a dressing gown met his two best friends Walter Sobchak (John Goodman), a Vietnam vet who could not move on from the war period and Donny Kerabatsos (Steve Buscemi), a bland character that got ignored most of the time, who all lived with the shadow of intergeneration give-and-take hovering yet still managed to stay committed to their friendships even when they have their own burdens to deal with in life. The ending scene of The Big Lebowski where the Dude and Walter scattered Donny’s ashes pleasantly reflected what seems to be delicate but actually strong bonds of relationships between the three main characters.…
Life on the Mississippi was an amusing movie long and detailed movie which covered the story of the steamboat pilots. This movie shows Twain starting out as a young boy that conned his way onto the Paul Jones, where Mr. Bixby the pilot, finally agrees to teach him the Mississippi from New Orleans to St. Louis for a cost of five hundred dollars, paid out of his first wages as a pilot. Life on the Mississippi was written early in his career, about his time as a boy and man, as an apprentice and as a Mississippi steamboat pilot. After beginning his education under Bixby’s by steering the Paul Jones out of New Orleans and listening to Bixby call attention to important points and careful guidelines pointing out details along the way. Twain’s first…
Lincoln is a movie based off of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, which portrays the latter end of Abraham Lincoln’s illustrious career. The film is based around Congressional debate and Lincoln’s attempts to pass the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery in the United States. The movie is centered in Washington D.C. and the areas surrounding it between the Emancipation Proclamation in January, 1863, and the death of Lincoln in April, 1865. The film raises the issues of slavery, ending the Civil War, political strife, familial strife and general morality. Lincoln, being a Hollywood film, was meant to entertain the viewers. However, the movie sticks so close to reality that the movie is not as entertaining, rather more informative. The major themes of the film all…
Visually, Raging Bull is close to an artistic disaster. The visual style adopted by director Martin Scorsese and cinematographer, Michael Chapman seems to be falling apart. For instance, the last fight scene in which Sugar Ray Robinson pummels Jake La Motta depicts ludicrous images; however, the continuity editing allows viewers to make sense of it. During this shot, Scorsese shows a punch from the perspective of Robinson’s glove as it strikes La Motta’s face. In the seconds that follow, we see blood spray out of La Motta’s head, splattering the spectators. This bizarre shot makes the blood splatter look like a sprinkler, as if a bucket load of blood came out of Jake's head. The reason why this shot is so paradoxical is because of the slow…