The documentary Paris Is Burning directed by Jeannie Livingston is not only one of my favorite films, but it gives an extraordinary insight into the society of its time. The film documents the lives of gay and transgender African Americans and Latinos apart of the ball culture of New York City in the 80’s. Balls were competitions that involved dressing up and competing in themed categories. Not all the performers in these categories were drag queens, although a large percent were drag queens or trans women. These people often formed what they called houses, or family groups of similar people. Houses were significant considering these people were often disowned by their real family for their gender identity or sexual orientation. The best and eldest member of each house was called the mother and winning balls brought legendary status to their houses and members of the house. Paris Is Burning introduced terms such as ball, shade, houses, reading, and vouging into popular culture and the drag community today.
I first watched Paris Is Burning about a year ago to learn more about the history of drag and how drag got the way it is today. Drag queens are a fairly new interest
…show more content…
When I first viewed the film I felt awakened, like my perspective on the world shifted. This documentary strips people of their labels and enables people to view them as human beings with hopes and dreams. I’ve always felt out of place and the society we live in, but this made me feel fortunate to fit in as well as I do and to be as well off as I am. It also makes me grateful for the further steps of equality for all people that are being taken today in society. In conclusion, Paris Is Burning is an extremely valuable film that documents lives and cultures of minorities in the 80 's. This film is something that expanded my perspective on life and made me realize that being a misfit in society is
The emotions of the characters expressed throughout the film physically show the suffering many people of color have experienced. The point of this movie and the scenes it contains is to help
1. The film Casablanca was released during World War II in 1942. Some have argued that some of the themes and plot points of the film can be read as propaganda. Do you agree or disagree? Does Casablanca have a political message?
From looking at Women’s Suffrage, White supremacy, and stereotypes, you can see how women have impacted today’s society and my life. The video The Burning Times let us experience what it was like to be a woman in the 1500s. This brought around the marginalization of women. The witches were condemned as devil worshipers and seen as healers not witches in the beginning.
One of the Main problems America faces deals with Disease. The growing burden of chronic disease and unaffordable healthcare are the leading causes of disability and death in the United States. America is number 50 on life span expectancy and this is shocking because even though we have some of the best treatments and medicines we don’t prevent chronic diseases that are avoidable with simple lifestyle changes. After watching the Escape Fire Documentary, I realized how this affected everyone and that I needed to know more about my families’ health and ways I can prevent chronic diseases I may be susceptible too because of genetics or lifestyle choices. Before I didn’t think my family had any diseases that were genetically passed down or ran
The film documentary Paris is Burning is a complex film portraying the lives of African American men who are gay and transgender. The characters are Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Venus Xtravaganza, Willi Ninja, Octavia St. Laurent, Freddie Pendavis, and several others. This film focuses on how these men support each other and find happiness by embracing their culture. The film uses rhetorical strategies, such as pathos to allow the audience to respond emotionally, logos because this is a documentary about the lives of real men who are rejected by society, and ethos the integrity of this film comes from the whole film crew and the director Jennie Livingston who is openly lesbian (Clark). Livingston made a film that showed the audience a community that has its own cultural norms who are outlawed by everyone but themselves.
The Psychological Abuse of Gaslighting In the 1944 film adaptation of “Gaslight,” produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr, the human psyche is abused in order to gain control over another individual. Before both Patrick Hamilton’s play, as well as the film Gaslight, the word gaslight had a different meaning. The term gaslight used to be just that, a light lit with gas. This film changed that, especially in the field of psychology.
Reflection Paper on Smoke Signals (directed by Chris Eyre) Smoke Signals is a movie about a young man names Victor and his friend Thomas who travel to Phoenix, Arizona to escape the reservation they live on. Smoke Signals shows an explicit representation of Freud’s Functionalist Reductionism of Religion as Victors faith and religion is being tested by his emotional turmoil experienced through his life. Smoke Signals also shows a relation to Freud’s concept that religion arises from emotions and conflicts of childhood as well as the need for a fatherly figure in one’s life (both in the celestial and real worlds). This essay will firstly discuss the situations which support the ideas of Freud’s Functionalist Reductionism Theory. Secondly, symbols
Released September 29, 1950, Sunset Boulevard is a film noir of a forgotten silent film star, Norma Desmond, that dreams of a comeback and an unsuccessful screenwriter, Joe Gillis, working together. Ultimately an uncomfortable relationship evolves between Norma and Joe that Joe does not want a part of. Sunset Boulevard starts off with an establishing shot from a high angle shot with a narrative leading to a crime scene shot in long shot (a dead body is found floating in a pool). The narrative throughout the film established a formalist film. Cinematography John F. Seitz used lighting and camera angles in such a way to create a loneliness and hopefulness atmosphere.
Mise-en-scéne is crucial to classical Hollywood as it defined an era ‘that in its primary sense and effect, shows us something; it is a means of display. ' (Martin 2014, p.XV). Billy Wilder 's Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 1950) will be analysed and explored with its techniques and styles of mise-en-scéne and how this aspect of filmmaking establishes together as a cohesive whole with the narrative themes as classical Hollywood storytelling. Features of the film 's sense of space and time, setting, motifs, characters, and character goals will be explored and how they affect the characterisation, structure, and three-act organisation.
This movie did a great job of showing how certain society’s work, races such as African Americans, Hispanics, and Persians/Asians were being treated wrong in the movie, and it displays the sociological concepts.
Cinematography is critical to the success of any movie. Cinematography uses composition, lighting, depth of field, and camera angles to determine what the audience sees. Casablanca’s cinematography directs the audience’s attention, shapes the audiences feelings, and reveals the theme of the movie. Cinematography directs the audience’s attention and acts as the viewer’s eyes. The cinematography highlights Casablanca as a dangerous place filled with deception.
Film is a story of people and a story made by the people. Since society is a world of community where people creates atmospheres and interact with one another, through films we can look into the mirror of the society at that time. The French society from the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s was the time when the postwar modernization for France had begun. During this time period there were many values that the society reflected and various cultures that were embedded into the people’s lives.
Those that believe Casablanca is not film noir usually perceive Film Noir as a genre. Noir is not a genre; Noir transcends genres and behaves more accurately as a style of cinema. As styles go, there can be variations of them as we see now with Post-Noir and Neo Noir, noir elements in a different time period of film technology which makes these films slightly different than the style of classic film noir. Themes of cynicism, impending doom, loss, jeopardy of life accompanied by visuals dominated by shadows, strong lines, and overall darkness to the image make up film noir’s style. Noir is not absolute, the beauty of this style is its vulnerability to variation, which is why Michael Curtiz’s Classic Casablanca is film noir.
I enjoyed the comical and lighthearted dancing and singing approach the characters had to the somber situations around them. Watching this few years later and after taking a Text and Meaning course, I was struck at the sheer amount of things that stood out. The Negroes were declared “other”. In post colonialist theory, declaring one race “other” marginalizes them and stresses on how
Breathless, originally titled ‘À bout de souffle’, made in 1960 is a movie about a small-time thief who steals a car and murders a policeman. The story is about authorities chasing him while he reunites with an American journalist and attempts to persuade her to run away with him to Italy. Jean-Luc Godard, the director of the movie often quotes, ‘To make a film, all you need is a girl and a gun.’, which is probably the inspiration behind this movie. Breathless was one of the movies that kicked off the French New Wave. Like several of his French New Wave members, Jean-Luc Godard started as a film critic, and wrote for the magazine ‘Cahiers du Cinema’ in the 1950s, when he was in his early 20s.