Collegebound

The Graduates is a film that tells the story of Latin American students and some of the struggles that they go through. The editing of the film is very well done. The visuals of the film work well with the story and structure of the film. The visuals do not needlessly illustrate what the voice-overs are stating. The editor of the film revealed that the necessary amount of footage required to make a documentary is about 400 hours of film. It is the editor’s job to find a story within these 400 hours of the students living their daily lives. Sometimes this process is eased by the director giving the editor the best 20 hours of the original 400 hours of film. The problem with this is that it is the best 20 hours of film according to the director. It is possible that the director may have cut out very relevant or powerful scenes.

The struggles that the students undergo range from typical teenage problems to gang violence. Examples of such typical teenage problems are fitting in and teen pregnancy. Although Latin-American students must deal with these situation more often than their Caucasian counterparts, the film should not have only focused on Hispanics. It brings up the idea that Hispanics are less than human. The film is similar to a zoo because the students are followed and studied similarly like animals are studied and followed around at the zoo. If the film focused on various ethnic students including Caucasians, it would send out the idea of equality. Students of different social and financial status could go through similar teenage problems, but this gets left out in the film because it focuses solely on Hispanics.

Aside from the film’s choice to focus on Hispanics, it does accurately illustrate the problems that plague most minorities students today not only Hispanics.

The Multiverse

People have always questioned whether or not there is more than one reality in existence. David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive presents this idea by illustrating two different realities but using the same actresses to play different characters in each reality. In the first reality, Betty and Rita randomly meet because Rita sneaks into Betty’s aunt’s house. Betty then decides to help Rita figure out her past and identity. Although they make some progress uncovering Rita’s past, they do not succeed in uncovering the whole truth The failure to find Rita’s identity is one of the things that connects the two realities.

In the second reality, Rita and Betty are both actresses. Although the actresses are the same ones who played Betty and Rita, they are now named Diane and Camilla in this reality. Camilla seems to be a huge success as an actresses, but Diane appears to be a complete failure. Diane is also in love with Camilla, but Camilla does not love her back. Their relationship connects the two realities because Betty/Diane loves Rita/Camilla in both realities. The presence of their relationship in both realities brings up the idea of fate because they are somehow connected across separate realities. However, the two drastically different realities concerning their relationship indicates the idea of choice. Betty has a good friendship with Rita, but Diane has a terrible relationship with Camilla. One reason that explains the differences between the two realities is the freedom of choice. Diane gets trapped by her love for Camilla and it eventually leads to her suicide. Meanwhile Betty embraces her love for Rita and develops a meaningful and positive friendship with her. Diane chooses to keep going after Camilla even though it is leading her down a destructive path. Betty chooses to help Rita without knowing who she is or what kind of problems she can bring into her life. Betty makes selfish kind choices whereas Diane makes selfish evil choices. The second reason why the realities differ so much is due to the issue of identity. In the first reality Rita does not know who she is and is completely dependent on Betty. In the alternate reality, Diane loses herself in her love and worship of Camilla. Since Diane does not know who she is, she ends up being miserable. Her entire life including her relationship with Camilla is destroyed because she does not know how to be on her own or her own person. Although Rita and Diane have no sense of identity, they experience the harsher fates in their respectively realities.

Tarantino’s a Series of Violent Events

Violence is a major component of the Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Each of the main character has some experience with violence. Butch’s family seems to be cursed with violence because every man for the past three generations has fought in a major war. Butch is the first one who has not had to fight in a war, but he still enters into an occupation which prospers from violence, boxing. Throughout the course of the film Butch is trying to escape the cycle of violence that has plagued is family. However, to escape this viscous cycle Butch must fight fire with fire. It is because that he is using violence for the right reasons that he is able to succeed in the end and escape. Tarantino illustrates that Butch will succeed in his quest through the mise-en-scène of the shot when Butch is leaving the apartment complex. Butch is leaving the confines of his old life symbolized by the gate and enters into a new life.

Similar to Butch, Jules decides that he no longer wants to be a violent man anymore after witnessing the miracle. Not only does Jules quit his job as a hit man, he also spares the life of the robbers. Due to him taking the miracle as a warning and changing his ways, he is allowed to live past the events of the film.

Vincent on the other hand is a different story. Although he witnesses the miracle same as Jules, he does not consider it a miracle. He repeatedly states that it was a freak occurrence and refuses to heed it as a warning. Vincent decides to continue his life as a hit man and by the end of the film is killed by Butch. Tarantino adds in a small comedic element in the scene depicting Vincent’s death. As Vincent is waiting to be killed by Butch, there is a quick shot of the pop-tarts coming out of the toaster right before Vincent is killed. Vincent is toast just like the pop-tarts are toasted.

The Shining Syndrome

Stanley Kubrick uses the characters from The Shining to illustrate several different points. Focusing on Jack, Kubrick shows the audience the importance of love, selflessness, and forgiveness. Jack claims to love his family and states how much he loves Danny, but his actions speak differently. Even before getting to the hotel, Jack has already injured Danny in the past. He claims that it was just an accident, but he still dwells on the incident. This is partly due to his wife because she has not let him forget about what he did to Danny. Not only does his wife not forgive him, Jack does not seem to have fully forgiven himself. This is revealed to the audience when Jack is talking to the ghost bartender. As he explains the events of the past to the bartender, he is trying to make an excuse for what he did to Danny and relates it as an accident. Regardless of whether or not it was an accident, Jack’s emphasis on the fact that it was an accident indicates that he is ashamed of himself for hurting his son. Jack’s inability to forgive himself stems from his selfish nature. This is made apparent to the audience by the disconnect between Jack and his son. Whenever Jack and Danny are filmed having a conversation, the dialogue sounds so dry and lacks the expected affection a father and son should have for each other. Jacks’ selfish nature is evident in his unwillingness to take his son to the hospital and his focus on himself and his “responsibilities” to the company. By this point in the story Jack has been completely overtaken by the demonic presence of the hotel. However, Jack is able to be possessed due to his lack of love, forgiveness, and selflessness towards himself and his family.