Extended ToL

   No less complicated, but much more interesting, Tree of Life has taken on a whole new meaning after our in class analyses. Going deeper than any of us ever expected, all of the questions I had have been answered (for the most part) from the initial viewing of the film. But that has laid the groundwork for new questions to spring up. For example, my very first question about the film was about the dialogue, or lack thereof. I think the point Malick was trying to make with very little dialogue was that it's not about the things spoken. The movie was about what was going on internally with our main characters. The few sections of spoken word were very strategically used in the movie, and were never single-layered in meaning. And now I find myself over analyzing every word spoken in the movie. Now it makes me ask the question as to why only three (four including the priest from today) got dialogue? There were a lot of important characters, like the little brother that dies, that never spoke a word.
    I still don't know why the creation sequence had to be so long, but I understand the importance of it now. That sequence took us through everything about the world we live in. Much like in Beasts of the Southern Wild, it brings to light how small we actually are in the history of the world, and how everything had to have been created to get us where we are today. But it still boggles my mind as to why this sequence shows the evolution of the world, which goes against the very foundations of Catholicism, and seemingly the film itself. According to the first book of the Bible, god created the people and the animals to keep us company. The song playing in the background, Lacrimosa composed by Zbigniew Preisner, and Lacrimosa was a title given to Mary (the mother of Jesus). HOW CAN A SEQUENCE IN A RELIGIOUS FILM SHOW EVOLUTION WITH A SONG DEDICATED TO THE MOTHER OF JESUS? If the actual Tree of Life was in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, and it could have even been in this sequence, where were Adam and Eve in the sequence? This continues to fuel me on my search to determine if this movie is about the goodness of God and the ways of grace, or a PSA about the dangers of blindly devoting yourself to a god who doesn't help you.
   As we talked about in class today, the final scene still perplexes me to no end. Why is everybody young, or still alive in the Dad's case, in a place that to me represented the land for eternal souls? In the beginning of the movie when old Jack is following young Jack through the desert, does that mean that he had to find who he had been as a child to make it to where his soul can rest with his family? Why, then, are we never distinctly told if Jack is alive or dead? I believe that he is alive at the beginning of the movie (unlike in Beasts), but when did he die? How? Was it suicide from the heights of the tall buildings we keep seeing that surround Jack? I think that if my questions about Jack's death(if that's what happened) were answered in a more concrete way, then I could maybe say that I like the movie completely. I'm not quite there yet though. To say that I loved the movie is a stretch, but so is saying I disliked it. I think it's just more of a complex movie than I'm used to, and that is taking a while for me to get over. It has definitely thrown me into a maelstrom of questions with extremely vague answers and biblical research that is rarely ever fruitful.
   But in terms of style, I think the film gets its point across very well, whatever that point may be. Full of close ups and almost awkwardly lit rooms, the film is ethereal in feel. It's like I can almost touch it but its intangible. A lot of shots we view in class everyday consist of areas or rooms alit by the sun in ways that are so natural it's like the light of God is shining directly onto the screen. The natural light, in conjunction with the seemingly natural breezes, the film altogether has a very earthy feel that makes it a more humble watch for us viewers. A movie that throws into question everything about love, life and religion has to be humbly shot, or else watching it would be too traumatic of an experience for everyone.Also, each shot seems like it almost always tries to include those earthly features. Not to say it goes out of the way to get nature in each shot, because it does feel right and natural, but it is a consistent string of images that spans the entire movie.

Ebert's Review of ToL

    One word repeats itself multiple times throughout the entirety of Rodger Ebert's review of Tree of Life: open. Open windows, open doors, open to emotions - that's more times than can be considered coincidence. An educated and well-practiced writer would know that carelessly repeating the same word throughout any writing is tacky, and Ebert is no different. Open is exactly what you have to be in order to fully appreciate and understand Malick's vision. You have to be prepared for the fact that your entire existence is about to be thrown through a hurricane and what's left standing on the other side is going to be bare and unstable at best. Our generation is significantly less religious than those of Ebert's generation, so for most of us, the film never fully hit home because right at the beginning of the film is a quote from the bible, throwing off those of us that aren't spiritually inclined. It takes a true filmgoer to get passed the quote and the exceptionally long creation of the universe sequence, to find the subtext of the film, which I think Ebert brought to light in his own subtle way.
    He points out the fact that no one in this film has names, except for Jack, and that is by no means a dazzling name. Generic and unimpressive, the O' Brien family is nothing but ordinary for 1950's Texas, as Ebert points out. This was a deliberate move on Malick's part because ordinary people with no names attached to their faces have an uncanny ability of reflecting parts of our souls back to us. Ebert even said that seeing the film brought him back to growing up in the "American Midlands, where life flows in and out through open windows." A clever line here by Ebert. In the beginning of the movie, just before we see Mrs. O' Brien floating in front of a tree (the Tree of Life?), we see Sean Penn sort of feeling his way outside. It looks almost like he is feeling the breeze on him, through his hands. And then we see his mother, a young woman, floating in mid air. It almost is like life floats on the breeze, and that he feels his mothers love in that life that he had as a little boy. Arguments can be made for the other elements as well: fire for remembrance and the sun; water is pure, its where we begin and gives us life; earth is everything God made for us. When God asked Job "Where were you when I laid the earths foundations?" this was Jack O' Brien's answer. He wasn't there when God made everything, so all the things he went through were meant to test his love. His mother says at the end that "the only way to be happy is to love. The less you love, your life will flash before your eyes." This is where Jack realizes that his life did flash before his eyes because he failed to love his living family, failed to unflinchingly live in the ways of Nature and in God's grace.

Splat Review

   "Sometimes a film’s beauty can be encapsulated into a scene, or a few shots.   Malik’s vision and deeply powerful imagery outlives its welcome after 20 minutes, leaving a film that meanders along trying to impress with concepts and ideas . . .but to the occasional movie goer it misses much, much more than it hits." Rhett Bartlett of Dial M for Movies gave Malick's Tree of Life just one star. Based on his review, I don't think that one star is fair to the movie, as well as to Malick as a director. I'll grant to Bartlett that the nearly two and half hour spectacle that is Tree of Life was a little hard to watch, but to call the film pointless should be an insult to all humans. A central motif to the movie is soul searching and inner thoughts, something that every single person on the planet can relate to. We all deal with struggling to find who we are, what our purpose is, and a fair portion of us struggle with our religious faith. To call those struggles "sow paced" as Bartlett does, is saying that every human life is as well. And props have to be given to Malick for visually encompassing (because there is very little dialogue) every difficulty relevant to the movie going population: growing up, the loss of innocence, parenting struggles, faith, and even death (suicide?). If you had to make a movie, how would you visually depict nature and grace as evidently and seamlessly as Malick did?
   At first blush, the movie can seem like a scrambled 'hot mess' with several different plot points that are barely ever closed, shown to us through a series of "abstract images, powerful and deliberately deep scenes on the creation of the universe." But that's what life is, isn't it? Crazy abstract things that throw us through loops, and us constantly asking ourselves what the point of said craziness is. Life never has a "coherent plot," and as we get older we constantly find ourselves thinking over the past or thinking about what might happen. In that sense, life isn't linear either, just like this film. Most of the plot points that "don't give as much as they should," can be figured out once put into the context of the movie as whole, along with little forgotten pieces of the film that slip from our mind in the viewing of it. Trying to summarize the film is a sentence or two has lead me to this summary: Jack is a 50 something man in a world that progressed far beyond what he ever imagined during his simple life in 1950's Texas. He lost himself and his family when his younger brother died when he was 19, now Jack struggles as he tries to find who he was as a child.
    Tree of Life is a visual representation of the human condition at its most elemental and fundamental level. Rhett Bartlett clearly never thought to think of this film as anything but the movies that have dominated modern cinema. This movie was not for entertainment, although it was for anyone who isn't opposed to a little bit of intelligent thought. This movie was supposed to make you think about what makes you you, and to search for your essence. I give Bartlett's review two stars, and that's being generous. He addresses things that are probably very common gripes about the movie, and how people walked out of the movie in the first half hour. But he fails to acknowledge how the movie "teaches you how to watch itself," to quote from a classmate. He doesn't point out that after just a little bit of analysis, the movie makes so much sense that it becomes undeniably straightforward and relatable.
   

Lumia

      "Why would Malick go to such trouble to include the Lumia in his film?"  The Lumia originated in the early 18th century when Thomas Wilfred began to explore light as an art form. Before him, "color organs" had been used for colorful art, but he was the one to coin the term Lumia and renamed the color organ the "Clavilux." The Clavilux works like this: inside a closed cabinet is a series of mirrors, warped metals, and painted glass disks. Inserted strategically in the box are beams that create the pattern of light we see. Wilfred said his objective had been to represent "the universal rhythmic flow" in his works, and had refused the filming of his masterpieces because of poor quality products. Up until Malick's crew asked permission to record Wilfred's 'Opus 161,' no Lumia had ever been properly captured. So we can see where Malick faced his challenge. Now the question is why? 
     In one review in the New York Times, the reviewer said that the Lumia can "only represent the creator." In another review for Variety Magazine, the author called it a "yolk colored blob." There has to be a happy medium, right? It can't just mean God, or nothing. I think Malick chose the sequences from 'Opus 161' very carefully. He chose to use only the parts that contained only orange and blue, like we would see if we watched a candle burn. It can be argued that the central idea of Tree of Life  is remembrance of lost loved one, and what's a more generic way to memorialize someone than with a candle? We light candles when we need light to see, when we pray, and when we hold vigil. All three of these can be tied back to the movie in literal and figurative ways. Whenever we see the Lumia in Tree of Life, we hear a whispered voice over from someone in the cast, and most of the time its to hear them ask "where were you?" in tough times. When they pray to ask God questions, maybe they are figuratively asking for guidance, or 'light.' And in the beginning, we see an older Jack light a candle on what is perhaps the anniversary of his brothers death. But was it necessary to the movie?
     Without the Lumia in the movie, there would be no visual to go along with the inner monologues of the cast. There would just be faceless whispers over scenes of a typical family in 1950's Texas. And maybe it's a stretch but maybe the Lumia doesn't just represent a guiding candle. Maybe it does sort of represent the mysterious light we associate with god-like figures. But it could also represent the fire that burns within all humans. We all have a fire for life, with deep inner feelings that we sometimes prefer to keep to ourselves. There are endless meanings we can associate with fire, and light, and I kind of think that was Malick's intention. Everybody interprets things differently based on their personality, and also the state of mind we are in when we watch a movie or read a book, so Malick wanted to use a visual that was so completely subjective to the viewer that there was never just one right answer.

Tree of Life

     Terence Malick's Tree of Life is a masterpiece that has been fifty years in the making. In the sheer complexity of the movie, it is easy to see why. A movie about existence in its purist form, Tree of Life follows one family in their struggles of life and faith. We get no names, barely any dialogue and a confusing timeline for those with little analyzing skills. In this movie we follow the story of Jack, the oldest son of three, as he grows up and loses himself in a world that becomes too much for him. The film starts in the middle of his life, when he loses his 19 year old brother, then goes to him as a middle aged man working a world that has left him behind. But, the movie takes place with him as a little boy, growing up with his brothers and facing the ordinary struggles of an adolescent boy. The boys feel conflicted with polar opposite parents who show their love for each of them in different ways. We don't see much about the youngest son throughout the movie, just the 'battle' for affection between the older, harsher son who takes after the father and the sensitive, middle son that takes after the mother. When the boys witness the drowning of their friend, an aspect of innocence is lost that begins Jack's struggle with faith.
    Much like I did with Hugo, I tried to describe the movie in one word. With this film however, that became much more difficult. In a simple movie about the goodness of faith, with a creepy young kid as the main character, how do you describe it to other people, let alone yourself? To me, the movie was obscure and intricate, but simple and straightforward all at the same time. So I guess it could be summed up as an oxymoron. Like 'jumbo shrimp,' Tree of Life was a simple conundrum. At the time I first saw it, I was so confused and so angry at the movie for being so enigmatic that I couldn't see the big picture where everything tied together. All but a few things make sense now that I have turned it over in my mind, and have rewatched the opening 40 minutes.  As I said, it's a movie about existing in a place that visually took 20 minutes to create at the beginning of the film. Faith and religion are a way to not feel in a place that is unfathomably big. But without reassurance that there is some one there for us, times of hardship can almost seem unfair to those who devote their lives to upholding that faith. In the Book of Job of the Old Testament, Job asks God why he had given him all this success and was now taking it away. In reply, God asks where Job was when he created the universe Job lives in. Similar to the movie where the characters ask the same thing of God when he takes a life.
    As a filmgoer before this class, I was like every other average person in the country that just watched them for entertainment. But after watching more difficult movies in this class, I find myself wanting to over-analyze every little detail and stretch it to the farthest points of the imagination. Especially with a movie as ambiguous as this one, I feel my brain searching for connections that may or may not even be there. This film, at least in my mind, goes above and beyond any movies that we have analyzed so far in class. It broke all molds of most movies in my head when it came to dialogue, how God would be portrayed, and timelines.

PS I have one more question that I didn't even think about until I watched the opening again. Who was the woman? She covered the middle son in a curtain at the beginning, and was then embracing the mother at the end, but she wasn't in the movie at all. Was she God? Was she Death? Just a random person meant to represent eternity?

Questions on Tree of Life

        After watching a movie as complex and difficult as Tree of Life, I think we can all agree that we have some questions we would like answers to. Mine come from all different parts of the movie, but I'll start with the ones that came first. The first thing that came to my attention was why is there no dialogue? Basically the only talking there is is a bunch of whispered voiceovers of our three main characters. I don't know if it alters my rating of the movie or not, but it is just something that I am not used to. My second question is about the fifteen minute graphic sequence about the creation of the universe. I understood the sequence was a visual representation of Gods seven day creation, but why did it have to be so long? Also I could have sworn I saw some bits of evolutionary ideas in the images, which leads to my next question: was this movie meant to be religious and show that faith is the only way to save your soul, or was it a movie that represented the dangers of blind faith and that your happiness depends on yourself? There is evidence to support both, in my opinion. My fourth question is about the ending, where all the people of the past are in the ocean. I understand that it represents souls finding each other in eternity, but why was everyone the way they were when Jack was a child? Nobody had aged, but they all lived on after Jack wasn't a child. My last question is about the little flickers of light that sometimes appear in the movie. They look like obscure candle flames that appear when a narrator whispers something important, but WHAT DO THEY MEAN? They drove me crazy the whole movie because I didn't understand their significance.

Scene Analysis

    Women have an interesting role in the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild. The title itself has its own subtle insinuations towards the masculine beasts that rule the Bathtub. In several different scenes, by several different people, we get an insight into how women are viewed in the ill-fated world of Hushpuppy. First off, besides children, the only women in this movie are either a teacher (a rather feminine occupation) who believes the end of the world is coming or are fully absorbed in the "beast" life and drink rowdily with the men. There are no maternal, overly loving women present in the movie, save for one scene towards the very end. Throughout the movie, we see an overwhelming need in Hushpuppy to prove to her father that she is the man. She continually shows him typical boy behavior, to prove that she has what it takes to survive in beast mode and rule the Bathtub with him and his affections. Assuming that the other children have mothers, or did at one point, these women didn't do a good job in providing for a child's need to feel nurtured. As the children swim away from the Bathtub in an effort to find Hushpuppy's mom, it's an attempt to feel useful and maybe even a little bit feminine by taking care of the family.
    All her life, Hushpuppy has heard stories of her mom as being so beautiful and full of love, that she has this idea in her head of what all women are like: kind, gentle, supportive. But when she meets this woman we are not assured is her mother, she breaks all the ideals Hushpuppy holds. She tells her how it is, and how life isn't always happy and easy, and that it's easiest just to take care of yourself. Even if this woman isn't her mother, it does cover one thing: that women feel a natural protection over children and want to make them feel loved. As Hushpuppy and this woman dance, it highlights the bond between women and children that encourage them to do well by others, in this case, help her father. The song playing in the background as they dance keeps repeating "if that's not love, it'll have to do." Which I interpret to mean even if you don't know someone, or don't know how to help them, you have to give it the best you can to make them feel loved.
     Now I'm still not convinced that the movie would have progressed any differently had Hushpuppy had a decent mother. The Bathtub is an environment where the weak don't survive, like in the scene with Aurochs where eat their own dead, and it would destroy anyone that felt an overwhelming need to protect someone else. It's a fend for yourself type of place, as Hushpuppy showed us in the scene where she is cooking cat food with a blowtorch, and a mothers love could be seen as a hindrance to the mother, and the child, if they ended up weak. Maybe it would have made Hushpuppy incapable of living in the Bathtub, and she would have left, but that could have happened without the mom. She could have seen that her mother could not have survived in a place so harsh and unrelenting. But the dedication she feels to her father and his dying wish compelled her to stay and be strong.
    

Beasts of the Southern Wild

      Beasts of the Southern Wild was one of those movies I had to let marinate for a little before I could decide if I was a fan or not. I had no idea if it was one of those movies that I was supposed to take literally, or if it was meant to be completely interpretive. The way I interpreted the film, Hushpuppy's swampy homeland in the Bathtub is a struggling microcosm of society that is in danger of being flushed off the map. Cut off from the rest of civilization by a levee built to keep the water at bay, the Bathtubbers work with the land and the animals to provide for themselves. They've learned the ways of nature in order to milk it for a means of survival, without mainstream grocers and restaurants. Refusing to leave their home for a more convenient life, the people of the Bathtub are ravaged by a storm that nearly takes their homes away completely. With their means of living being destroyed by the after affects of the storm, they take drastic measures against the mainland and more specifically, the levee. As the water recedes into the blown hole of the levee, it reveals what's left of the Bathtub, deemed an uninhabitable environment. Unable to live like animals anymore, they are forced to assimilate to mainland culture and receive food and medical treatment as charity. Wink, Hushpuppy's terminally ill, hotheaded father, refuses to die in these conditions and demands to be brought back to the Bathtub to die.
     Throughout the entire movie, we hear and see these strange glimpses of the Aurochs, giant boar-like creatures from the Stone Age that were once the ultimate predators. We see them unfreeze from inside the melting ice caps, plunder over land and water before the ultimately end up in the Bathtub. These spur my first question about the movie: are they supposed to be real? Or a figment of Hushpuppy's imagination to symbolize her fears of being swallowed by life? My second question comes from the opening scene we analyzed today in class, more specifically, the scene of the party: is the movie loosely based on the history of the Acadians of eastern Canada? These were the people that were forced from their homes in New Brunswick down to the Louisiana coast (and subsequently became the Cajuns..) and every five years they have this festival where they make as much noise as possible to show they are still there. This could maybe contribute to the overall theme of the movie of showing that the smallest person or group can have the most fight, and make the biggest impact if only they make enough noise. My last question comes from the scene with the woman we are made to believe is Hushpuppy's mother. Nothing in the movie suggests that this was actually her mom, but it isn't denied either. Is the fact that doesn't have a mother important to the movie? To me, the story line would not have progressed any differently had there been an additional female presence.
    Overall, I think I really did enjoy the movie. I thought the acting was great and the role of Hushpuppy was as cute as it was powerful. She is such a strong little girl, facing impossible odds, with very little resources. Either way you look at the message of the movie, its hard not to find the story inspiring. The allegiance these people feel to each other and to their home is nothing short of miraculous. It's hard not to feel right along with them as they suffer loss and struggle together. All for the sake of making their presence known to world.

Sample Paragraphs

 [Sample Intro]   In both Scorsese's Hugo and Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, imagination is put face to face with technology. Scorsese's not so subtle message of the ill-fated progression of technology can be directly compared to- and contrasted with- Von Trier's more underlying comments on our need to see this progress as positive. The question was asked if machines could be employed for imaginative and playful purposes, and I think the answer is that they can be because it takes imagination to realize the full potential of what machines can do for us, but too much can be harmful. Both directors exemplify this in different ways, but the end message is all the same.

[Body 1] Two scenes that are easily comparable are ones that occur in the same places in both movies. The very opening scenes, before we even get to the films, we get scenes that symbolically sums up both movies. In Hugo, we see the dissolve of the inner workings of a clock to a Paris night scene. In Dancer, we see the dissolve of several different and vibrant paintings that eventually fade completely to white. Both scenes give us the views of the world as the protagonist sees it, and both involve dissolves which show symbolism. Hugo sees the world as this big machine, that all works together to do one big job; Selma sees the world as one big, beautiful painting that is slowly going blank. Both views take imagination to see, but the main characters eventually become so wrapped up in their ways that they don't see the harm they can do. Hugo becomes so wrapped up in his mission to find a role in the world, that he doesn't see that he could harm himself, or Isabelle, or Papa George. Selma is so set in her ways to stop her son from suffering the same fate as her that she has no regards for her self or the person she killed.

Dancer in the Dark

     My overall impression of Von Triger's Dancer in the Dark is a confusing mix of emotions. There were aspects of the movie that I liked like Bjork as Selma and the emotional and gripping finale. But the things I didn't like made it hard for the good things to shine through. The struggles of an immigrant were very accurately portrayed in the role of sweet and lovable Selma. She really was a beautiful soul that could see the best in dark situations. Her love of musicals was shown very clearly by a wise choice of songs throughout the movie, albeit with some very weird songs that were hard to understand in the Czech accent. At first, I had no idea where the movie could possibly be going. The first hour and a half seemingly had no point. But as the movie took more of a focus on Selma's relationship with her son Gene through her struggle with the justice system, it began to really grab my emotions and I felt along with the characters. The end scene was probably one of the most moving things I've ever seen in a movie and I highly recommend to anyone to not watch it alone.
     Even though there were all these intense and creatively portrayed aspects, I find it hard to say that I liked the movie. The first thing that bothered me right off the bat were the camera angles and views. Why did it look like a stalker filmed the entire movie? I can't say why it bothered me so much but the whole Indie/Documentary feel just isn't something I enjoyed. A second question I have is why did every one look so creepy, almost like they were scared? I get that Jeff was a decent guy, but it did not come off that was when he was following Selma around and offering her rides everywhere. Even Bill came off a little petrified-looking. The only other question I had is was it really necessary to include the songs in the movie? They were very weird, and I don't think they fit very well with what the director was trying to get across. I could understand Selma's love of sound and music just by the rhythms she hears wherever she goes, and how devastated she was when she had to resign from The Sound of Music, so I don't see the point of making a musical out of a docudrama.

Free Write

      I think for the first essay, I am going to choose to do prompt B. Instead of comparing the role of machines in Hugo and in Modern Times, I think the concept of machines in Dancer in the Dark is a much more interesting and provocative idea. Each movie has its own unique problems with machines and what they cause, although we see it a little more subtly in Dancer than in the machine-filled Hugo. Both movies give us the same message: machines can bright light to the world if in the hands of the good, who can use their imagination to bring out what machines can do. One of the main differences that I see, having just watched Dancer is this: Hugo shows us the dangers of losing imagination in times when its needed most, but Dancer shows the beauty of fantasy and the sadness that comes from too much.
     In Dancer, Selma is this beautiful, bright soul that doesn't let the depression of encroaching blindness ruin her life. She chooses to see the magic in the world, and makes some very good friends a long her journey. Her love for her son is what drives her to desperate measures to regain the money for his vision surgery (a new technology, or machine). In Hugo, its the other way around. It's a son feeling the need to connect with his late  father through the technology they shared together. Both need to use imagination so they don't feel so small, or helpless, in their situations. Hugo chooses to see the bigger picture, that he is a cog in a machine with a job to do, while Selma brightens her life with the thing she enjoys most: musicals. Both messages are brought out clearly in the style the directors chose, but there is most likely more room to explore the connections between the two films.
     

Herding the Cattle

     Much like with Hugo, we can take the opening scene of Chaplin's Modern Times and use it as a loose outline of what the movie may be about. We start off with a clock in the background (again, tying us back to Hugo and an insinuation that time plays a role) with a quote across it's face: ""Modern Times." A story of industry, of individual enterprise - humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness." We are then shown a herd of sheep, seemingly fleeing from something unseen, which slowly transitions to a seen of people crowding out of the subway in a hurry. Much like in Hugo, the images are meant to show symbolism, because one is faded onto another, meaning that the first usually equates to the second. Using this mindset, Chaplin's meaning can be interpreted as a few different things. But coupling the images with the quote, one interpretation stands out to me.
     During the late 1930's, people were searching in all directions for types of technology to make life easier. Just using the content of the first scene, we can infer that Chaplin is comparing humans to animals. Animals like the ones shown are raised for one reason, and that is to be brought to the slaughter house. By overlaying the image of men rushing off the subway, the comparison is hard to miss. Man is "crusading" in the name of progress, but only for progress's sake and their one reason for working like animals is that they think they are working towards happiness. Instead of actual immaterial happiness, man in plundering towards an easy life where machines do all the work where there is no room for human error. Like the sheep, man thinks it is working towards one thing, while the 'shepherds' know the truth and know the disaster that awaits them at the end of the line.

Train vs. Automaton

     In the dream sequence of Hugo, we are introduced to the idea of people falling onto the train tracks. In his dreams, though, we witness Hugo's nightmare of himself stranded on the train tracks after finding his fathers key. I've come to believe that this was Scorsese's way of showing us that Hugo had to unknowingly sacrifice his father in order to slow down a world (the train) that was moving too fast, leaving some of it's greatest treasures behind. Towards the end of the movie, we again see another body on the train tracks, but this time it is the automaton, thrown there on accident by Hugo and the Station Inspector. After Hugo throws himself after the automaton onto the tracks, we see the desperation this one little boy has to find a reason behind the terrible events in his life, and to save something that shouldn't be up to him to save.
      One of the questions I still have after watching and analyzing this movie extensively, is: why throw the automaton on the train tracks? To Hugo, the automaton symbolizes his father, and the last project they shared together before the museum fire. To Papa Georges, the automaton is everything he once cherished in life. It's the last 'living' piece of his past that he thought was gone forever. By throwing the automaton in front of a train, the two worlds collide. Hugo realizes in this moment, that the automaton is so much more than just a connection to his father. It's Papa Georges world, Hugo's fathers world, that needs to be saved in order to save his own world. Hugo knows that if this automaton is lost, so are his hopes of fixing Papa Georges, and saving the world that he missed out on being a part of. When the automaton is lying on the tracks, it symbolizes the balance Hugo's world hangs in, between plowing over the past and destroying it completely, or slowing down and remembering everything that was once good in a world without war.

The Key to the Nightmare

     When watching Hugo for the first time, I was originally very confused by the entire nightmare sequence. To me, I thought that it didn't thematically fit in with the rest of movie, and seemed kind of out of context. Stylistically, it went along with the rest of the movie, but it left me with more questions than answers, even at the end of the film.  But by breaking it down scene by scene, the parts begin to make more sense, independent of the whole. By focusing on just the scene with the key and the train, we can piece together how it fits into the movie and try to find how it strings together some of the themes and motifs of the film.
      "Cabret et Fils, Horlogers" is what's written on the key that Hugo notices amongst the pebbles on the train tracks. This literally translates to "Cabret and Sons, Clock Makers." We also notice that the key this is engraved on is a match to the key that Isabelle had for the automaton. Many different conclusions can be drawn from just analyzing this one segment, but coupled together with the graphic and accurate portrayal of the 1895 Paris train crash, one theory stands out to me most of all. Throughout the whole movie, Hugo's job is to keep the clocks accurate so as to keep the train schedule functioning properly. Trains are meant to be constant, a safe and efficient way to get from point A to point B. The train station represents a stable place kept together by time, so in turn, the people that keep the clocks running on time. When the train crashes because of Hugo, it shows that they can destroy everything in a matter of seconds, just by one little infraction that messes up the time schedule. It shows the importance of Hugo's fathers' job, and also of what Hugo does for the station.    
     As the train tears through the lobby of the station, I infer that as Hugo slacks, the sanctity and uniformity of the station is gone. Time and order are not maintained, therefore chaos ensues. This theory to me is overall negative. But speaking in terms of the boundaries we discussed in class, it can be interpreted as a good thing. This train destroys all sense of normalcy, breaking the 'walls' that separate these people that work together every day. It broke the hurt that connected Hugo to his father and allowed him to be able to accept a new family, in the train station that he had called home.

Paintings on The Early Cinema

      In the early to mid 1900's, going to the cinema had still been a fairly new experience. Although the paintings Movies, Five Cents by John Sloan and New York Movie by Edward Hopper were painted more than thirty years apart, and visually have very little in common, they each portray something unique about early cinema. Before visual analysis, you would think that the general concept of the paintings couldn't be more different.
      In Sloan's painting we are given a scene that focuses solely on the people and the movie they are watching. We are actually looking in at them as they all watch this new movie.The "muddy" color scheme gives us that dark movie theatre feeling, and we notice that the brightest thing in the room is (as it should be) the movie screen. In 1907, when Sloan painted this, cinema wasn't more than fifteen years old, so in this painting we see people dressed in nice hats and fancy suits, making it a sort of formal occasion. We notice this in the couple on the right hand side that look like they are coming in a little late. A crowd of shadowed people all blur together as they watch a couple kiss on screen, with rapt attention. All except the woman in the center of the audience. She is seemingly turned directly toward the artist, making her smiling face the focus of the painting. I think that this makes her the most important aspect of the work too because her face is showing the wonder and the awe that coupled early cinema. In this pre-World War painting, the magic is still there. In Hopper's painting, we get a few of the same things, but in a completely different way.
       In 1939, when Edward Hopper painted New York Movie, we are in a post-World War, post-Depression state of mind. Differing from Sloan's right off the bat, Hopper chose to focus just outside of the theatre. In the center of the painting is (anticlimactically) a wall. It provides separation to the two world we are provided as different focal points. On the left, we see the darkened movie theatre, but only one movie-goer. On the right, we are given a brighter setting, and shown a female usher leaning against the wall, deep in thought. Not only do the two sides contrast each other, but they might also contrast the mood of the people portrayed on the side. After noticing the contrast, I find that the focus of the painting, is the woman deep in thought. Much like the lady in the first painting, she embodies the mood of the time period.
     After comparing and contrasting the paintings with each other, it took me a while to decipher what the painters were maybe saying about films. And that's when the idea of time periods popped into my head. The woman in Sloan's painting looks as if to not have a care in the world, and is completely mystified by the new things around her. The woman in Hopper's painting has too many worries it seems, and is missing all the magic that's in the world. The painters both captured the essences of what people thought about movies in their time. They show the loss of the feelings towards movies and movie makers in just two peoples expressions.

Scorsese's Hugo

          Up until Wednesday night, Hugo by Martin Scorsese was a film I had never seen. I had seen
the previews for it when it came out in 2012, but I had just thought it was about a boy and some sort of humanoid machine. As per usual, I wrote Hugo off as a movie that would in no way interest me. Machines have never really been my thing. I had heard a couple times that the film was referred to as "Scorsese's love letter to early cinema," but I just figured that was because it took place in 19th century France, where the Lumiere Brothers made the first motion picture. Even though France, and everything about it, has always interested me, I had no urge to rush out to the movies and spend an arm and a leg to see it. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would have found it as mesmerizingly beautiful as I did, and regret not contributing to its box office profits.
          If I could sum up the movie in just one word (not an easy thing to do) I would have to choose enchanting. My brain flip flopped back and forth between words like beautiful and amazing, but it was so much more than those mundane words could describe. Enchant means to delight to a high degree, while enchanting means charming or captivating. It seemed the only word in the entire English language that adequately summarize how in awe I was. The first aspect of the film that I fell in love with were the characters. When it comes to fiction, without an interesting medium, it can be nigh impossible to reach an audience on a personal level. But as we get to know our protagonist, Hugo, it becomes just as impossible to not fall in love with his innocence, despite his recourse to thievery. We can all relate to bad things happening to us, and this little boy has had all that we can think of and then some happen. Even after the death of his clock maker father, his love for mechanics and tinkering burns even brighter. The automaton is probably the most interesting aspect of the entire film. Barring any sort of modern technology, I had never heard of anything like a mechanical man able to do a human task. And trying to put myself in this certain time period, it completely boggled me to think technology like that had existed in that era. Even though his father was killed during the restoration of this automaton, Hugo's need to find the bots' purpose in memory of his father spoke legions of the love they shared - both for each other, and for the wonders of machinery.
         Not only was Hugo portrayed to the greatest extent, but the story was so magical and romantic that it's hard to imagine how modern films have fallen so far. Not to say all movies today are awful, but seeing the work and dedication it took to make the first movies entails a sort of magic that is lost in cinema today. It must have been so beyond belief to see the first movies, something that had only been dreamed until then. Before George Melies, and the rest of the forefathers of cinema, dreams had been saved for sleep. A concept that had been unattainable for so long. It used to take so much work on everyone's part to make a dreams a reality, and now its all cold computers with not nearly any of the love and pride that came from making only movies. This truly was Scorsese's dedication to the mastery of the first film makers, and how magical he believed them to be.