15.5 Summary: Week 15

15.5 Summary: Week 15

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of week 15 you should be able to:

•   to evaluate and explore the creation and effects of various types of film experience.

• Clarify questions you may have  in regards to the class material.
• Clarify and define the basic vocabulary of film production and film theory.
• Apply your knowledge to a film screened  to analyze the aesthetics of filmmaking.

• Recognize and classify different film genres.
• Apply your knowledge to a film screened

TO-DO LIST

To meet the objectives of this week's module, you completed the following activities and assessments: 

1. Viewed this week's film.
2. Reviewed Chapter 11.
3. Submitted a revision of your critique if you saw fit.
4. Participated in the Review Discussion and Responses.

Next up:  The Final Exam

In further preparation for the final exam please look at your film notebooks including the skeletal outlines, review the presentations, discussions, quizzes and the end of each chapter where our author analyzes a film in regards to the material presented.  Look back at the films screened in class. The final is divided into three sections and similar to the midterm includes a number of essay questions. Each section is timed separately and you will have one attempt at each. Do not use materials or the internet in completing your work.

15.4 WATER - Final Review Discussion

 15.4 Final Review Discussion

Directions:

Take a minute to reflect on the reading material thus far the presentation(s), and the study guide. Then,

1.Discuss a concept of your choice.

2.or, ask a question on a concept or term you would like greater clarification on.

3.or formulate a question which you feel could be included on a quiz or the final exam,  Your question may be multiple choice, or short answer. Provide your answer as well.

Finally answer a fellow student's question - other than the question from the previous bullet point.

or feel free to ask multiple questions if that is the path best for you.

Please be thorough.
Use quotes from the text to make your point, but please also cite the page.
Give examples from films screened in class. 

You may specifically concentrate on Water, this weeks film, or you may include films we have previously screened.
For instance you may discuss Water in respect to Hollywood Cinema (classicism).
1.What characteristics does it share,
2.how is it dissimilar?
3.And/or if you have gained knowledge of narrative structure,
4.styles of acting,
5.aesthetic form and analysis and you want to apply that knowledge to Water please do so.

And once again feel free to include Water in your quiz question.

My post: 

• or formulate a question which you feel could be included on a quiz or the final exam,  Your question may be multiple choice, or short answer. Provide your answer as well.

Preface to question. When I read this in the text, It fascinated me. I thought it was one of the best explanations of what made a film revolutionary and a masterpiece. Also how it contributed a change in American film history. 

In the discussion of the golden age of Hollywood which was 1927-1948, the text says that in 1941 with the release of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’s film revolutionized the medium in American cinema. The text gave sixteen reasons that it was revolutionary; please name four in short sentence answers.

Here are the answers: 

1)Citizen Kane shows Welles’s genius as an artist and his vision of a new kind of cinema. (at age 24)
2)Involves a complex plot consisting of 9 sequences (each using a different tone and style).  -5 are
   flashbacks,
3)Including the omniscient camera, the movie has seven narrators – some of them unreliable – who,
   taken together present a modern psychological portrait of a megalomaniac.
4)Released 7 months before the US declared war in dec 41. it was a radical film for Hollywood.
5)Many interpretations including the Freudian interpretation of young Charlie’s relationship to his
   mother.
6)Citizen Kane carries a strong antifascist message. It warns against the Kane’s arrogant abuse of the
   first amendment right of freedom of speech and press, one of the many evils that Americans, reading
   their own newspapers, associated with Hitler.
7)Radical in its handling of prevailing cinematic language.
8)Astonishing complexity and speed of the narrative. It has influenced the structure and pace of nearly
    every movie after.
9)Movie’s stark design is heavily influenced by German Expressionism (in size, height, and depth of the
    rooms and other spaces at Xanadu).
10)Through deep-space composition, lighting, deep-focus cinematography, and long takes.  Gregg
      Toland (Cinematographer) achieved the highest degree of cinematic realism yet seen.  
11)The film is marked by brilliant innovations that changed cinematic language forever.
      Among these is deep focus cinematography, which permits action on all three planes of depth --
      foreground, middle ground and background.
12)In contrast to the prevailing soft look of the 1930s films, Citizen Kane has a hard finish.
13)The omniscient, probing, and usually moving camera, emphasizing its voyeuristic role, goes directly
      to the heart of each scene.
14)The editing is conventional, most often taking place within long takes/within camera. No soviet
     montage type things…except when he does “News on the March” sequence and pans and swipes that
     create the passing of time during the famous breakfast-table sequence.
15)His sound design for Kane creates and aural realism equivalent to the movie’s visual realism. He
      frequently uses overlapping sound, film also louder that typical. The bravado of its dialogue, sound
      effects, and music puts in your ears as well as in your face. Bernard Herrmann’s score was space,
      modernist ahead of its time.
16)Welles called on his stage and radio experiences to break another Hollywood convention. Actors did
      not normally rehearse their lines except in private or for a few minutes with the director b4 shooting.
      but Welles rehearsed his cast for a month before shooting began, so his ensemble of actors could
      handle long passage of dialogue in the movie’s distinctive long takes. And the performances,
      including Welles as Kane, are unforgettable.

15.3 View Water (2005, 119 min.) Deepa Mehta

15.3 View Water (2005, 119 min.) Deepa Mehta

View Water (Links to an external site.)  (Links to an external site.)(2005, 119 min.) Deepa Mehta 

Water is one of three films that comprise a trilogy -  Fire (1996) and  Earth (1998) are the others.

As we studied cultural invisibility we explored the concept that a film reflects the culture from which it comes. 

Film in Indian developed historically not through a link with literature and the novel, but through theater.  Thus, Indian film tends to reflect culturally specific theatrical elements. Early silent Indian cinema audiences were often non-reading.  Further, multiple languages are spoken. 

For a reading audience the question of what language to print subtitles in automatically excluded some audience members. Historical stories based on legends, stories of the pantheon of the gods/heroes were often prevalent. Indian film audiences were familiar with these stories/legends/myths and the manner in which they were told through theater and therefore language or subtitles were not a must.

A star, six songs and three dances is a dismissive definition coined by Western critics of Indian, and specifically Bollywood, cinema. Water is considered a hybrid production; it includes elements of both Indian/South Asian cinema and Western/Hollywood productions.

This skeletal outline to be used to aid in note taking in regards to the film viewed. Feel free to download it and either use it as a reference, or as a page in your film notebook.

How is this a hybrid film?

How is the film focalized? (from last week's presentation)

Auteur theory?

Other interesting moments/techniques.

Examples of meaning or invisibility.

Questions?

 

15.2 READ Chapter 11 How Movies are Made

 15.2 READ Chapter 11 How Movies are Made

 Please Review Chapter 11 – How Movies are Made

14.6 Summary: Week 14 - History

14.6 Summary: Week 14 - History

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this week you should be able to:

1.Distinguish multiple manners utilized to examine film history.

2.Discuss vocabulary and terminology.

3.Describe various historically important film movements.

TO-DO LIST

To meet the objectives of this week's module, you completed the following activities and assessments: 

1.Completed the reading assignment - Chapter 10. 

2.Viewed the presentation.

3.Viewed this week's film.

4.Participated in the Discussion and Responses.

5.Submitted the Ikiru critique Due Dec 3 and completed the peer review by Dec 6th.

6.Examined the final exam review in order to prepare for next week's review discussion.

Next up:  Module 15

We examined approaches in an analysis of film history and some important historical trends. Next up we will spend much of our time participating  an online review in preparation for the final exam.

14.5 part 2 - WRITE AKIRA KUROSAWA - IKIRU - CRITIQUE

14.5 part 2 - WRITE AKIRA KUROSAWA - IKIRU - CRITIQUE 

This critique is worth 10% of your overall grade.

1. Remember your work must be two to three pages in length, typed at either single, or one and one half spaced (900 - 1350 words)  on a topic of your choice as applied to Ikiru. In regards to form, a critique includes an introductory paragraph with a topic sentence, the body which discusses at least three pertinent points, and a conclusion.

2. The second part of this assignment is a peer review. Consider this a group project. Here you will automatically be assigned a student to review. Use the rubric as a guideline for your input. Like the discussion responses you will be expected to give feedback on the critique, what worked and what could be improved upon and, why? Is there a topic sentence, a conclusion, are sources properly cited, etc.? Remember, peer feedback is an excellent educational tool. The rubric should be beneficial.

3.Complete the peer review for the Ikiru critique by Dec 5th.  Make sure you leave comments for your fellow students. After you have received feedback on your work you will have an opportunity to submit a revised critique by Dec 8th.  Once the peer reviews are completed I will grade your work. Please inform me if you resubmitted your work so it is not considered late.

My Critique:

Ida Z. 
Anna Geyer 
Introduction to Film Studies 70427-931 
29 November 2021 

 

                                                                  Critique Assignment  

 

There are many moving films by auteur director/screenwriters that I respect telling the story of an elder facing their mortality and doing so with horrible children. One comparison is Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (1957) with the elder Professor Isak Borg and his distant ambivalent son. The closer comparison is Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) where the elder husband and his terminal wife from the country visit their callous city children in Tokyo. Akira Kurosawa is able to take this simple storyline and with famously unique screenwriting style and use of Brechtian technique; create the screenplay of Ikiru (1952) into a film that was novel for his time and today.  

 

Kurosawa developed the protagonist Mr. Watanabe. A man of values, principles and ethics. A man that was not sick from work for twenty-nine years and worked within the bureaucratic civil service system without ruffling feathers. “He’s presented with Brechtian objectivity via a quiet voice-over which tells us he’s got on for twenty-nine years by doing nothing at all” (Cochran). 

 

We are introduced in an emotionally restricted way to the background story of Mr. Watanabe’s family life and relationship with his son using a Hollywood montage way of storytelling. We see him caring for Matsuo above his own needs from his wife’s funeral to the present day. He is so selfless that he has declined advice to remarry for his own needs to take care of his son’s.  

 

Mr. Watanabe saved all his money and provided for his son and daughter-in-law. We see a solid man that has done everything that has been expected of him as a Japanese salaryman and a father. At the same time of building up this honorable character, Kurosawa is letting us know that this honest, simple soul is going to die. It’s an interesting Kurosawa strategy of building up a character for us to love and killing him at the same time. He is doubling our emotional concern over the character, yet also distancing us. 

Kurosawa uses Brechtian technique in Ikiru. “The formal experimentation of Ikiru has one central purpose: to sharpen the film’s focus by controlling and limiting the audience’s emotional response. A film about the last months of a man who knows he is dying is inherently threatened by a descent into bathos…yet the form of the film prevents this from happening and aids in its didactic task” (Prince 101). Bathos meaning over sentimentality.

 

So, what is the Brechtian film purpose that requires a controlled and limited response?  

“Kurosawa too, is committed in Ikiru, as in much of his other work, to the “uniformed” characters, to those just starting out in life whose moral transformation the films study and place in relation to a detailed social context. Heroes like Watanabe – are intended as explicit role models for the audience, but the values incarnated by their behavior are communicated through a “complex seeing” in which these lessons in responsible living are filtered through, altered, and sometimes deformed by the social order, whose competing values generate other voices in the texts that contest the example provided by the hero” (Prince 101). 

 

The screenwriting form of Ikiru is “a two-act structure: The first act being Watanabe coming to terms with his illness, and the second a posthumous re-counting at his wake of his building the park/ruminations on the man himself” (tvtropes). 

 

The narrative in Ikiru is nonlinear. This is used intentionally by Kurosawa as an unusual structure so that he can go to “good parts of a storyline that would’ve been too complicated and difficult to tell in a linear fashion” (Man). I believe he was writing the screenplay with a director’s mind editing the story and jumping to choice pieces, not feeling obliged to fill in all the blanks as traditional linear screenwriter would build a story from A to Z. Yet, somehow, Kurosawa seems to cover everything we need to know.  

 

The nonlinear narrative structure and “its form is marked by jumps, curves, and montages.”  It goes back to what Brecht spoke of in using film experimentation “to sharpen the film’s focus by controlling and limiting” the emotional response of the audience. A nonlinear structure also makes an emphasis on “human life as a process open to change” (Prince 101). 
 
“Kurosawa is known for is a diptych form of narrative” (Eggert). Diptych meaning a literary work consisting of two contrasting parts (as a narrative telling the same story from two opposing points of view) (Yourdictionary). 

 

“With Ikiru, Kurosawa studies a life as it changes from wholly empty to filled with intention, and then he considers how that life was viewed by others. The posthumous portion reveals itself to be tragically ironic, as the attendees at Watanabe’s wake talk of his life and grossly reduce it through their skewed perception of his final days. In each case with his diptych films, Kurosawa considers the relationship between the real and the ideal” (Eggert). 

 

Kurosawa uses this type of narrative in other films. Criterion in a review described the film structure as unconventional, even radical in design. Probably most famously used in Kurosawa’s Rashomon (1950). 

 

In the film Rashomon, there is a similar scene as the retelling Mr. Watanabe’s life at his funeral memorial.  The Rashomon effect “gives us four versions of the same series of events…. each retelling markedly different from the others” through the eyes of various witness at a trial (Prince/Criterion). 

 

Criterion says Kurosawa introduced the use of this new type of film storytelling. “When Rashomon (1950) played in Venice and then went into international distribution, it stunned audiences. No one had ever seen a film quite like this one. For one thing, its daring, nonlinear approach to narrative shows the details of the crime as they are related, through the flashbacks of those involved” (Prince/Criterion). 

 

“Kurosawa’s visionary approach would have enormous cinematic and cultural influence. He bequeathed to world cinema and television a striking narrative device—countless movies and television shows have remade Rashomon by incorporating the contradictory flashbacks of unreliable narrators” (Prince/Criterion). 

 

The uniqueness of Kurosawa’s screenwriting with a two-act diptych and nonlinear structure and the use of Brechtian technique is what makes Ikiru such an interesting and unique work. Also as stated he uses the hero Watanabe’s moral transformation in its social context as an intended role model for the audience. This social statement takes it to another level of influence as well. Filmmakers are influenced by Kurosawa as Criterion credits him with the first us of diptych style in film. These create a novel film in Ikiru that It is still admired as one of Akira Kurosawa’s great films and studied today.   

 

 

                                                            Works Cited 

 

 

Cochran, Peter. “Umberto D. (Vittorio de Sica) and Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa) both 1952.”  
        Petercochran.wordpress.com. Feb. 2009 
        https://petercochran.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/umbert_d_and_ikiru.pdf 

Eggert, Brian. “The Definitives: Ikiru.” Deep Focus Review, 5 Jan. 2009.  
        https://deepfocusreview.com/definitives/ikiru/  

Man, Mystery. “THE CRAFT: To Hell With Story Structure.” Script Magazine. 18 Jul. 2017.  
         https://scriptmag.com/features/the-craft-to-hell-with-story-structure 

Prince, Stephen. “The Rashomon Effect.” Criterion. 6 Nov. 2012.  
         https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/195-the-rashomon-effect 

Prince, Stephen. The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa. Revised and Expanded  
         Edition., Princeton University Press, 2020. 
 https://books.google.com/books?id=qG3dDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=kurosawa+film+ikiru+nonlinear&source=bl&ots=Jn_vzCpkLD&sig=ACfU3U27LnV0nmKTyHSRwbqbbhYfjlF6Ow&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwisop2M4av0AhXDtp4KHX1XCP4Q6AF6BAgmEAM#v=onepage&q=kurosawa%20film%20ikiru%20nonlinear&f=false 

Tvtropes. “Film / Ikiru.” tvtropes.org.  
         https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Ikiru 

Yourdictionary. “Diptych meaning.” yourdictionary.com. 
         https://www.yourdictionary.com/diptych 

 

 R's Brutal tear down critque of my work:

Wow Ida, what a myriad of academic backup in your critique and puzzle to figure out for me. Much of it I can't understand, but I will try and comment. In the second paragraph you state that Watanabe worked for 29 years without ruffling feathers. I assume this to mean bureaucratic feathers, as we saw the disgruntled ladies or 'the public' reaction to his 'doing nothing.' Those were some ruffled feathers. 

 I loved how you brought in comparisons to Bergman and Ozu in your into. I also admire your observation that the children were callous. This leads me to think that parents like this reap what they sow, so to speak, literally.  

 

I would also agree that Brechtian objectivity is appropriate. When I think of Brecht, I think of emotionless, so emotionless freedom from bias. I also agree that the depictions from his past are restricted emotionally. The scene where he watched his son get struck out in baseball was filled with squelched emotion. 

 

Brecht hadn't come to mind for me, so I find this idea fascinating. I just figured that he reacted in a Japanese way. Proper and to himself. When you mention that Kurosawa was building up a character to love and then kill him, I didn't feel much love for him. I just thought he did what was necessary and in keeping with his expected duty as a father.  

I don't know what is meant about 'yet distancing us', but it feels in keeping with your Brechtian idea. 

 

I felt distanced from Watanabe until he marched into the office after his absence, in his rakish white hat. Then the love came for this man with a new mission. I didn't know the word bathos, so I looked it up and it says 'the sudden appearance of the commonplace in otherwise elevated matter of style.'  

 

The paragraph about the Brechtian film purpose is one I had to read several times but I get it now (kind of). I won't stay stuck on that or my head will explode.  

 

Moving on.... I don't think I agree with tvtropes assessment of the film being a two-act structure, although I can see why an analysis would point this way.  

 

The reactions and opinions of Watanabe's associates, friends and family at the funeral were, to me, like the telephone game. As we all have our version of reality and bend our words and thinking to match how we 'really' feel about something, the real truth becomes our version of the truth; especially when reflecting on others, so this to me is what happens in the world, period. People do one thing and are remembered in another way, by those who think they know what the real score is.  

 

The ego-driven boss that wanted to take responsibility for Watanabe's success with the park just spoke to how people envision themselves and make it about himself. Over time, the truth of his success comes to light and one by one, they all come to realize that he maybe wasn't a great man, but he did a great thing (although a few thought he was great) I did not. 

 

I do agree with the diptych idea, that would lend to the two-part structure, but I'm still holding that the film had three distinctive parts, and the most important one was the journey he went through to get to where he got.  

Or maybe i just like any film that includes brothels.  

 

You mention Rashomon, and this device in storytelling is a bit similar for the funeral scene, but in Rashomon it was done amplified and the only style. 

 

I love the idea in your conclusion that the moral transformation has a social context as well as a personal message to the audience as that is the effect the film had on me. Well done! Your in-depth study made me think HARD...and look up words! Dang girl! 

My post to teacher - Anna: 
Hi Anna,

Just FYI, I do respect Robert’s feedback on my critique but think I will stand behind the sources I cited and will not re-do things to be a considerably different paper.

So, It's my final paper now.

Thanks,
Ida

2nd note to Anna: 

Ok, I decided to make some changes on my paper. Will send the final post soon.
ida

14.5 DISCUSSION - History etc.

14.5 DISCUSSION - History etc.

Purpose

This discussion gives you the chance to apply the knowledge you attained through the reading to your choice of the work screened for this module.

Directions

Use the vocabulary of filmmaking in respect to film history the 4 basic historical approaches and/or specific movements as described in chapter 10. 

This week describe and analyze Land and Shade. Discussion topics may include, but are not limited to:

What similarities does the film share with a historical film movement/style as described in chapter 10?

How is it similar or different from that of the Hollywood Studio system - the star system?

Are there elements that make the film unique?

Or as in our 4th learning outcome, how do the filmic techniques utilized inform cultural development and social awareness?

Feel free to discuss the acting and chapter 9 as well. For instance,

How does the style of acting contribute to the tone?

Are there moments in which the interplay between the camera and the actor(s) affects your understanding of the story.

Give multiple examples.

My Post: 
12-3-2021

La Tierra y La Sombra (César Augusto Acevedo, 2015)
had most of the characteristics of a Neorealist film. Thematically, there was a line in the text that seemed like they were talking about La Tierra y La Sombra. It said that Neorealist filmmakers “placed the highest value on the lives of ordinary working people; …decried widespread unemployment, poverty…government corruption and inadequate housing” (Monahan 380).

La Tierra y La Sombra depicts a small Columbian county where the people are barely making enough money to survive. The way that they make money is by working in the hazardous cane fields. The daughter-in-law mentions that she prefers the continuous burning and falling of black ash all day as the cane fields are worse and cut like razor blades. In a later scene the grandfather is cutting cane around the house and gets a huge slash across his palm. 

The corrupt Sugar Cane processor is not protecting the workers with any kind of mouth or eye shields. They daily ash burning is probably like chain smoking all day for the workers' lungs. It is killing the workers but, they are expendable and there are always more that need work. By the end of the day the daughter-in-law comes home with a blackened face and clothes from working in these conditions.

Similar to Neorealism this is a story of ordinary poor people (although these are actors). The people are poor because of combination of corporate and government corruption. In a government for the people there are rules to protect the working people from this kind of corporate abuse and poisoning of the people and environment. In third world countries corporations have a louder voice than the people. Especially the poor people. The government doesn’t have an incentive to put restrictions on them. 

The filming style is also Neorealist in that it is filmed on location around the family home and in the cane fields. There are a few scenes where the grandfather goes into town to buy something or take his son to the hospital, but those look like real locations. The dark interior shots seem to be on location as well as all the window shots exactly match the exterior. There are a lot of long shots used outside even when there are just two characters together. For example, the times that the grandfather was outside with his son and grandson, instead of a close up to see their faces, Acevedo uses a long shots to also capture the cane and the surrounding area. This was done in Neorealism to “maintain the look of the actual spaces where shooting occurred” (Monahan 381).

Neorealist films also can have “a documentary visual style that included shooting in the streets with natural light and lightweight cameras” (Monahan 380). An example of this is when the family comes home from work. There is a handheld camera following them and walking behind them unevenly as if it is a coworker. In the end the handheld camera walks into the burning cane fields that are right outside the family home. 

The ending of the film is “true to the neorealist credo, is ambiguous” (Monahan 381). The group that goes with the grandfather perhaps has a better chance although we do not know for sure. The stubborn grandmother chooses to be left behind on her land. It’s inconceivable how she will survive without a job or money, but that is her choice. 

Anna's Response to my post -- private response: 

Thank you for your thorough discussion and your very informative response. I lived in Mexico for a bit and am aware of the bond, but I never really thought about why the son stayed and that the stubbornness of the mother created the situation depicted. I truly appreciate your insight.

Anna Geyer, Dec 4 at

R's Post

1. Wow, what a bleak (and boring...sorry to be blunt) film.  Shot in the style of Italian Neorealism with seemingly nonprofessional actors giving naturalistic performances, this film tells a story of impoverished everyday working class people.  A strict family dynamic with a man returning after 17 years to help care for his sick son as the basis, is a slice of real life as it would probably look.  The authentic setting lends to the despair of nowhere to go, nothing to do, especially for the young son.

2. This film differs from the Hollywood studio system as there are no major stars attached to it, that I know, anyway.  There is no happy ending, or even much of a narrative arc other than the father dying as the conflict that looms over the entire film.  I thought he would die much sooner, but the lingering felt beleaguered.  A Hollywood film would never look or move like this.  There were no major singular protagonists and the plot didn't give us much background as to why the old man left in the first place and what his new life is like. A  Hollywood film doesn't often drop a viewer into a story like this with no backstory or established goal achieved = ART FILM!  The quiet and somber drudgery was unrelenting and Hollywood would never produce a film like this in the Studio system days.  I felt like the director did everything right.  The images were beautifully shot and the acting was perfect, but the lack of compelling story was disappointing for this viewer.

3. The acting contributes to the tone as characters rarely smiled. There wasn't much to smile about. It was obvious that there were wounds that hadn't healed and deep silent resentments.  The many single tears let us know the desperation of their predicament.  The turning away and saying nothing when confronted with prickly questions about the past just spoke to a mood of quiet discontent and resignation to the circumstances, and silence was preferred.

My Response to R.:

We'll never get a false word out of you in this class Robert and that is why I have enjoyed reading your reviews so much. 

First I have to say how much this film made me think of Terrence Malik's Days of Heaven (1978) Latin American version. There were some beautiful shots of the cane fields and the fire at the end. However, it has that Latin American flavor of exploitation. The pace is also very slow, nothing happens fast in most of our Latino countries, so that is very authentic. I agree Robert, it was a painfully long death.

There is a lot of unspoken cultural context that I think would be very difficult for one to pick up on without being from a Latin family or country. Also I was listening to the film in Spanish. 

Being half Mexican myself, I saw it as mainly a family story. In Latin families the mother is usually the strongest voice behind the scenes and the mother and son bond is very tight. In mine I can see it across all the generations of my family.

R's Response:

Thanks for the cultural context Ida....that helps in understanding the complex mother/son relationship.  I must say that the film 'has' stuck with me, even though being in it had me squirming and watching the time once I determined that the film was going to plod in its pace.  It certainly was an unvarnished glimpse into a culture that didn't pose many options, and that was quietly disturbing.  I too caught the explanation of the father leaving due to the sugar cane crop overtaking their once more peaceful existence.  This further explains the old woman digging her heels in and bending those around her against their will.  I had one random thought at the end of the film when the old woman was alone and sat on that bench by the tree after all her loved ones had gone.  I just 'knew' that the shot would pull out to reveal the platform the old man built for the boy,....and a bird would land on it....but she wouldn't see it and only the viewer would....and then the the film ends.  Now 'that' would have been some poetry to ponder on.

One last thought.  I loved Days of Heaven that you mentioned, but unlike Tierra y la Sombra, Malick was backed by Paramount (thus Hollywood) and gave us a young and perfect Richard Gere to fill the screen with, where the other film, like a Neorealist film, gave us regular people.  Hollywood loves its beauty.

My Response to R: 

My analysis is that the husband left because he said he couldn't stay and see what was happening around there with the sugar cane growth. He said that to his son in the beginning and to his ex-wife towards the end of the film.  I believe no one would listen to his correct assessment of the situation, that it was time to leave.  No one would listen and follow him.

I believe the stubborn and selfish mother would not give up on her land, would not see the truth, and her son being loyal of course stayed with her. So her stubbornness essentially killed her own son, as she refused to leave. Even as she saw him get sick and could've granted him his freedom. He wouldn't have  taken it because he would have never left her there alone by herself.  

The daughter-in-law had conversations with him and said - we need to leave, your mother is the problem; knowing that he would never leave her. They were all dying because of his loyalty to her and her insanity to not see this situation as getting worse each year. 

The strongest part of the film for me was when the son was dying and crying to his mother that he was sorry. He was sorry for not making it and being there for her. 

I think there are a lot of stories of what people do to keep their land and feel that it is their home and they will not be forced out. The mother's stubbornness broke up her marriage, killed her son and left her daughter-in-law a widow. 

Very Latino. 

Teacher Anna's Response: 

Interesting that Days of Heaven is mentioned, 

Ida, I think I'll have to see it again, I remember the 1st time I saw it I wasn't that impressed, but I think it was just my mood as an audience member going in. I was non-plussed once the posse appeared. The second time I saw it I appreciated it to a greater degree. Now I want to see it again. It is the only thing I have ever appreciated Richard Gere for, well other than that Kurosawa movie where he plays the distant relative who can't speak Japanese very well, Rhapsody in August. Rhapsody in August is also a film which depicts 3 generations of a family and exhibits many characteristics of Neorealism, but the story revolves around the grandmother.

Anyway, great discussion and Ida thank you for the cultural context.