This blog contains weekly journal entries for glover's film history class at Champlain College in Burlington VT.
The plain template is in effect because it does not crop the youtube imbeds.
Students are expected to post a minimum of 1 response a week, plus 1 comment on a peer post.
Feel free to add relevant imbeds or links, or to use the blog for related off-topic threads, or to post your presentations for use in class, or viewing after.
Wow, I can say, that this was definitely a great choice of movies to see at the end of the semester, it really ties a lot of what we have already gone through together. Ford's character only want's to live simply, or does he? Everything in this film just screams repetition, in that history just repeats itself. One shot in particular that, as discussed, really hit me, was when his geothermal plant explodes and destroys everything. That whole sequence was really the high point of the film, as least for me.
For one, his eyes, and that close-up on his face, was scary as hell, to say the least. It really makes his whole story about "America being destroyed" all the more powerful.
Another thing that I really liked about the movie was the fact that Ford was "Father" and Mirren was "Mother" in a very proper fashion. It was almost in the style of colonial times, where unless the parents were speaking to one another in private, they would call each other by title, as opposed to first name.
I, too, thoroughly enjoyed it. It was especially a good film to show after What a Way to Go. Both discussed the deterioration of American society through overpopulation and the need to keep creating. It is scary to think that that might be what we'll have to do once we eventually run out of oil and other resources. Ford's character is full of contradictions, with the only constant aspect of his personality being his will to go against the grain of any dominant culture.
However, it seems everyone wanted to move back to America; back to their simple comforts and ignore the rest of the world. Tim Bennett (director of What a Way to Go) and Ford's character(before he went crazy) share similar views. They're right: something is going to happen. I kind of feel like I should start honing my carpentry skills just in case.
An insight that the week fifteen video provided me is that even though there is a natural reaction to want to leave the system as you learn more negative and angering things about it, it is important to not loose your place it in. Learning how to incorporate yourself into the system is just as powerful as separating yourself from it. In the film, Harrison Ford’s character became disillusioned by the system and felt compelled to remove him and his family from it. The whole time, he did not know exactly what the right thing to do was, he was just going against the wrong way to do it. In the end, Ford became just as destructive a force as the society he looked to disassociate himself from. He turned in his own warped materialistic civilization and ended up in just an elitist stance. The number one insight from the movie was the look into what is wrong with society, but the problems with removing yourself from it in such an extreme way that you loose sight of what you really wanted to separate yourself from. In the new place Ford’s character was creating for himself he was still consumed by similar items he had in the United States, just not physically there. Even when he was on the beach, those items were washed up on the shore. This tells me that no matter how hard one tries to escape it, it is nearly impossible to and the most appropriate action you can have is accepting yourself into the system and learning to use it to your own benefit.
This was definitely a good film to show at the end of a semester. It wraps up a lot of what we've gone through. It gathers all the ideas and styles of the foreign films that we've seen and applies them to America and it's culture. I think this film really articulates how many people feel in America today. You could even say that it articulates American spirit. It can be paralleled to the Western Movement, or books such as Into The Wild. There's that feeling of the thrill of travel and independence and self sufficiency that gets explained real well in this film and appeals to many, including myself. I like how you start out identifying with Harrison Ford but he soon turns mad and becomes the enemy.
The last film we watched as a class, Mosquito Coast, had the most profound effect on me out of all the screenings we had this semester. The incredible performance by Harrison Ford, the beautiful cinematography, and amazing set design make the movie a pleasant viewing experience, but are not what had a lasting effect on me. The factors were great, but were not anything I haven’t seen before. Come on! We’ve all seen the original Star Wars films a hundred times, which fit those three preceding factors perfectly.
Yes, the film was eye candy for me, but it was the rational message I took away from Mosquito Coast that will stick with me forever. I believe the director’s most prominent specific intention, or through-line, was to not let the world’s future problems, or the world’s seemingly inescapable negative fates, destroy the lives of you and your loved ones.
5 comments:
Wow, I can say, that this was definitely a great choice of movies to see at the end of the semester, it really ties a lot of what we have already gone through together. Ford's character only want's to live simply, or does he? Everything in this film just screams repetition, in that history just repeats itself. One shot in particular that, as discussed, really hit me, was when his geothermal plant explodes and destroys everything. That whole sequence was really the high point of the film, as least for me.
For one, his eyes, and that close-up on his face, was scary as hell, to say the least. It really makes his whole story about "America being destroyed" all the more powerful.
Another thing that I really liked about the movie was the fact that Ford was "Father" and Mirren was "Mother" in a very proper fashion. It was almost in the style of colonial times, where unless the parents were speaking to one another in private, they would call each other by title, as opposed to first name.
I, too, thoroughly enjoyed it. It was especially a good film to show after What a Way to Go. Both discussed the deterioration of American society through overpopulation and the need to keep creating. It is scary to think that that might be what we'll have to do once we eventually run out of oil and other resources. Ford's character is full of contradictions, with the only constant aspect of his personality being his will to go against the grain of any dominant culture.
However, it seems everyone wanted to move back to America; back to their simple comforts and ignore the rest of the world. Tim Bennett (director of What a Way to Go) and Ford's character(before he went crazy) share similar views. They're right: something is going to happen. I kind of feel like I should start honing my carpentry skills just in case.
An insight that the week fifteen video provided me is that even though there is a natural reaction to want to leave the system as you learn more negative and angering things about it, it is important to not loose your place it in. Learning how to incorporate yourself into the system is just as powerful as separating yourself from it. In the film, Harrison Ford’s character became disillusioned by the system and felt compelled to remove him and his family from it. The whole time, he did not know exactly what the right thing to do was, he was just going against the wrong way to do it. In the end, Ford became just as destructive a force as the society he looked to disassociate himself from. He turned in his own warped materialistic civilization and ended up in just an elitist stance. The number one insight from the movie was the look into what is wrong with society, but the problems with removing yourself from it in such an extreme way that you loose sight of what you really wanted to separate yourself from. In the new place Ford’s character was creating for himself he was still consumed by similar items he had in the United States, just not physically there. Even when he was on the beach, those items were washed up on the shore. This tells me that no matter how hard one tries to escape it, it is nearly impossible to and the most appropriate action you can have is accepting yourself into the system and learning to use it to your own benefit.
This was definitely a good film to show at the end of a semester. It wraps up a lot of what we've gone through. It gathers all the ideas and styles of the foreign films that we've seen and applies them to America and it's culture. I think this film really articulates how many people feel in America today. You could even say that it articulates American spirit. It can be paralleled to the Western Movement, or books such as Into The Wild. There's that feeling of the thrill of travel and independence and self sufficiency that gets explained real well in this film and appeals to many, including myself. I like how you start out identifying with Harrison Ford but he soon turns mad and becomes the enemy.
The last film we watched as a class, Mosquito Coast, had the most profound effect on me out of all the screenings we had this semester. The incredible performance by Harrison Ford, the beautiful cinematography, and amazing set design make the movie a pleasant viewing experience, but are not what had a lasting effect on me. The factors were great, but were not anything I haven’t seen before. Come on! We’ve all seen the original Star Wars films a hundred times, which fit those three preceding factors perfectly.
Yes, the film was eye candy for me, but it was the rational message I took away from Mosquito Coast that will stick with me forever. I believe the director’s most prominent specific intention, or through-line, was to not let the world’s future problems, or the world’s seemingly inescapable negative fates, destroy the lives of you and your loved ones.
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