 | Empathy – we are all 1) advertising it, 2) striving for it, 3) acknowledge its importance in world of polarization. All quiet on the Western front is a book that I read in my teen years. It is written by Erich Maria Remarque, a writer that I admired. His book Three Comrades was a friend of mine in the cold winter evening hours for years. All Quiet on the Western front was published in 1928 and depicted the struggle of German soldiers during the First World War. Two years later the book was adapted to the big screen. The film was directed by Lewis Milestone and I saw it during my film school years. It was a good film and the Academy recognized it as such by giving it an Oscar for best picture and best director. |
|
0 Comments
In this chapter of the book Hearing and Jones are exploring film as a base for research and research as a base for making a film (426). Hearing is interested in incorporating documentary filmmaking as a valid process of collecting data that can be used in academic research (425,426). Reversely, Jones uses different types of academic research as a base to make a fictional films (426). Hearing also uses film with slow edited images as a method to encourage audience meditation (429). He considers this approach as equivalent to a researcher framing the research question, except that he is doing it with the audience (430).
Filmmakers use red liquid to convince audiences that is a real representation of blood. The perception of this red liquid as blood depends on it’s relation to other elements in the story, because not everything that is a red liquid is perceived as blood (85). Rodje explains how the color of real blood varies depending on oxidation, thus people references to the realistic representation of blood is different (85,86). Obviously filmmakers can not cover all the variations of expectations of audience members, but to make the liquid convincing they focus on color and texture in relation to film stock (87).
In this article Julie Cohen draws the connection between the constant surveillance, enabled by digital cameras in public spaces, and the active accumulation of data, available to different organizations. This accumulation of data stored in multitude of databases paints a digital picture of people more revealing than the separate and random surveillance in public spaces. This integration of data in databases pose a privacy threat much more dangerous than Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and Foucault’s interpretation of it. Cohen draws the connection between observation, surveillance, watching and power. Surveillance not only gathers information about human behavior, but when this information is stored in database then becomes a concrete fact about the past of people.
Summary of "Totalitarian Paranoia in the Post-Orwellian Surveillance State" by Henry A. Giroux1/10/2022 Henry Giroux examines the surveillance practices widely used in contemporary society through the lens of George Orwell’s book “1984.” To the author the current data gathering mentality and environment created by private corporations and the government in USA surpasses the dystopian society created by Orwell. The author sees neoliberal politics from the last couple decades of the previous century as a main reason for creating the unequal power balance between the citizens of USA and the “corporate-state apparatus” (p.128).
In the article Anatomy of AI System the authors, Kate Crawford and Vladan Joier, are tracing the processes involved in the creation of digital devices. The authors are addressing the birth, life and death of those devices connected with the natural and human resources needed and involved in the process. The authors illustrate these processes by giving detail account of inner workings of the Amazon Echo and its artificial agent Alexa.
Summary of '“I’ve got Nothing to Hide” and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy" by Daniel J. Solove1/3/2022 In this article Daniel Solove examines the privacy argument of if people have nothing to hide then they should not be against government surveillance. The author looks at the above stated argument from several different angles. To address the problem in its entirety, Solove examines the definition of the term privacy and what it encapsulates. This background work helps to address the strongest argument related with “nothing to hide”(p.2) statement, which is the correlation between security and privacy. His conclusion is that the privacy concern related with “nothing to hide” (p. 3) argument are broader and encompasses more than individual rights and preferences. This is a problem that has social implications and its minimization could be dire for democratic principals and government oversight.
Gilles Deleuze talks about how societies have been controlled in the past, the characteristics of the modes of control and the transformation of that control. He incorporates the teachings of Foucault and his insight that control in societies is transitory. The society of sovereignty is the first one analyzed with its characteristics of taxing the subjects, absence of democracy and lack of modes of production.
Shoshana Zuboff explores the power structure in the digital contemporary society and what big data creates and enables companies to do. This continuous and linear collection of data that prays on our input, behavior and knowledge are the base for the algorithm that is trying to predict our future actions. Zuboff coins the term surveillance capitalism that describes the market in which big data is traded, our past and present movement and behavior recorded, and our future actions predicted.
11.1 – Both Sides of the Same Coin
The beginning of the 21st century presents us with a paradox. On the one hand, we are free to roam online, read various interpretations on any subject, express our opinions and exchange ideas liberally with anyone we choose. On the other side, our actions are surveilled, our data is aggregated and we are subject to behavior manipulation. Many of the privacy and surveillance challenges faced today did not occur as a result of coercion, but in the course of voluntary activities that are carelessly enjoyed as entertainment. Contemporary digital society incorporates mass surveillance and new forms of entertainment intertwined in a paradoxical relationship. Huxley’s Brave New World does not address mass surveillance and conversely, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four omits entertainment. Given these blind spots in these two projected futures, I suggest that the contemporary social order is best analyzed and reflected upon using a combination of Orwell’s and Huxley’s visions. In her article Donna Haraway (1991) defines cyborg, as not only a hybrid between machine and a living organism, but also a creature of social reality and function. Thus from the late 20th century we have been creating cyborgs and many of us are cyborgs, regardless if we recognize it or not. She breaks down and dissipates the distinction between human and animal: between human and machine; and between physical and non-physical.
 Without a thought she would’ve taken the knee, human rights it appears are never free. The court was infused with her brilliance supreme, In the crop of justices, she was the cream. She was an advocate for justice all 27 years, endured serious health issues without any tears. Her words triggered change for those less fortunate, directing the future so better laws will be set. Our debt is to you for your tireless passion, Your life’s work was a class act of RBG fashion! Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote "I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks. STAY OFF ALL OF OUR NECKS!!! by Julie Pearson
In their article “The Image of Objectivity” Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison examine in detail the images in scientific atlases from the late 19th to early 20th century. Their examination shows two trends. The first one is, the issues connected with the subjective representation of the images that concerned scientists in the 19th century. With several examples, Daston and Galison, show how different scientists dealt with artists who painted the images for their atlases and how the scientists tried to minimize the subjective artistic input. Simultaneously, the article also shows the birth of objectivism from 18th to the 20th century.
 In the film business, the pitch of the story is called a logline. Logline is a single sentence, which describes the gist of your film.
The logline for usa.DT is: Newly, elected, segregationist leader executes his agenda inducing pandemonium amongst the multi-cultural nation, which in turn produces unintended consequences. Dracula's perspective in the novel “Dracula” by Bram Stoker and in the film Bram Stoker's Dracula2/26/2019  Bram Stoker wrote the novel “Dracula”1 in 1897. The novel is written in epistolary style, where the story develops through the perspective of multiple characters, which express their point of view either by writing in their journals and diaries, or through news reports. The book and the film differ drastically in portraying Dracula's perspective. In the novel, the vampire's perspective simply is omitted, where the film uses many different devices – narrative structure, cinematography and editing to show us Count Dracula's point of view and thus to bring us into his four century longing for his love, Mina.
1Stoker, Bram. Dracula.Sterling Children's Books, 2010. |
People who critique moving pictures fall into 3 general classes:
1. Reviewers - are generally journalists who describe the contents and general tone of a movie, with only incidental emphasis on aesthetic evaluation. 2. Critics - are also journalists for the most part, but their emphasis is more on evaluation than on mere content description. 3. Theorists - are usually professional academics, often the authors of books on how movies can be studied on a more philosophical level. AuthorI'm a film critic and I like to write about films that are exceptional and stand above the rest. Categories
All
"The role of the critic is to help people see what is in the work, what is in it that shouldn't be, what is not in it that could be. He is a good critic if he helps people understand more about the work that they could see for themselves; he is a great critic, if by his understandings and feeling for the work, by his passion, he can excite people so that they want to experience more of the art that is there, waiting to be seized. He is not necessarily bad critic if he makes errors in judgement. He is a bad critic if he does not awaken the curiosity, enlarge the interests and understanding of his audience. The art of the critic is to transmit his knowledge of and enthusiasm for art to others." ( Pauline Kael )
|
RSS Feed