To Kill A Mockingbird

 

To Kill A Mockingbird is a meticulously-made and critically- acclaimed movie. It not only truthfully depicts the goodness of human beings, their courage as well as innocence but relentlessly reveals the depth of their ugliness and racial intolerance. With the marvelous and natural performance of each character, carefully-crafted dialogue, and good structure and pace, To Kill A Mockingbird stands the test of time and never fades out of this capricious film market.

 

As soon as the movie starts, the audience feels as if they were sent back to 1930s Alabama. The acting is incredibly excellent, vivid, and convincing. Every character is true-to-life, even children, whose performance is usually flawed due to the young age. Jam and Scout, the two main characters, are neither the stereotypical,  ridiculous good-for-nothing brats, like Dudley Dursley in Harry Potter, nor the angelic and somewhat super-powerful prodigies, like Potter himself and Frodo in The Lord of The Ring. Jam and Scout are just two normal and innocent kids that we can see everywhere in our daily lives—so real and thus touching.

 

The dialogue was wittily written. Humorous. Meaningful. For example, when Atticus compliments the old woman, “You are like a picture,” the children behind his back mutter, “A picture of what?” Children’s wittiness and a father’s tolerance are fully displayed in this short dialogue. This movie is powerful in its language. In the courtroom, when Atticus is leaving, the old man demands Scout to stand up, saying “ Your father’s passing.”  Those three words tug at my heartstrings.

 

In addition to the attractive acting and dialogue, the structure and pace of this film also deserve high praise. Every scene and every event has its own place, functioning properly and closely with each other – Nothing is trivial, unimportant, and grotesque in this film.

With marvelous acting, dialogue, structure and appropriate pace, To Kill A Mockingbird outshines the rest of movies which also deal with the clichéd topic of “racial discrimination”, and proves itself as a timeless masterpiece.

 

Picture from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill_a_Mockingbird_(film)

Modern Vampires

 

Today’s vampires are nothing like what they used to be. Not about gore and terror(dismembering people), bats and capes, but about “eroticism, immortality, power, beauty, elegance, the supernatural, and mystery.” This transformation took place in 1970s, beginning with Anne Rice’s series of vampire novels, television shows and Hollywood films. (John T. Kirby, 2005) As the Twilight saga hit the big screen, vampires also bit their ways into the fashion world. Countless tutorials are available online, gilding people to look and behave like a modern vampire.

 

Light Unseen(a vampire fans community) gives us insights into why we aspire to become vampires:

• We are looking for a community in which we belong.

• We want to attain invincibility, unearthly beauty and eternal youth.

• We can enjoy sex without consequences (no pregnancies, no STD).

• We want superpower—able to move fast, defeat enemies, protect the ones we love…, etc. Living in this hypercompetitive world, the ability to handle anything is a big fantasy.

 

In other words, we are fascinated by vampires because they reflect our deepest longing for what are clearly out of reach. Today’s vampires are nothing like disfigured, deranged monsters, they are superheroes, demonstrating how we can become something beyond our imagination.

 

References:

 http://www.wikihow.com/Act-Like-a-Modern/Common-Vampire

 http://www.wikihow.com/Look-Like-a-Twilight-Vampire

 http://bylightunseen.net/modmyth.htm

 http://www.physorg.com/news7353.html

 

Notes on The Dead (James Joyce)

 

When the story takes place, Ireland is already covered with snow, so is Gabriel’s and Gretta’s marriage. With the passing of time, their initial passion wanes and “habituation” and “familiarity” seem to be the only residues. Before the gazing-up scene, there are no tender words, no affectionate gestures from either Gabriel or Gretta. (Gretta ignores her husband and rushes to the two aunts as soon as she steps into the house. Gabriel literally embarrasses his wife in front of Miss Ivors by his cold rebuff. ) Just like Little Chandler, both of them forget the joys of being together and fail to enjoy each other’s company. Their marriage is wearing thin and the tensions are building up. Beneath the cordial party scene, we can detect the traces of their coldness/ hostility toward one another and the pent-up emotions/feelings seeking an outlet.

 

When does the balloon burst? It does not; instead, it subsides as soon as Gabriel is able to see Gretta in the whole new light. Distance strips the veil of “familiarity” and even dispels his prejudices against her. He starts to notice every detail of her, no matter how small it is, and his senses grow much more acuter. Gazing up from the bottom of stairs, Gabriel sees his wife as a goddess—motionless, graceful, mysterious, and almost untouchable.

 

This particular scene is essential in the plot development for it is the first time Gabriel sees his wife as what she is rather than what she is supposed to be. The de-familiarization revives their marriage and leads up the final epiphany, the moment of revelation when Gabriel discovers the horrifying and hideous truth that –he has never ever understood his wife.

 

Apocalypse Now

 picture: IMDB  (http://www.imdb.com/media/rm71276800/tt0078788)

 

Apocalypse Now starts with a mixture of sounds—the sound of helicopter rotors, the sound of the ceiling fan whirring in the hotel room, and the song –“The End”. “This is the end…” as the song progresses, the intensity steadily heats up in the small sultry room. Staring up at the fan, Willard the Captain grows more and more agitated, but he remains immobile in bed as if being transfixed by the apocalyptic scene.

“I wanted a mission. And for my sins they gave me one.” As a veteran, Willard surly witnesses how frail, miserable, irrational a person can be in the battlefield and how costly, deadly, futile a war is. Deep in his heart, he knows the essence of wars but yet fails to muster his courage and to face this excruciating truth. He is ceaselessly haunted by his memories and nearly crippled by his guilt. (He kills or at least holds responsible for the deaths of 6 people.) Therefore, his mission to terminate the “murderous and dictatorial” renegade, Kurtz, is more like a journey of redemption than a simple military job.

Nevertheless, as Willard reads more and more dossiers on Kurtz and ventures deeper and deeper into the river valley, he bit by bit understands Kurtz’s determination to leave his motherland and the insanity of wars.

In the end of the film, the slaughtering of the bull is juxtaposed with the killing of Kurtz. Here, the murder is immensely deified and violence seems to become the surest/the most effective means to victory. To me, the ending is somewhat pessimistic. Except the killing, nothing is really done and the war seems to rage on. The never-ending circle of fear, hate, and retaliation will always thrive on mankind—a real apocalyptic scene comes into view, echoing the song, “This is the end…”

A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)

 

Yuan: Love A Streetcar Named Desire!   ♥

Analysis of Blanche, Stanley, Stella, and Mitch

Blanche

As a fading and fallen Southern belle, Blanche is often seized by a sense of hopelessness and impending doom. She is not only hard-pressed by economic straits but ceaselessly haunted by her past. Before her visit to Stella’s house, she has been expelled from the town, Laurel, for her illicit relationship with her 17-year-old student and her promiscuity with the customers in the Hotel Flamingo. Distraught, desperate, and depressed, Blanche is literally on the brink of nervous breakdown. Deep in her heart, she knows she must hang on to Stella as the last straw. Though Blanche is a social and economic loser from the very beginning of the play, she always keeps her high-and –mighty bearings and even constantly reminds Stella of her aristocrat roots in or without Stanley’s presence. However, behind Blanche’s nonchalant and flamboyant facade lies a broken heart in dire need of people’s kindness, solace, or simply—approval, which has always been denied to her. Thus, she tries very hard to present the best of her in front of others and please them no matter what it would take.

Blanche is also a quixotic protagonist who perceives the world as what it should be, not what it truly is. Her attitudes and worldviews are well expressed in these words—“I don’t want realism; I want magic.” Her denial of the traumatic reality/ past, to a certain point, makes her life more sufferable but it, undeniably, soon becomes her ultimate undoing. Blanche is both cocooned and shrouded by her illusion.

Stanley

Stanley embodies the polar opposite of what Blanche thinks a gentleman is about. He is crude, bestial, uncivilized, territorial, and equivalent to the “survivor of the Stone Age”. He is also virile and wild, always exuding sexuality, which is exactly the reason why Stella falls helplessly in love with him and why a decent lady like Blanche would be drawn to him. (She flirts with him when they first meet.)

Though Stanley is not a knight in shining armor, he characterizes the new American people. He bellows at Blanche, “I am not a Polack…I am is a one hundred percent American, born and raised in the greatest country on earth and proud as hell of it…” (His ungrammatical and unrefined language signals the lack of proper education and his humble immigrant roots.) Unlike Blanche, who dwells in her illusion and memories, Stanley is a quintessential realist and a man of actions, never passing on a chance to ridicule her imagination and attack her mentally and physically.

Stella and Mitch

Stella and Mitch are Blanche’ saviors and demons. Both of them do care for her and try to craft a world in which they can coexist and thrive. Yet, they desert her and hurt her the most in the end of the play. Stella gives in to her husband and lives in self-deception while Mitch refuses to swallow his pride and turns his back on Blanche when she needs him the most. Stella’s and Mitch’s love is conditional, full of “if” “unless” and “because”.

Desire

“Desire” is the recurrent theme in this play. Blanche’s desire to flee from her seedy past prompts her to go to the sultry South and to invent one lie after another. The marriage of Stella and Stanley is sustained by physical pleasure—the most primal desire. Mitch, the most gentlemanly figure, can hardly keep his desires in check and nearly rapes Blanche.

In fact, the place names in this play take on metaphorical meanings. As soon as Blanche gets on the streetcar named Desire, she is dragged into a whirl of lusts and confusion; as she pasts Cemeteries and gets to Elysian Fields (the final resting place of the dead), she symbolically escapes the social death in Laurel. Ironically, Elysian Fields is not a heaven and instead of living happily ever after with her chivalrous knight in a white mansion, Blanche finds herself trapped in a crowded, cheap apartment with subservient Stella and aggressive Stanley.

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” In the end of the play, Blanche says those words to the doctor when he helps her to her feet. All the people who Blanche holds the dearest only stand motionlessly and watch the whole scene. Nevertheless, the doctor is not the chivalric hero for whom Blanche has risked her life seeking. He is only an outsider! Blanche is so piteous because she can not bring herself to accept the brutal facts that her genteel Texan millionaire will never come to her rescue and that she, already incongruous to the new America, can survive only by marrying down as what Stella has done. She seeks shelter in men’s “kindness” and gradually becomes their target of desires.

The Old South

As Blanche’s beauty fades away, so does the glory of her family. Before her visit to Stella’s house, their ancestral plantation, Belle Reve (Beautiful Dream), has been snatched away and their parents have died. Though Blanche is literally penniless, she is still aware and proud of her aristocrat blood, which is the reason why she spurns Mitch’s advances and the reason why she claims Stella and Stanley are mismatched. Besides, chivalry, the best description of the old Southerners, is elusive here. Blanche can no longer find a gentleman who will get up when ladies past by and who appreciates finer tastes and poetry as she does.

Somehow, Blanche always reminds me of Emily in William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily. Both of them are the last aristocrats confronted by the fast-changing world; both of them reject reality; both of them tenaciously hold on to the idea to their last breath—“Everything is rosy in the garden.”

 ♥

I watched A Streetcar Named Desire starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. The film is true to the original text but the ending is a bit different. In the film, Stella seems to leave Stanley forever. (She holds her son and leaves her fanatic husband behind.) Yet, in the text, Stella is once again placated by sex.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysian_Fields

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Streetcar_Named_Desire_(play)