- Ну, и чем она занимается в той Америке?

[ellina-romanova]

Я люблю фильмы. Правда, очень! Качественные ленты учат меня и скрашивают досуг. Я даже хочу чтобы моя работа была связана с кино- или видеоматериалами. Но семь рецензий за один день - ок, за одну ночь, если уж быть до конца честной - многовато, вам не кажется?.. Ах, ну да, обязательная только одна, все остальные ради дополнительных баллов. Всё-все, молчу. Запряглись, поехали...
Если кому-то интересно, вот некоторые мои работы за эти два месяца. Только прошу, не убивайте меня просьбами перевести!

1. The Cove (2009)
The Cove reveals a terrible crime against the nature- the crime that can’t be neither allowed nor forgiven due to cultural differences between Japan and other countries. As mentioned in “A Message from the People of Taiji, Japan” and CNN.com they used to eat whales’ and dolphins’ meat as we used to eat pork, lamb and chicken. They also say, it a national tradition existed for a long time and arose from some peculiarities of the landscape. But the facts revealed by “The Cove” make us to think: is it really important to kill thousands of dolphins every year? Do the people in small village like Taiji need so much meat? Aren’t there any other ways for them to get food?
Man is predator. In the ancient times our ancestors were hinting to feed themselves, their families and the whole tribe. Even when the trade was started, they had no refrigerators to keep the food, and this factor limited them. Nowadays, in high- technological world we don’t care. According to the movie, Japanese kill much more animals they need for food. Richard O’Barry and his team members asked the people on the streets, and they surprisingly replied: “No, we don’t eat the meat of dolphins. We enjoy watching their performance, but we don’t eat their meat”, “Is it true? Why didn’t I know?”. They not only do that, they also poison their children providing this meat for schools. Of course, it is political decision and the citizens are mostly unaware.
Ric O’Barry and his team created a great documental movie; they showed us the sea from inside- the space that doesn’t belong to us even if we think so. It belongs to huge variety of amusing animals; some of them are not less intellectual than us. Maybe, they are even smarter because they stayed in natural habitat and live accordingly to the laws of nature while we, humans had made a side step. O’Barry gathered witnesses who told how smart dolphins are, how friendly to us. They want to communicate, we – people of 21st century – developed the power of mass-media, mobile connections, Internet and so on. We have all the skills and technical equipment to make a discovery of the millennium - to find an approach for understanding the other creatures living on the Earth. Instead of that we continue killing them.
Global collapse, that (accordingly to “Science” magazine mentioned it the movie) can happen in 40 years will lead the mankind to the fact there is no fish left. Seafood is very important chain in the circuit our live contains from. Continuing killing whales and dolphins we will sooner or later kill ourselves.
Richard O’Barry is an outstanding example of cosmopolitan. He confessed being blind for a lot of years, not noticing the new impact born after his TV show “Flipper”. Now he is eager to atone his sin releasing dolphins from Sea World and similar places. The approach he found to communicate with dolphins is so easy that everyone can do it. As a member of his team told, while swimming with them, she just touches and caress their skin – it is enough to start a mute conversation. Sometimes it is even enough just to see in their eyes, as one surfer told. This people do not care of being arrested. They care of being what is called people. I hope, this movie will open a lot of eyes around the world.

2. In the Loop (2009)
“War of Words, Misspoken and Spun”, - that’s the way the New York Times described the plot of the satirical movie “In the Loop”. The movie reveals authorities’ everyday life – the life we don’t see on a TV, because – “In the Loop” explains – it is cut off: “Here must be not what was told, but what should have been told”. Thus, the 106 minutes are a good opportunity to see in what a caldron world politics is cooked.
Media communication in this movie performs the transmission function that, accordingly to J. W. Carey, is “a process whereby messages are transmitted and distributed in space for the control of distance and people”. It not only reflects the reality, but interprets latter its own way. A circuit arises: officials control media (BBC), media controls officials.
Neither foreseeable nor unforeseeable hostilities, when discussed by incompetent politicians, may cause serious global problems – and they do. The movie doesn’t have a single positive character: all of them are contaminated by the sickness of power, and the war is a tool to achieve it. Even those authorities who are against the conflict at the Middle East unintentionally lead this way. And no one character in “In the Loop’ can be interpreted as Fanon’s “liberatory people who initiate the productive instability of revolutionary cultural change”, because it is not cultural change and it is not productive instability. Truly a sad eye-opener for voters.
Although US and UK share a common language, in case of “In the Loop” it’s no longer English but the vituperation caused by the endless stressful work full of responsibility most officials cannot take. As the main character, who started the discussion about “unforeseeable war”, asked himself: “What do I do here?” and didn’t find the answer. In the end he doubted, what is better: resign but stay his own way against the war, or continue the work he likes no more. Finally he was fired.
If the language the officials use is not literary, what can be inferred about interpersonal relationships? Man who abuses his subordinates including women and all the people around – even on the street of different country – can’t be an example of honorable statesman. And the conversations that occur across cultural boundaries, immediately transmitted by electronic devices and media are not built on mutual respect or, as Appiah mentioned in “The Case for Contamination” respect for the freedom of actual human beings to make their own choices. An example can be found in the end of the movie some politicians discuss in front of their colleague that he is going to resign, meanwhile he wasn’t going to and started objecting. It looks like the masks were taken off, and we see grins.
Cultural differences between the USA and United Kingdom is shown in an opposition between 22 year old politician, who represents the young and fast developing American nation and British man in years, who refused even to talk to him. This arrogance inherent for the British appears in his hint about historical conflict between the United States and Great Britain. Later the British minister was objected, that those politician is not only young but also very smart and well-educated – old and common prejudice that only the aged people are clever enough to deal with politics.
“In the Loop” is not an easy movie to see, a lot of critics point it out, even The Guardian admitted that it’s hard to stay awake. It has no dynamics but a lot of satirical talks. Accordingly to the “Satire TV: politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era”, satire not only offers meaningful political critiques but also encourages viewers to play with politics, to examine it, test it. This film helps us to look at the most significant world events from the inside and make sure that we know nothing about them.

3. Big Man Japan (2007)
The movie Big Man Japan combines unique Japanese culture with new tendencies of world cinematography. When we see how a usual man Masaru Daisato becomes a giant through the power of electricity, some of us start to recall Hulk, Spiderman series and even the novel Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. After such a popular stories it’s hard to surprise an audience with zapped Japanese. Moreover, at first look we might say that Big Man Japan is just one more character in the line of movie heroes.
Starting a talk about hero, I would like to quote the Wikipedia definition: “A hero in Greek mythology and folklore was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. Later, hero came to refer to characters who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice—that is, heroism—for some greater good of all humanity.” From this position Masaru Daisato is 100% hero, the last who protects his motherland against monsters.
Very important thing Wikipedia doesn’t tell about is the process called deheroization – being opposite to heroization (the process of glorifying), deheroization means overthrowing the hero, putting him off the pedestal. Can you imagine Hulk with an ad on his body? Or fat Spiderman, disgusted by his compatriots? Ancient Greek legends depict heroes as worshiped demigods, in modern movies they are described as people with unique abilities, respected by society and commonly admired by women. Totally different is the case of Masaru Daisato. Following him with invisible cameraman we not only see abusive inscription on the fences, or Japanese people making funny comments about him, we also learn about his personal life. He has never been indulged with women’s attention, his wife doesn’t hide their being separated and her dating the other man. In spite of being the only one national protector and hero, Masaru Daisato is allowed to see his daughter twice a year (In aspect of international relations the idea of fatherless and childless embodies Japanese point of view on national history: loose of roots and future). As we discussed previously, his identity is constantly changing, but it is not celebrated, the ability of changing identities isn’t empowering. He is just a miserable citizen.
The message embodied in Big Man Japan’s deheroization might be is the next: we live in the age of appearance (“He is fat!”), indifferent to our heroes (“Have you seen him fighting? – No.”), looking only for things entertain us (“I saw the battle when he sucked, it was fun”). 21st century is not the time for Big heroes. Likely, it is the reason Matumoto satirized personal documentary.
Satirizing reality TV, the movie reveals something more than just uselessness of unpopular show. It is REALITY TV (I stress it deliberately), but almost nobody watches it, that means almost no one sees the monsters. I have an impression that until the very end only Daisato and his grand dad saw them. Recall: there were no citizens on the streets or in buildings while battles. In this case what does reality TV reflect? I’d say, our personal monsters: for Daisato they are big, for Super Justice team just funny dolls, for most of people they do not exist, because people don’t watch the show. I felt a disturbance I couldn’t explain before having thought about reality TV satire. Did you notice that we see monsters only with Big Man? Not in the crowd or anywhere else. It ensures me that they are his personal monsters. Worried middle-aged human faces on grotesque bodies – doesn’t it mean they reflect Daisato’s complexes, self-unconfidency and the crisis of middle age? I would be interesting to apply paranoid psychoanalysis of Freud and post-Freudists, but I’m not sure this movie is worth such a deep research.
In spite of being called “very well-received by critics in the U.S., after many months of being shown at various festivals and film events, receiving a "Fresh" score of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes”, Big Man Japan didn’t become wide spread: in fact, whatever language you use (except for Japanese, maybe) you won’t find this movie in free Web access.

4. Children of God (2010)
The movie “Children of God” is really challenging and complicated. It deals with the problem of sexual self- identification in the Caribbean where the most part of population are homophobic black people. “Children of God” is not only about queer relations, but about interracial queer relations in homophobic society – thing that is definitely hard to imagine before watching the movie. Linden Lewis in Exploring the Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, and Culture in the Caribbean points out that it is difficult to separate notions of sexuality, gender and culture in local society because they are historically bound: “culture lies at the heart of the most important social relationships… Through the process of socialization, people come to understand and internalize specific meanings of the body, of gender and sexuality, and establish the norms of socially acceptable behaviors”.
Thus, gay Caribbean people hide sexual-identity carefully. As the movie reveals, even black Caribbean preacher married to a woman and having a child with her secretly sleeps with a man. In the same time his wife already infected by virus runs a campaign against gays. “My thought is there are far more man having sex with men in this country than you would ever think is happening”, says Jamaican political activist Yvonne McCalla Sobers, and I’m more than sure the same can be inferred about Caribbean. Counting how many people are involved in homosexual relations in this movie and how many are affected by these relations I caught myself thinking it would have been better if one day they all just came out. But the articles on this topic persuaded me it is too dangerous: “violence in Jamaica is high – there were 1,611 killings last year, about 10 times more than the U.S. rate”.
Another notion – gay love in “Could you be loved” review and other readings is said to be associated with Europeans and Americans, white people. Isn’t it an example of cultural contamination? I don’t mean that people from continent “spoiled’ local men, contaminated traditional definition of sex and so on, but Caribbean citizens can probably think so.
There is one sentence in movie review that surprised and confused me: “…violently homophobic pastor who is secretly having sex with men”. Nevertheless, homophobia is defined as “a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and in some cases transgender and intersex people. Definitions refer variably to antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, and irrational fear.” I don’t ask whether it is normal – to be a married pastor and have sex with men, I wonder how it is possible to feel antipathy, prejudice and internal fear being gay oneself!
The second thing I didn’t catch is the reason of choosing name for one of main characters. Romeo is a name with special associations and should be used appropriately. I don’t think it suits the character in this particular movie. Who is Johnny is this case? Juliette? That’s nonsense.
And finally if some other reviewers pointed that “Mortimer could have made a delicate, bittersweet romance about this odd couple, their negotiations of temperament and sensual explorations” I’m interested why he didn’t do that? I’m not a fan of bittersweet gay stories, I just didn’t notice any love between Johnny and Romeo or reverent Mackey and his lover. Interest - yes, sexual desire – possible, but not love. if the ideological system in Caribbean will change to accept gay couples, love is only driving force that can do it.
Maybe, I’m wrong and those guys did love each other. The last scene of movie – Johnny’s hallucination as he and Romeo go on the beach keeping hands let us hope so.

5. The Secret of Kells (2009)
Irish. A small Celtic nation hustled away by Anglo-Saxon tribes a lot of centuries ago, and still tries to defend against British cultural imperialism. With this statement knowledge of average European or American is limited. Oh, we also know about leprecons, shamrock and Irish dances. How smart!
“The Secret of Kells” movie does something that can evoke our interest to this small but vital part of the world - it shows us the history and culture of this country. Both historical and cultural lines of the movie interlace in the book of Kells (Irish: Leabhar Cheanannais) that – as sources inform - was created in the early 8th century. It’s not only an ancient artifact and national treasure but also evidence that not only Central Europe could produce calligraphic masterwork that days. As Tomm Moore, The Secret of Kells director told, “Writing the story and developing the look of the locations and characters required extensive research. […] we turned to Irish legends and fairy tales”. But the most important part of Moore’s work is not red-headed characters but the mythology and symbols.
We meet two mythological creatures: fairy wolf-girl Aisling and Crom Cruach. Aisling protests the forest against strangers; she’s likely Abnoba, Romano-Celtic forest and river goddess in the Black Forest area, whose name was later the source of river name Avon. Inside her domain lives a deity of pre-Christian Ireland, Crom Cruach. He is described in the movie as dark creature, large snake, whose name ought not to be pronounced. Meanwhile other data reports he “was a fertility deity, a gold figure surrounded by twelve stone or bronze figures has been interpreted by some as representing the sun surrounded by the signs of the zodiac, making Crom a solar deity”. Such diversity can be explained by the belief of human sacrifice made to propitiate this deity.
In order to complete the book, main character must face both of them, make friends with fairy and outfight evil. When he did that, the painting is started. It’s not director’s idea about magic eye that helps to pain tiny details; in fact some illustrations were so small that could be viewed only with special lens.
Young Brendan paints a lot of symbols that should be paid attention, but I’ll start with another one.
As you remember, there was a large cross in Celtic village. Unlike Christian crosses, it had a circle on it. According to an internet article, large stone crosses emerged in most Celtic lands including Ireland and Scotland from around the 9th Century and the circle is said to represent a halo or eternity.
Eternity is vital symbol repeated in illustrations of the book of Kells. Those illustrations consist of numerous Eternity Knotes. The second symbol represented even more often than latter is Celtic Spiral. You can find it everywhere: in plants, in clouds, in furniture, in old monk beard and of course in the book of Kells. From the same source: “The direction of the spirals is something else that needs to be taken into consideration. Clockwise direction - sunwise circling is traditional in Gaelic good luck practices and and blessings, with spells being made in the opposite direction. The number of whorls is also important with 3 representing the holy Trinity.” Nevertheless, the author claims that modern interpretations are not restricted and may vary.
There are some other Celtic symbols, like triskelion (represents actions, cycles, progress, revolution and competition, sense of advancement), triquetra (spirit, nature and beingness, it was said to emit cosmic vibrations)and arwen (balance between male and female energy). These are more complicated and don’t appear in landscape and so forth, but may be found in Brendan’s work.
Here I don’t analyze the characters themselves except for magic creatures, because others are relatively plain. As for me, the magnificent field of symbols in this movie was much more interesting, important and worth attention. I hope, you learned something useful from my paper.

6. Foster Art Gallery Assignment
На закусочку, если вы дожили до этого))) Отзыв о посещении картинной галереи
Ned Gannon “Perspective problems”

As a brief biography informs, Ned Gannon is painter, illustrator and writer who currently teaches at the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire, where he works and exhibits. His work has appeared in New York galleries, the Society of Illustrators of New York and Los Angeles and in Communication Arts. His clients include American Airlines, Boyds Mills Press, Cobblestone, Cricket, and Odyssey Magazines, Woodbine Publishing, and St. Vladimir’s Press. His work is in private collections in Australia and the United States, including the Staten Island Museum. This information is posted on his web-site www.nedgannon.com, the link on which was provided by Foster art gallery staff.
The paintings of Ned Gannon drew my attention at the first time I came to Foster Art Gallery. It was hanged in front of the door. Being back in a couple of days, I looked at them more carefully, trying to indicate what unusual is there, what Ned Gannon hid under in his paintings. There is as if nothing special in his works. Until you pay attention to the details.
I want to present you “Perspective problems”, 2010, one of six paintings included in New Parables Series. It is colorful painting on which a viewer can see four different cars standing on the opposite side of the road, the field behind the cars that has a linear perspective (it creates illusion of space and distance) and two hills on the background of the painting. But the most amusing are unexpected foxes. Yes, three foxes cheerfully jumping from one car to another! That’s why my assumptions made me to perceive this piece of art as a kind of charade at first. It’s not every day that I see jumping foxes on landscape paintings.
“John Berger discusses mystification in his work Ways of Seeing. When we look at artwork, we cannot see it without being affected by our own assumptions about art in general. Berger writes that these assumptions concern: beauty, truth, genius, civilization, form, status, and taste. He believes that our assumptions obscure the past. They mystify rather than clarify. Because we don’t see history as it was but rather as a relation to our present, we mystify the past. Thus art is of the past is mystified.” The greatest impact of my personal assumptions was produced by the fact having a diploma from art school, where I studied for about five years. Thus, I thought I understood something in art that made me critical analyzing other paintings exhibited in the gallery. Probably, in this particular case the viewer – me – benefited having both theoretical and practical knowledge (the first helped to clarify the mystification). But my assumptions contributed the mystification while unconsciously comparing colors the artist used with those I consider to be harmonically matching, the elements depicted and technique of painting (acryl on arches).
Despite yellow stripe of grass, the color of their fur is probably the brightest and warmest on this picture. All other elements – cars, road and landscape are painted in cold colors. This contrast drew my attention as well as unusual behavior of the foxes, but there were something else, something that I couldn’t indicate the first time I saw the painting.
Only when I had caught the entire image and started to examine the details, especially the background, I realized that the foxes jump not chaotically. There was regularity in their movements. Look carefully at the picture: the height of jump, grouping of their bodies and postures are thoroughly calculated. If you connect the highest points of their bodies while jumping, you’ll notice that the line you get repeats the contour of hills on the background.
And that’s not all. The size of cars also plays significant role. In the center of linear perspective we see a blue sport car. It is the smallest car on this painting. In the same time the height of hill behind it is also the lowest. Two other cars standing on the right and on the left side of small sport car are almost two times higher, and the lines of the hills are also going up. The last one should have been the biggest – it’s logical, but instead of that Gannon painted a shrub behind the car which gives it an additional height. Why? As for me, the picture where each detail can be calculated and foretold is no more the picture but a mathematical scheme. It is also hard to explain why one of the cars is turned to viewers while the other faces different direction. But it makes our eyes travel through the picture picking up unusual elements and trying to guess why Ned Gannon titled his work as “Perspective Problems”.
We may also notice that the picture consists of different shapes. For example, the cars are mostly square (what accordingly to Arthur Asa Berger’s “Seeing is believing” conveys both dullness and workmanlike meaning), the linear perspective forms a triangle (action, conflict, tension). There is an arrow on the road that continues the linear perspective and at the same time points to viewers, to us. So, the linear perspective in this picture may be interpreted as Problem Perspective, or Perspective Problems – action, conflict, tension that transfer from the painted world to our own with the help of arrow. In this case the role of jumping foxes can be determined as creating additional dots that, when connected, establish the second line beneath the first one – to stress the meaning of triangle. And, finally, one more detail – the branches of the tree above the linear perspective are also parallel to it. Thus, we have triple-conflict, triple-tension that creates Perspective Problems.
Remarkable fact in analyzing this piece of work is both Bergers, John and Arthur helped me to clarify the meaning this picture produces (I interpreted symbols accordingly to Seeing is believing) and conveys (accordingly to Ways of seeing). As a student of two Bergers I can interpret the details of picture – symbols, codes, shapes etc. and know physiological aspect of being affected by assumptions.