So What?

I know that today's class was a little bit frustrating so I wanted to take a moment to explain a bit more about "so what?" The idea that I was trying to drive home today is that I wanted to push you to keep asking that question until you really can't anymore, until you have pushed that question as far as it will go about whatever idea you are exploring. As you are thinking about your own essays and the ideas that they contain, trying asking "so what?" incessantly as a prewriting and planning technique; then work to include the relevant answers to that question in your essay. This will both help you with development and with sorting through your ideas. Thanks for sticking with it today.

Wall-E

Jon was having problems posting, so here is his comment:

In the 935 class we talked about choosing a social issue and how it relates to its environment in the context of a film as the basis of our next paper. Professor Berry told us to practice this on Wall-e and the conclusion i came to was: That Wall-e is a film in which the writer (i don't know his name) speaks about the social issue of obesity, especially through the lens of dialogue. That is probably what my rough thesis statement would be... i am wondering what other people thought when put to the same task.

On a completely separate note did anyone watch this movie and just flashback to their childhood. I turned off all the lights in my dorm and watched with a bag of mini doughnuts and just totally freaked out. It's funny because i loved it when i first saw it and i still really like it but i saw some flaws in the plot line. anyway this has been the best homework of the year so far.

Fahrenheit 451

Today in the 11:10 class I mentioned this play based on a wonderful Ray Bradbury novel by the same name about a society that has outlawed books and in which firemen start fires in places known to contain books rather than work to put fires out. I have not seen this play, but I have seen other productions at this theater and they have been very, very good.

 Here is the information from the Roundhouse Theater's website, especially notice the $10 and $15 tickets for under 30s:

“Round House Theatre has a well-deserved reputation both for being innovative and masters of their craft. On both counts, they have outdone themselves with Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.” -Gazette “The magic in live theater comes from all the elements — writing, directing, acting, sound, set, light and costume design - coming together like a well-rehearsed orchestra and chorus that send chills up your spine…Led by the brilliant conception of guest director Sharon Ott, and flawlessly executed courtesy of the technical staff from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Round House has taken all this and added a variety of 21st century multimedia technology in a way that brings out the full impact of Bradbury’s prescient writing…The media enhances and illuminates Bradbury’s script such that it is difficult to imagine the play without it.” – Gazette

“Jefferson A. Russell delivers a spellbinding performance and has the audience hanging on his every word - compliments of Bradbury’s skillful playwriting…There really are no ‘stars’ in this production. All the various production elements blend seamlessly together with the acting and carry us through the evening, challenging us to feel and think and come alive. The actors are but one piece of the sublimely crafted whole…Jean Harrison, as an elderly woman completely devoted to her library, tugs at our heartstrings…John Lescault as Clarisse’s grandfather, the elderly and cowardly scholar, is delightful and heart-wrenching in the same moment…The heart and soul of the show is overseen by Aurora Heimbach in the role of Clarisse and David Bonham as Morgan, the fireman turned scholar and lover of learning. They play their parts as close to perfection as one can get.” –Gazette “Somewhere during the evening, I heard someone say that whereas Bradbury’s voice in the 1950s was a canary in the coal mine, it is now an alarm bell ringing loudly. Fahrenheit 451is stunning in all its aspects, but it is also deeply disturbing. And perhaps we need to be disturbed sometime around now.” –Gazette Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury, based on his novel Directed by Sharon Ott Final 2 weeks - thru October 9 Round House Theatre Bethesda ,4545 East-West Highway Metro: Bethesda (1 block) Good seats available! Tickets: click or call 240.644.1100 $10 & $15 tix for age 30 & under ($10 Wed. - Fri., $15 Sat. & Sun.)- call 240.644.1100 Discounts for groups of 10+ - call 240.644.1387 or email. Recommended for age 13 & up Sponsored in part through generous support from Michael Beriss & Jean Carlson and The Dupler Family Sharon Ott is the 2011/12 Season Melissa Blake Rowny Visiting ArtistBanner photo of Jefferson A. Russell by Danisha Crosby

2001:

Space – 2001 incorporates all different kinds of vast, huge spaces in the film as if paralleling just how huge the topic of the universe and the relationship between human and technology is.

The Shot – 2001 incorporates many shots, some up close, some from farther away. It zooms in on the scene from all different angles usually to provide the audience with a certain way of viewing the situation such as when the apes are shown, it comes from an angle high above so we are looking down on the chimps as we are superior to them but when we see the planets in space they are so huge and close up showing how we the audience are so minor in comparison.

Slow Motion – 2001 has many slow motion scenes, mostly when they are in space. These scenes are used to emphasize how powerful the idea of man in space is.

Tone/coloring: No colors were too bright in 2001, rather they were all pretty dull adding a level of seriousness to the movie.

Focus: There were times in 2001 when we would just be staring at the eye of HAL, which took over the whole screen. That was for the audience to get in direct contact with HAL and realize, computer or not, it was very powerful.

Distance: The frames took turns being far away and close up. Far away shots that I remember clearly where those of space and were used to emphasize just how far we are from fully understanding what the universe has out there for us. Close-ups came on the face of the characters during serious moments so we could get in touch with their human reactions after having been surrounded by so much technology.

Length: As this was a complex movie and not a very fast paced moving one, the shots were generally longer so we could grasp what was going on in the situation.

Sound/Music: There were many sound effects that were made by the technology that were repetitive and somewhat unnerving to hear over and over again such as when HAL made a mistake and the alarm was going off. The music was all orchestral intense music that contributed to the serious tone.

Place/Settings: The significant place and settings in the movie were in the spaceship and in space. These were where most of the shots were taken except in the first Dawn of man chapter where the environment was on earth in nature.

Creation:

Space/Place/Setting: Creation too used all different types of spaces in the movie. Plenty of scenes were shot outside in nature and inside as well. Significant places included in his house, in his workshop, in nature, a few in the church, and a few powerful scenes while his daughter was going through recovery.

The Shot/Slow Motion: A specific shot that really moved me was when Darwin and his daughter were both in parallel scenes and going through the water tower rehabilitation. The shot was taken from far away and made his daughter and Darwin both look very inferior and powerless to the water that was crashing on them from above kind of drawing an allusion to how we are all insignificant creatures when it comes with dealing with the all-powerful God above. These shots also occurred in slow motion so that the situation was made all that more powerful while the audience sat there truly appreciating the process the two characters were going through.

Tone/Coloring: Some scenes were rather brighter than others and those generally happened during the time when the family was happy but all together the coloring of the movie was not to bright like 2001, illustrating a serious tone to the movie.

Focus/Distance: Most of the shots were taken from far away or whole body shots but a few times we would get a close up on the face, especially during a conflict between the characters so we could get a personal understanding of the emotions they were experiencing.

Length: There were many instances where the length of the shots were short to illustrate confusion and show that the story was moving on and something was happening quickly and rapidly such as when Darwin was having angry confrontations with his daughter while she was playing his voice of reason.

Sound/Music: As with 2001, the music was intense and moving orchestral music that really helped create the serious tone of the movie since there was a very serious conflict occurring between faith and reason.

Jupiter and Beyond

I wanted to post the Roger Ebert review of 2001 that I referenced in class, where he discusses the monoliths as signposts. If we think about the monolith that way, it helps to think about the themes we talked about-- violence & technology, how faith factors into the whole thing... In thinking about how something huge happened to the apes and humans after touching the monoloth, we also have to think about how Hal9000 prevented the humans on the mission to Jupiter from having the same "monolithic" moment, which was the basis for their mission. What kind of evolutionary moment wasn't realized because technology got in the way?

This is a crucial moment for us to think about how this theme relates to our own relationships with technology. If we make the analogy between Hal and Google, then it is entirely possible that Google is prevent us from experiencing an epic discovery. Is this the Google Bubble from the Ted video? Is it a big deal or is it something we just have to learn to live with? Couching this with the idea of faith is exactly what will put us into a critical thinking mode... and that's exactly where we want to be.

Thanks for a really intelligent discussion about 2001 today, y'all!!!

--tina

2001: A Space Odyssey

While viewing 2001: A Space Odyssey in its entirety certainly proved to be a mission, the film offers its viewers many talking points with regards to the environment, technology, and the relationships that humans have with both institutions.  

The film's first chapter, "The Dawn of Man," reminded me of a scene in Creation. The scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where a cheetah ferociously attacks an innocent chimpanzee, paralleled the scene in Creation where Darwin is in the forest with his children, observing the fox eating the rabbit. When viewing the first chapter in 2001, and after witnessing the cheetah brutally attack the poor chimpanzee, all that I that at that moment was "Why? That's not fair; why must the poor chimp get eaten in such a grotesque and inhumane fashion, especially when he didn't do anything to deserve such treatment?" I found myself in the shoes of Darwin's young daughter who, after witnessing the fox "grab his dinner," decried the actions of the fox, complaining that his murder of the innocent rabbit was "not fair." What do you all think of this? Is it fair that some animals need to kill others in order to survive or feed their young? Is the circle of life a vicious one? Can we, as human beings, rationally justify the seemingly unjust acts that occur in the animal kingdom every second of every day?

Another important theme from 2001 that relates to our in-class discussions is the relationship between humans and technology. It is amazing, yet disturbing, how dependent human beings have become on technology. The word dependent is defined as "the state of being determined, influenced, or controlled by something else." For a movie made in the late 1960s, 2001 does a great job with regards to addressing the troublesome human-technology relationship. In the film, we see the strained human-technology relationship manifest itself with Hal, the self-proclaimed infallible computer system. There is no doubt that the human-technology relationship seen in 2001 is a strained one. Additionally, the movie's message can be applied to today's society, as it emphasizes a universal message: do not become dependent on technology. However, something else in this movie stuck out to me. As a Catholic, I have grown up hearing that the only infallible being is God. Through the Catholic lens of looking at religion, God isn't infallible because he knows it all or because he is perfect for the sake of being perfect; God is infallible because he created the world, and thus he knows what is best for it.

How does your respective religion view infallibility with regards to God? If your religion views God in a certain light,  (i.e. infallible or fallible) how can you relate it to Hal from 2001?

Feel free to discuss anything else that caught your eye in the film! I am aware that this is a very narrow theme, but I am curious as to how your respective religions view the notion of infallibility with regards to a higher power.

The World Without Us/Deep Ecology

The excerpts we read from The World Without Us by Alain Weisman both posed and attempted to answer many deep philosophical questions about the environment as well as specific scientific ones. The prelude introduce a tribe living in Ecuador, in part of the Amazon. These people believed themselves to be close descendants of monkeys. The Zapara tribe used to thrive off nature years and years ago until the automobile began to be mass-produced. At that point in time, determined Europeans trampled through the land of the Zapara Indians, in search of materials needed for car-producing. They brutally destroyed the environment, murdered many Indians, and left. The Zapara were considered extinct. In 1999, some reappeared, who had escaped the genocide years ago. That was only one forest and one group of indigenous people used in the example, but this was happening all over the globe. Later in the book, Weisman discusses the Puszcza, which was once a huge landscape of lush trees and nature crosses over an extremely large space in parts of Europe. Because of human development, the Puszcza has been dramatically reduced. Humans are imposing new technology on the earth every day. Can mother nature handle our presence, and all that comes along with it?

Weisman poses many thoughtful questions: Is the earth better without humans residing on it?Is there anything we can do to turn around the negative effect our technology has had on nature? Even if the human race was wiped out tomorrow, could the world return to a place as healthy as the one it was in before humans evolved? What are your thoughts on these issues?

Then, Weisman introduces religion. This was the most interesting excerpt for me. Almost every religion has some type of afterlife or place to go other than this earth. When the world is over, destroyed, gone, many religious people tend to believe they will be somewhere else. How do you think religion and the destruction of our environment are intertwined?

The encyclopedia entry regarding Deep Ecology can be connected to the pieces we read from Alain Weisman. Would you make the argument that he was a deep ecologist or a shallow ecologist? How do you think deep ecology relates the religion and faith?