From the Paper
"Edward Said and others write about the issue of Orientalism, the way the East is represented and viewed by the West. The term "Orient" signifies a system of representations framed by political forces that brought the Orient into Western learning and Western consciousness, and the Orient can be seen as a mirror image of what is inferior and alien ("Other") to the West. Orientalism is the image of the "Orient" expressed as an entire system of thought and scholarship and as seen in popular media during any given era. The way Orientalism is currently treated in the media suggests a number of villainous stereotypes and prevailing attitudes in the West regarding Arabs and others. The old idea of the Yellow Peril was used when Asians were seen as prime villains, while more recently it is the Arab that has become the target of choice."

From the Paper
"The setting of the forest plays a key role in creating the Gothic quality in the film "The Blair Witch Project" and Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story ?Young Goodman Brown.? In the forest, the characters in both works confront nocturnal landscapes and hallucinations, eerie voices, fires and haunted houses?conventional features of a Gothic work (Sedgwick). Far away from the familiar environment and civilization, these characters are plunged into a netherworld of existence. According to Walpole, in Gothic texts, "a god, or at least a ghost, [is] absolutely necessary to frighten us out of too much sense" (in Morris). In these two works, fear serves to be a powerful force that unleashes the suppressed and hidden emotions of the characters. Heather, Josh and Michael, the protagonists of the film, erupt in anger towards one another as they discover..."

From the Paper
"The cable television movie Romero tells the true story of Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, a church leader who at first was reluctant to become embroiled in the political battles of his time but who eventually became a leader in the search for justice for the lower classes in that country, a role that would lead to his death at the hands of the military. The film raises a number of difficult ethical issues, and one of the key ones relates to an argument that has been taking place in South America in particular for some time over the importance of and value of liberation theology, or revolution through the intercession of Catholic church leaders.
This issue is not a simple one, though it might seem so on the surface. Even in a democratic nation like the United States, the political involvement of clergy from any denomination or..."

Tags: LATIN, AMERICA

From the Paper
"In the late 1930s a sub-genre developed in the American film. The so-called screwball comedies were different from the comedies that had gone before, and to some extent it is a sub-genre that has persisted. The definition of a screwball comedy is not as definite as that for, say, a Western or a Horror film, and whether a given work fits this sub-genre is always arguable. Howard Hawks's Bringing Up Baby (1938) is an accepted classic in the genre, while Rob Reiner's Harry Met Sally (1989) is not so clearly an echo of the original group of films so classified.

The original screwball comedies were made in the era between the onset of the Depression and the end of World War II. Ed Sikov offers a definition of screwball comedy that emphasizes the sexual relationships involved, with madcap comedy surrounding the onset and development of romance. Usually, he says, the,,,"

From the Paper
"The genre of crime fiction in American literature and film covers a wide variety of styles and subgenres, but certain elements can be identified as being especially identified with American crime fiction. The private detective or private eye is the character most associated with American crime fiction, and as the private detective developed, he was part of a larger form known as the hardboiled school which referred to an attitude of toughness and cynicism that might be expressed by a policeman or lawyer as well as a private detective, though the private detective is the primary embodiment of the hardboiled school. Many of these novels and films use the private detective himself as the filter through which the rest of the story is told, either because he (and they were overwhelmingly male until recently) tells the story in the first-person or as narrator or because he..."

From the Paper
"Race and the divide between the races is either the subject or the subtext in many films. The theory of the creation of "the Other" as delineated by Bell Hooks applies to these works and helps illuminate how they handle the issue of race. Hooks's analysis will serve as the critical perspective to be applied to a film overtly about racial tensions and how they develop, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

Hooks notes how race is used not merely to discriminate against one group or another but to make that group discriminate against itself:

Though systems of domination, imperialism, colonialism, racism, actively coerce black folks to internalize negative perceptions of blackness, to be self-hating, and many of us succumb, blacks who imitate whites..."

From the Paper
"Most of Billy Wilder's films have a strong aura of cynicism manifested in the actions of the characters and the development of the themes. Witness for the Prosecution (1958) is atypical in some ways--it is more isolated in time and place than most of Wilder's films because it is a courtroom drama which keeps largely to one setting. Its protagonist is every bit as cynical in his way as the heroes of other Wilder films, such as Double Indemnity (1944) or Sunset Boulevard (1950), and, like those other characters, he is ultimately duped by his own cynical nature. Like many Wilder characters, in fact, the barrister Sir Wilfrid alternates between being an effective practitioner of his particular profession and an observer who is presented with a vision of the actions of someone even more cynical and manipulative than he."

From the Paper
"The film Blade Runner (1982) makes deliberate use of the 1940s film style known as film noir, a name given to the approach by French film critics who saw in American movies an emerging social, psychological, and stylistic point of view after World War II. The use of the style in Blade Runner brings two different generic sensibilities into conflict: the science fiction film which looks to the future, and the film noir which finds meaning in the dark and decaying urban world of the 1940s. Director Ridley Scott deliberately plays the two styles against one another, with the high-tech world of the future shown not as a brave new world of progress and light but as an extension of the urban decay of today, a theme highlighted by the stylistic link to films of the past."

From the Paper
"The Godfather was the highest-grossing film of 1972, while Dirty Harry was a major success the year before. Both films can be defined loosely as being in the crime genre, but their generic differences are considerable. The Godfather is in the tradition of the gangster film, though it melds this with a traditional family drama, while Dirty Harry is a police drama that owes as much to television as to earlier movies for much of its structure and theme. The Godfather was directed by Francis Ford Coppola in his first major studio feature, while Dirty Harry was directed by Don Siegel, a veteran with many films to his credit by the time he directed this one. The way the two filmmakers approach their material is quite different, and yet in one respect they are similar--both filmmakers respond to the socio-historical forces of their time and embody some aspect of those forces in their.."

From the Paper
"The purpose of this research is to examine Wall Street, a film directed by Oliver Stone, with reference to the narrative paradigm theory described by Walter R. Fisher. The plan of the research will be to set forth the principal elements of Fisher's explanation of the narrative paradigm as a strategy for decision and action, and then to discuss Wall Street in light of Fisher's theory, as well as with reference to the film's function vis-?-vis more general sociological perspective, in a manner that points in the direction of the manner in which the film as narrative might provide, as Fisher suggests, "a rationale for decision and action" in the business world.

Fisher's elaboration of what he terms the narrative paradigm is meant to give an account of the efficacy of persuasive moral argument in the context of literary and dramatic patterns of..."

From the Paper
" The film of Casablanca has had major audience appeal since the time it was first released, and indeed it was something of a surprise hit when it first came to the screen. The appeal in 1942 was likely to be somewhat different than the appeal of the film today given that the societal concerns of the time were different, and the film does indeed reflect many of these concerns in its plot, the interactions of its characters, and the society it depicts. Casablanca is very much a document of its age and reflects much of the history of the late 1930s leading to the war that was then waging in 1942.

The society depicted in the film is exotic not only because of its setting in Casablanca in North Africa but also because of the mixture of nationalities brought together in an artificial manner in this time and place. This is artificial because it is.."

From the Paper
"One of the best film versions of William Shakespeare's Hamlet is that directed by and starring Laurence Olivier and made in 1948. The Olivier film is dark, brooding, and truly theatrical, with sets that are suggestive rather than realistic, expressionistic rather than precise. The darkness of the image is matched by a darkness of spirit and a sense of foreboding that hangs over the film from the first frame. Such a dark and expressionistic setting fits quite well with the internal brooding of Hamlet. The character of Hamlet is considered difficult because he is seen as passive rather than active for most of the play. Early in the play he is given the task of avenging his father by his father's ghost, and yet for most of the play he seems to do nothing about it. He is highly reflective but inactive until the very end of the play when he does.."

From the Paper
"INTRODUCTION
Jane Campion's film The Piano creates a series of oppositions and uses them to advance the narrative and to indicate certain thematic concerns on the part of the filmmaker. The story unfolds as a series of meetings and confrontations in which these oppositions are evoked. Opposing forces are shaped around individual characters who confront one another or interact in ways that conflict. The film sets up a series of contrasts, or oppositions, between other elements as well--interior versus exterior setting, interior versus exterior psychology, Scotland versus New Zealand, male versus female, self-absorption versus love, and so on.

The opening of the film sets up a contrast between the visual and the verbal that is carried throughout the film and.."

From the Paper
" On October 11, 1996, Congress passed and the President signed into law the National Film Preservation Act of 1996. The law stemmed from almost a decade of professional and legislative concern over preserving an important national heritage. This research examines the problems which gave rise to these concerns and the legislative history attempting to resolve these problems. The 1996 Act is then analyzed in detail for its impact on American films and the political machinations that went into its making.

National Film Preservation Act of 1996
The National Film Preservation Act of 1996, passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton on October 11, 1996, proposes to do two things. Title I reauthorizes the National Film Preservation Board, retained from a 1992 legislation for four.."

From the Paper
"INTRODUCTION
The documentary "Rosie the Riveter" by Connie Field and the book Rosie the Riveter Revisited by Sherna Berger Gluck refer to a period in American history that can be considered the beginning of a major shift in the role of women. During World War II, when millions of men were conscripted or voluntarily joined the armed forces, defense plants in the United States had to continue producing needed armaments and other goods for the war effort. At the time, relatively few women worked outside the home, and even fewer would have worked in factories like those producing airplanes and other military goods. This changed as a female work force was enlisted to see to it that production did not decrease in this time of emergency. The women who took these jobs found a new sense of accomplishment, freedom, and.."