Film History II

    Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is probably one of the weirdest films I've ever watched, and it was very cool to see just how much influence Fassbinder had on modern filmmaking and the new writers of today. One of the clearest parallels in influence that I saw was that of Fassbinder and Kaufman, both of them use all of the elements of film to create awkward yet enlightening films that touch on many subject matters. However, I don't want to simply explore the parallels between the films. Instead, I want to talk about Fassbinder's methods and approaches to this story.        In the movie, an almost  darkly comedic take on racial tensions and love become the main center pieces of the story, and through this, Fassbinder is able to play around with most of the element of the film, creating whimsical yet disturbing scenes that play with the emotions and reality of the spectator.         ...

There is no doubt that Vittorio De Sica definitely captured a pretty realistic version of society during this time period. Once again, I was emotionally captured by the film and its message. In fact, I felt attached to it, and the interactions between the father and the kid made me tear up almost every time.  In these scenes, especially the last scene where they both leave crying, I felt as if it was my father and I, not because we faced that exact experience, but because I remember poverty and how devastating it is, how scary it is because you don't know about the next day. It was also very truthful in the way that De Sica makes one feel. He doesn't give us a happy ending; Instead, he gives us the most realistic one, and it resonated with me because some days, I would hope for the best, but I always got the most realistic outcome, nothing changed, and my father was still looking for a job and I was still sad.  Vittorio De Sica manages to show this wonderfully, and his use of ...

 In a weird way, I kind of see myself in Antoine Doinel. No, I didn't steal a typewriter or money from my grandmother, but I did live in an education system that tried to belittle and control me, a system that I just escaped.  The education system in this movie is portrayed in a hyper-realistic way for the time frame of the movie, but it was even more surprising to see so many parallels between that system and the one that I attended. Looking deeper into it, It wasn't like I was being verbally abused by my teachers, but there was always a system which made the dynamic King v. Peasant, rather than Teacher v. Student. When Antoine turns in his plagiarized paper, and the teacher berates him in front of all his classmates, I felt that in such a deep way. Though his actions are inexcusable, the teacher's method of discipline was not helpful, and it's these seemingly small things that shape a kids life, that tell a kid if he's enough or if he's a failure. Because pare...

 From the beginning, we know that this is not meant to be a 'true-to-life' boxing story; there's more to it, and I think a lot of that comes from George Bellows painting, Dempsey and Firpo, which Scorsese says "he had in mind."      Above, the famous painting by Bellows shows an exaggerated version of what really went down. No, He didn't actually knock him out of the ring, but it is important because it is the first time that a Latin American fighter challenged for the Heavyweight title. After this information, it becomes quite apparent that this painting holds a lot more power, a microcosm. Sure, to boxing fans, the fight might just be another win for  Jack Dempsey, but to patriots, this is America defeating Latin America, and Bellows makes that apparent with the brutal knockout that shows a horrible ending to Firpo, a fighter who, even after his loss, was considered one of the best in Latin America.  That said, this is important b...