Analyzing Apocalypse Now

There were several strategies Francis Ford Coppola used in the opening scene of Apocalypse Now that was effective in setting a certain mood for the viewers. One of the main aspects I noticed was the music choice. Music has a certain effect on all of us. It can change our mood in an instant, and sometimes change our habits. A great example of the use of music is in the ASPCA commercials, the ones with all the sad-looking animals. The pictures are usually accompanied by a soft, slow song sung by Sarah McLachlin. For Apocalypse Now the song used was “The End” by The Doors. This was a great choice because it had an intense feel to it. Like the music found in horror movies, this song made the audience feel uneasy, so they knew something wasn’t right.

Another example would be the use of multiple pictures in the frame. Using multiple pictures in one shot was effective because it set the scene. For example, in one shot there was a man smoking, the helicopter, and the fire in the background. This composition helped the audience know that all of these factors were important, and they all worked into the film. Coppola most likely used this strategy to get his point across without taking up too much time. A boring introduction to a movie can affect how the audience views the rest of the movie.

Sound and Fury

Watching this video really opened my eyes. I never realized that deaf people felt that their world was living inside another. A person would have to lead an entirely different way of life to truly understand them. Throughout the film I found myself constantly changing my stance on the issue because I could see valid arguments on both sides. The main argument I had against the implant is the fact that I don’t know what it is like to be deaf.

                That made me realize, yes, I don’t know what is like to be deaf, so I have no evidence to believe that someone’s life would be better that way. I realized that I belong to the “hearing discourse,” and that is all I have ever known. That’s how I decided that if in the future I was to have a child that was born deaf, I would get the cochlear implant for them. The hearing world is the one I thrive in. My entire family can hear, my friends can hear, and the vast majority of my community can hear.  I would want my child to grow up in the world I was familiar with, so I could help them succeed and be the best they can be. If they did not have the implant, I am not sure how well I would be able to communicate with them.  I would always feel an invisible barrier between the two of us.

                The evidence I have actually comes from the deaf family in the film. Since their entire family is deaf, they felt it was best that Heather did not get the transplant—the deaf world was the one they thrived in. If Heather was to get an implant, they felt she would be taken out of their world and be placed in one that was unfamiliar to them. In other words, they would be losing a connection to their daughter. My argument has the same intention behind it, yet it comes from a different perspective.

                I was happy to see that the deaf people in the movie didn’t feel that they had a disability. They had a positive outlook on life, and people who have that are always the happiest. I have to say I disagree with them though. Peter said he was in a high position at his job, yet he also stated he had trouble communicating with his co-workers. He also knew that there was no hope of him climbing the corporate ladder. To me, this is a handicap. Something that prevents you from becoming something you want to be is a handicap.

                 How do we determine what is better for someone? Most of us have only lived in one world—either the hearing or the deaf. We are biased because we only know one side of the story. It would be interesting to ask someone who has lived in both worlds to see what they think.

Stuck

I had a difficult time coming up with a fear of mine that I could describe to you all. The ones I came up with made sense in my head, but I had a difficult time coming up with a good explanation. I was able to piece together a few sentences in the time the people around me wrote a few paragraphs. Despite my mental block, I was able to come up with a fear I could clarify easy enough.

When we are little, we love to explore new things. We try and do things that may not work, just for the sake of discovering something we didn’t know before. One thing I used to love was getting myself into was small places. If I saw a little cubby of some sort the first question I would ask myself was, “I wonder if I could fit in there.”

(Now if you haven’t noticed, the last word people would use to describe me is small. Most have growth spurts through middle and high school. Mine happened to take place my entire adolescence. My parents took many videos of my music programs when I was in intermediate school—they “wanted to catch every moment.” Watching the video pan across my class, attempting to sing in key, keep panning, and panning, then Boom! There was me, towering over everyone in the top row of the risers.)  

Despite my size, I still attempted to explore every hiding place I could. I don’t remember if there was a traumatic incident where I wasn’t able to get out, but this is where my fear stems from. Now, I no longer try and fit into small spaces, but—besides the fact I am in high school—I am deathly afraid of being stuck in a small space.

I have contemplated the possibility of being claustrophobic, like my mom, but eventually I ruled that out. My mom absolutely will not go into a cave. I have no problem with it. The one link we do have is a fear of the CAT scan. While I am inside, I have to focus on my breathing. And I mean focus. I never open my eyes, because I know just inches away from my face is a sheet, no, an immense wall of plastic. To you this may sound silly but to me it is my worst nightmare. Thousands of questions run through my mind: “what if the machine malfunctions?” “What if I start hyperventilating and they can’t see?” “What if it starts on fire!?!”

The horror movies about being buried alive don’t help my situation at all. They made me think about what will happen when I die? What if I am still alive when I am buried but they just didn’t know it?? ... Maybe I should just stop watching.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks

      It was difficult for me to take a firm stance on Wikileaks. At first I believed that some good may come of Assange's website. Government documents accessible by the general public is a freedom of the press. Americans have a right to know what goes on behind the "government curtain." Many people believe that government is corrupt, and knowing more about what government is really about may loosen them up. This is where my support ends.

      It's a question of whether Wikileaks is beneficial. I personally don't think the leak of these documents will help anyone. They were created for government. Really, they are only on the internet for our entertainment. A vast majority of the people who check Wikileaks will do nothing about the topics discussed. If anything, the articles/video/strategies posted pose a threat. If military strategies are leaked online, anyone can access them. Therefore a country we may be at war with currently, or in the future can get ahold of our strategies and use them against us.

      In my opinion one of the purposes of government is to protect its people from the information found on Wikileaks. Their job is to protect the citizens of this country. This is the reason these documents were deemed private in the first place. If the wrong group of people get ahold of this information, political uproars may begin. As it is people are passionate about politics, and when you add in powerful information like that found on Wikileaks, entire movements may begin. Some may argue that if regular citizens are informed about these issues, we can do something about them. If government thought it fit for us to get involved, the news would have already been released. An argument Julina Assange had about his website was that "these leaks change the world." He of all people should know that the world can change in both beneficial and harmful ways. In his TED interview he mentioned that he receives complaints about the content being to explicit. His argument to the complaints is that the people involved in these events are effected greatly, why can't others at least know, in general, what occurred. As I stated before, it may not be beneficial for others to know. I compare these events to a loss in the family. You are the one who spreads the news to people other than your family. If someone finds out and tells others before you do, you wonder who they thought it was their information to share in the first place. Others may come to support you, but you need support from your own family before outsiders try and intervene.

The Non-Fiction Book of the Summer

For my summer reading assignment I decided to immerse myself in the "poetic writing" of Mary Karr. The book I selected is called The Liars Club. I wanted to make sure I could stay interested in the reading so the selection process was difficult. I believe we have all grown up thinking most non-fiction books are very factual and rather boring. I wanted to make sure that with the book I picked, this wasn't the case. The fact that The Liars Club was a memoir captured my interest. Reading about someones life experiences has always been interesting to me-- it gives you another point of view.

Even though I started the book with an open mind, it began at a snails pace. I didn't quite understand the points she was trying to make. Nothing exciting happened for such a long period of time that I didn't understand how this book got such raving reviews. It had to win the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for some reason.

Her style of writing surprised me. The vocab that was used was advanced-- so many sticky notes were stuck between the pages, marking words I needed to look up. Also, there was a lot of colorful language used. Sometimes it seemed as though Karr tried to get away with it by mashing phrases together to make it seem like one word. She had me stumped on a few! I had to read them over a couple times before I really understood what they signified.

Once I got on track with the pace this book was going, I began to enjoy reading it. At first I dreaded going back and seemingly skimming over words and glancing up at the page number multiple times to see I hadn't even made it three pages yet. But then, the story line picked up. Things began to happen that peaked my interest and made me want to immerse myself in the storyline.

I noticed something interesting that I would like to just make note of. Throughout the entire book there is a slight fixation on the idea of death, which began after her grandmother passed. Karr stated many times that the idea of death did not scare her. She saw death all around even at a young age, and realized how natural it was. Admittedly, this was not something an eight-year-old should be thinking, yet she was strangely comfortable with the idea. As I kept reading, the focus on this concept faded until the very end. The last paragraph in The Liars Club is her description of what death must be like-- as though it is something to look forward to.

I also found myself beginning to really appreciate Mary Karr's writing style. She truly makes it her own. It's as if she is reading the book aloud. She takes on a first person perspective, but makes it as though she is frozen in a young age. She may have wrote The Liars Club when she was older, but there is no way of telling. The book is written in the perspective of a young, tragedy-stricken girl.

In my opinion, the first section of the book started off on a sour note compared to the rest(and that is a lot to say for this particular memoir). Once part 2 came along, (Colorado 1963) things began to have a more positive light. Nothing became completely happy, just happier. It gave me an uplifting feeling to see that positive things began to happen in her life. She deserved every single one of them. This is one of the effects a great book has. It makes the reader want to dig deeper into the story. For me, I wanted to know if something good actually became of her life. That is the hook in her story.

From being raped to witnessing her grandmother's death, Mary Karr's world was not a great one to live in. The list of terrible events in her life go on and on-- just one of them would send my whole world in a tailspin. But she went about her experiences in a laughable way. For this, I applaud her. I found a part in her book that really captures how strong she was: "The theory behind it held that not mentioning a painful episode in the meanest terms was a way of pretending that the misery of it didn't exist. Ignoring such misery, then, was equal to lying about it. Such a lie was viewed as more cruel, even, than the sad truth, because it somehow shunned or excluded the person in pain from everybody else." This was the reality of her world. Most of us really don't realize how lucky we are. Mary Karr-- I pity you for your experiences, but commend you for your strength.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Okay, first of all this reading took me a couple days to finish. If I put my mind to it, definitely, I could finish it in one day. This passage was just too painful to focus on for more than five pages at a time. Another aspect of it that created issues for me was the way it was written. I understand people talked differently during other eras, but this was ridiculous. I read a passage to my mother out loud -- stumbling over some of the words I might add-- and she just gave me a blank stare.

While reading I had an idea in my head of what point she was trying to get across. I believed I could understand everything she wrote, but then again there were so many words and phrases I was not familiar with, I could have been completely wrong.

I am not the type who enjoys being negative and harping on the works of others. I do admit I enjoyed reading parts of Mary Wollestonecraft's passage, particularly the middle. The reason for this is I noticed a pattern. In the first couple of pages she really focuses on how people look at women in a negative light-- "..docile blind obedience, to gratify the senses of man..." Towards the middle she began to describe how the world should REALLY view women. They should be seen as powerful and independent. They should not be objectified and viewed as submissive. This section made me perk up just a bit. I began to find myself feeling very powerful and confident as I kept reading.
But towards the end, Wollstonecraft once again brings up the negative and begins to concentrate on how women are mistreated. It brought the whole piece back to a sullen frame of mind. In my opinion that is not a memorable way to end a 20 page paper.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

I found this article particularly interesting because it discusses how people cannot focus on a long reading, by fault of the Internet. It was not necessarily interesting to me because of the subject matter, it is the fact that what was being mentioned was happening to me at that moment. I had a hard time staying interested and not skimming through. I was being very cautious to make sure I did not just 'scan' the words on the page. Nicholas Carr was attempting to decode why this was happening to him. I came to one conclusion: that this sensation he was feeling is not familiar to people my age. We have grown up with the Internet at our fingertips. People his age had to adapt to the online phenomenon, and that is why he feels its effects.

I also found it interesting how Carr mentioned that "we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s..." "But it's a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking..." A way of thinking where the creative aspect is done for us. Words are defined automatically and not by our own processing. He says we have become "mere decoders of information," which actually, I agree with. People have become lazy and rely too much on the Internet to think for them. The reason I feel this way is because I have felt these effects myself. I may have grown up with the Internet always in reach, but that doesn't mean I want to use it all of the time. If I can't come up with an answer in my own way and I have to rely on a computer, I feel helpless-- but maybe that's just me.

The connections Carr made in this article were great. The first one I liked in particular was the comparison of the Internet to a method of how our brain decodes information. We decode information in several different ways: deep decoding-- thinking of all the details, shallow decoding-- letting the basic details become apparent to us, and automatic decoding-- the Internet. It is as if the Internet is taking over a part of our brain. The other main part of his article I enjoyed reading involved him using examples in human history when we try to be the most efficient. For example: using the steam engine as a faster mode of transportation. He makes this seem like a inevitable change. It is just how people work. We try to make everything faster and more efficient.

My favorite quote in this reading was "The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people-- or smarter." I immediately thought of how kids act in school. We all look to the smart kids to do the most work. It is assumed they will figure it out and help the rest out. The Internet seems to be the smartest kid in school.