Streetwise

In 1984 the documentary Streetwise was inspired by a July 1983 Life magazine article called “Streets of the Lost" by Cheryl McCall and photographed by Mary Ellen Mark. After cultivating connections with several of the teenagers for the article, Mary Ellen Mark convinced her husband Martin Bell to make a documentary on the lives of the destitute kids living on the street. Streetwise follows the lives of several teens including Erin (aka Tiny), Dewayne, Rat, Shellie, Pattie, Munchkin, Shadow, Lulu and Kim

This documentary is like watching a fictional drama instead of real homeless kids living their lives. Martin Bell does not have a blatant argument in his film. The film does not only address homelessness, it deals with the issues of parenting and education.

Bell makes sure to capture the teenagers in a way that strips them of their innocence, showing what the harshness of the streets has made them into. Optimal shots where Bell strongly depicts their lost innocence are when they are carelessly smoking, cussing, or trying to make money as panhandlers or prostitutes which are shown heavily in the film. There are hardly any adults shown in the film, thus making the teenagers look even more vulnerable.

The adults that are shown are the parents of Tiny and Dewayne. Bell incorporates them to depict how they struggle as parents to suggest a correlation between their bad decisions and judgments that directly effects their children. The parents showcased know the conditions of where their children live and what they do on a daily basis yet do not act upon it because they struggle everyday as well.

At the end of the film, there is not a resolution to the teen's situations.

The Unforeseen

At first I was interested in watching The Unforeseen because it was pertinent to the city of Austin. As I watched, I steadily didn't care to finish the film. The film is about the very fast development of Austin and the city’s struggle against land developers to preserve its natural source of water, Barton Springs. The theme of urban development and environmentalism go hand in hand in this film.

The director Laura Dunn attempts to capture an objective view to the situation by offering both sides. The central figure of the film is the successful real estate developer Gary Bradley. Even though he was one of the people to catalyze subdivisions (the bad guys in a way), Dunn shows Bradley’s side of the story in a sympathetic light and uses his story as the basis for the film.

On the other hand, Dunn has some shots to support her argument of pro-environmentalism. The montage of the historical footage of members of the community supporting the preservation of Barton Springs at a hearing was such a pathos infused scene. It had some uplifting music in the background and had various Austinites recounting their experiences at Barton Springs, including a child. Many of the people interviewed supporting Barton Springs or shown from past footage, spoke of the spring as it was sacred and magical, which was too exaggerated in my opinion. There were many beautiful sweeping shots of Barton Springs that added to that ethereal feeling enhanced by the people's account. It was clear that the spring was special to the people and Dunn wanted to convey that.

Dunn had a handful of credible interviewees such as Robert Redford and Ann Richards. They supported the preservation of Barton springs. Ann Richards’ interview was helpful to the audience to understand how the government was handling the problem while Redford’s interview was a bit more subjective. He was introduced as an environmentalist rather than an old actor. To me the most important interviews came from a child living in an unfinished subdivision and an old farmer. The little boy’s opinions were profound even though he is just a child. The farmer was wise with experience and spoke about the aquifer and how it was important to the crops.

Overall the film was confusing with its spiritual overtones and metaphors. Especially the doctor explaining the metaphor of the growth of cancer comparing it to the development of Austin. The documentary was a good attempt at the many issues it tried to tackle.

Harlan County, USA depicts a new kind of documentary that we have not seen in this class. The narration is dictated through the coal miner's and their families. Barbara Kopple's decision to do this greatly helps the audience understand and sympathize with the miner’s struggle against Duke Power Company.

Kopple captures the lives of the coal miner’s and their families. The scene with a coal miner’s wife bathing her little girl in a tin bucket because they don’t have hot running water gives the audience an understanding of how bad their circumstances were. Much of the footage in the documentary is raw in a way that the audience understood how greatly they wanted to win and get better wages and insurance. Kopple and her crew filmed the miner’s and their wives at the “picket line” protesting to the people in charge. The film crew put themselves in imminent danger while filming at the picket lines because of the "gun thugs" that were constantly brandishing weapons and ready to fight. But the fact that the miner's and their supporters still showed up greatly heightened the realistic drama in the documentary. It also established Kopple's credibility because she decided to use the unedited scenes where the crew were pushed and shoved or talked back to to make the point that they weren't holding back the truth.

Another element that helped progress the documentary's argument was the blue grass/ folksy soundtrack. The hauntingly powerful voices of the singers drove home the point of the miner's suffering and the 13 month battle with the company. Some of the lyrics were directly related to the scenes that they accompanied.

SicKo

Michael Moore’s prime argument in his documentary SicKo is advocating towards universal health care in the United States. He really emphasizes on appealing to the audience’s emotions through the testimonies of Americans who have been denied care for different reasons, mostly because of pre-existing conditions. He takes the audience through a roller coaster ride of emotions from empathizing with a 79 year old who still works for his medication, to feeling envious of countries like France and Cuba who have free universal health care.

Although Moore greatly appeals to the audience emotions throughout the film, he establishes credibility when he interviews the insurance company workers and doctors from other countries. I noticed however he focused on interviewing many people from other countries or Americans who live there.

As always Moore has a certain style to his films, it is evident with his biased side comments of Bush, 9/11, terrorist attacks, his sarcastic montages, and his appearances in his own film. He rounds up the Americans he met along the way of making the film and leads them to Guantanamo Bay for the only place in America where health care is free. Since they couldn't go in they go to Cuba where there is free health care. Those scenes when the Americans are thanking the Cuban doctors for their care and realizing they don't have to pay, it really drives the point Moore is trying to make.

An Inconvenient Truth

I've seen An Inconvenient Truth numerous times in high school. The last time I saw it was in my Environmental Science class but I saw the documentary with a scientific mindset. This time I saw the film in a different light. I noticed how Al Gore presents his arguments to the audience in the film and to the viewer's watching the film. Gore establishes his credibility throughout the film and utilizes the appeals of logos from the beginning till the end.
Essentially the documentary is about Gore giving his global warming presentation around the country and the world. Interjected between those scenes of him presenting are montages of his personal life. These personal accounts include losing the 2000 election, losing his young son, visiting his home at a tobacco farm and his activism in finding solutions to the global warming problem. The personal footage is intimate and contains Gore's voice over in a whispery sullen kinda tone that makes it seem personal. At first these montages may seem irrelevant or just to get an insight to Gore’s life, but they are used to build his credibility. These scenes were meant to point out that Gore actually cares about the environmental problems and trying to find a solution. To also boost his credentials is the audience familiarity with his political career. The final touch to Gore establishing his credibility is we constantly see Gore in business attire, pressed collared shirt, suit and a tie.
Most of Gore’s arguments are based on evidence he has gathered such as photos, scientific research, diagrams, charts and graphic simulation. He focuses more on the consequences of the global warming issue rather than the root of the problems or the solutions. Gore also uses various techniques to make his point. In one scene he uses a small elevator to emphasize his point of how high CO2 levels have reached and potentially how high they can reach at the current rate in less than 50 years. He tries to break up a bombardment of facts or points with short animations like he did for one scene with an inane frog video. I think he also chose to use the short video animation to appeal to younger viewers, like teenagers in high school to help them understand his point.
Although most of the documentary is based on logos, Gore has a few scenes that appeal to the audience's emotions. One of them is at the very end of the Gore's presentation when he shows a picture of the Earth several light years away. He uses the photo to illustrate that that little blue dot is our only home and it contains all of our triumphs and tragedies. His conclusion is a call to action to tackle on the issue. This leaves the audience feeling like they should take action because in a universe so huge they feel a sense of ownership for this tiny planet.

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11

(***I'm warning all of you. Never write your blogs directly on the blog because something can always go wrong and somehow get deleted. Ignore the oh so reassuring “auto-save”. That's what happened to me and now I'm tired and don't want to repeat this blog again. I'll try my best to make it as good as the first time I wrote it. Moral of the story: write it on Word first!)

On September 11, 2001 I was sitting in my 5th grade computer class when my teacher was notified to turn on the TV. That day I saw most of the 9/11 coverage with not really understanding the big picture or even the concepts behind it. It’s sad to admit but it wasn't until I came to college that I truly understood what the war was about. With that being said, watching Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 for the first time was mind boggling. Everything I knew about the war was disregarded in this film. His documentary is indeed biased however he provides evidence and research to back up his argument. It made me think about other aspects I hadn’t thought about and gave information that made me want to research more. I think for the most part in the beginning of the film Moore uses more of the logos and ethos appeals and then towards the end he uses mostly the appeal of pathos.

Moore’s primary claims in his documentary are against George W. Bush and his competence as president and how he handled the 9/11 attacks due to his ties with the alleged ties to the Bin Laden family. He bases his argument with logos by providing plenty of documentation, polls, and impressive interviews. He belittles Bush many times by jump cutting to Bush at lose for words and people raising questions.

Throughout the film, Moore in his “voice of god” provides some satirical often funny comments to lighten the tone of the film however there are certainly some heartbreaking images that are to be taken serious. A scene that truly haunted me after I saw the documentary was of sun burnt soldiers in Iraq saying how they play a good song (like “Let the bodies hit the floor” and “Roof is on Fire”) to pump them up when in a tank ready for combat. Moore then juxtaposes the voice of a soldier singing the lyrics of “Roof is on Fire” against images of Iraqi civilians in distress, pain, or dead. It really appeals to the audience’s emotions when they continue to see hysterical Iraqi mothers, dead Iraqi children, a naked child with his arm blown off and women with their faces melted off. Moore’s claim in this case is that Iraqi’s are innocent and the ignorant American soldiers are just doing a job that Bush sent them to do, rather than fight a war (since they don’t know why they are fighting.)

Another scene that is meant to grab the audience’s heart is the part when the mother of the dead soldier is reading a letter her son wrote to her before he died. The scene proves to be an overwhelming one because it’s almost as if the dead is living. The deceased soldier’s words come alive when his mother read them aloud and with the mother’s tears it really pulls at the audience’s emotion. Overall Michael Moore posed many questions and his version of the answers however the conclusion was not sufficient enough to wrap up his claim.

Levi's Commercial: O Pioneers!

I'm going to take a different route with this blog entry. The other blogs I've posted were more formal and I feel it was very rigid and didn't have my voice in it. So with that, here is my new and improved blog. Well not really improved just presented in a different light. Alright then, this is a commercial from the Levi's "Go Forth" campaign. It's one of my roommate's and my favorite commercials. At first you don't understand what this clip is about because its not a conventional commercial or campaign with the product or cause being blatantly talked about or referred to. I know when I first saw it I didn't know if it was a new movie, commercial, TV show or music video.

The commercial starts off with sounds found in nature, birds chirping, the wind, and a clash of thunder. Then the most important component of the commercial's premise takes off when Walt Whitman's powerful words ring out "Pioneers! O pioneers!" The commercial uses excerpts from Whitman's "Pioneers! O Pioneers!" poem from Leaves of Grass. (Sontag quotes Whitman's Leaves of Grass in the last reading we had.) The use of Whitman's words in the commercial add to the impact of the images. The viewer is able to see a carefully constructed argument using a poem from a different era that transforms to coincide with a contemporary society. By using the word "pioneer", meaning an innovator or exploring new territory, over and over again the audience understands the commercial is promoting something more than just jeans. Their "Go Forth" commercial appeals to the young people of America to step up or "go forth" to change society. The commercial argues for youth to embrace each others differences and accept everyone for who they are.

The commercial shows a montage of various young people doing all sorts of things but the main reoccurring theme throughout the commercial is running. It shows lots of images running towards something or someone, running through fields, running on the beach, running with fire, running in mobs. Another reoccurring effect is at certain points in the commercial there is a sound resembling a gunshot but I know its a snare drum being tapped. Its a very short powerful sound but it adds urgency to what the commercial is trying to say. I think one of the most powerful images in the commercial is of a young brunette woman casting her hand high above her head, as well as her eyes, that points to the west much like the statue of woman with a child behind her. To some it looks like a signature Nazi gesture, however the voice over says, "We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger" when it jump cuts to that image. I think it just adds more emphasis to the message.

When the commercial is ending, the almost non-existent music from the beginning of the clip begins to crescendo as the voice over articulates Whitman's words faster. It leads up to the ending images of happy united faces along with the words, "We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize...Pioneers! O Pioneers!" being said. The last words are said with a ritardando of sorts to leave the viewer thinking about the commercial. And of course right after the last words are said there is a pause and then the gunshot sound is played simultaneously when the Levi's brand shows up on the screen to remind the audience of what the whole commercial was for. I feel the ending leaves the viewer with an empowerment to go do something revolutionary.