THE INEVITABILITY OF TIME ll

THE INEVITABILITY OF TIME, A CONCEPT THAT IS HARD TO GET YOUR HEAD AROUND, LIKE HOW WE CARE ABOUT TIME BUT TIME DOESNT CARE ABOUT US OR WHAT WE ARE GOING THROUGH, NO MATTER WHAT IT KEEPS MOVING ‘FORWARD’. THIS IS SHOWN IN THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON THROUGH A FEW TECHNIQUES LIKE; MONTAGE/FLASHBACKS, SYMBOLISM, VOICE OVER NARRATION.

P1 SOUND IS SOMETHING WE HEAR EVERY DAY, ITS ALL AROUND US, WE CANT ESCAPE IT, JUST LIKE WE CANT ESCAPE TIME In the scene we here ticking as Benjamin gets older and we start to see time take its toll with him as he take his final breaths. we hear music that realises the tension in the room almost to say its ok to die its ok for time to continue

SYBOLISM

death is something that is all around us, even if we want to go back we cant because we cant go back time is inevitable just like death. The humming bird is a symbol of death, and is thought to show up when someone dies or is going to die. I guess this carries 2 meanings because daisy grows young to old and Benjamin grows old to young.

MONTAGE/FLASHBACKS

there is a part in the scene where Benjamin is talking about the people he knew and the lives they lived, the had all passed he is reflecting on the time gone. As the scene flicks through Benjamin growing younger we get the feeling of the end. But there is something significant about Benjamin dying as a baby, it presents the idea of a new beginning.

VOICE OVER NARRATION

When Daisy is narrating about Benjamin as he is dying we really feel how time really is inevitable because as it flicks through the scenes and as they are described to us by Daisy we can  see in a short amount of time that there is nothing she can do

CONCLUSION

the inevitability of time  is shown through montage/flashbacks and voiceover narration, sound and symbolism it is portrayed in the curious case of Benjamin  button in a way the makes the viewers feel connected and understand the inevitability of time. These 4 cinematographically features help to express the idea of the inevitability of time by adding depth to the film and helping the viewers to feel emotions towards the ideas in the film. 




GATSBY ESSAY – CRITICIZING THE DREAM OF SOCIETY ll

The Great Gatsby, The Great American Novel, the critique of society, exposing the hopes and views of the dream and how it really doesn’t exist. Its evident in New York, You can be who you want for a day the illusion of the dream and the escape, The Valley of Ashes live the people that think they will get their because their eyes are masked with the hope of societies dream. East Egg ‘Old Money’ is about how it doesn’t exist to them they walk around like they run the place and everyone is there for them. The Dream is the hope that anyone, gender, race, nationality and class can ‘make it’ in the world if they work hard enough.

My views on how society is criticized in the Valley of Ashes is how its a failure to the place and the people who live there, they are masked by the belief that they can make it and one day they will do it, and can not see that they are just souls rotting away as moral decay

The Valley of Ashes represent the people who are masked by the dream, they can not see that they will never get there and they symbolise the moral decay of people’s souls rotting away, they never reap the rewards of their hard work. It Also represents the outcome of America’s obsession with wealth and material things, this is shown when Nick describes the Valley of Ashes “A fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.”  Those men who are crumbling through the powdery air,  are those who can not see and will not be able to make it no matter how hard they try, this is the part of society that has been left behind.

New York, like vegas but classier anything can happen there, even white cab drivers driving black passengers. New York was that place, the place where things were different, you didn’t have to be you, you could just put on a different outfit and get away from reality, from the strain of the dream. “Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge… Even Gatsby” The dream doesn’t exist there.

East Egg is full of stuck up snobs who’s money is “old” meaning they’ve been there for a while and believe they have achieved the dream and are above it, Fitzgerald is criticising those who think they are elite to society and are above the rules, the dream doesn’t exist to them and he is criticising how out of balance society is and 100 years later we still haven’t changed.

The Valley of Ashes and the American Dream

The valley of Ashes speaks for itself I guess, its just a hole full of hopeful people almost like a curse or a cage you can never get out of but can survive it because of the hope you have of something that you don’t know will ever come. It shows the search for riches, while the rich throw their money around like its nothing

 

The Valley of Ashes is a setting in “the Great Gatsby” that illustrates the failure if The American Dream.  James Truslow Adams once said “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone with opportunity for each accordingly to ability or achievement”. Through Fitzgerald’s development of the setting, The Valley of Ashes, he presents the idea that Truslow’s version of the American Dream has failed. It is a setting where people who work hard live but never reap the rewards of their hard work. Opportunities to live that better, richer, fuller life never presents themselves to the people in the VOA.    As Nick (our Narrator) travels through the valley he notes it is a “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens…”

Gatsby project

I can see why Gatsby wanted erase the past with Tom and that, and I guess I can relate to it, because I mean when you have something special with someone, you don’t want anything to do with relationships or flings they’ve had in the past and you don’t want to be reminded or know about any of it you just want it gone, cause man it’s like a constant stabbing in your chest, like why can’t she just disappear? why can’t that have never happened and for Gatsby, he just wanted Tom and anything to do with him gone. Gatsby would’ve seen the newspapers and been reminded over and over again that it was Daisy AND Tom. Like if you see a photo from a while ago, or not that long ago and you can see that what they had was real by the way they are looking into each others eyes and that moment is forever frozen in time always there to remind you, a constant knocking at the back door just waiting for a chance to come and take him away from you. But maybe if you loved someone that much and they loved you that much too, you wouldn’t feel that threat, but maybe you would because you be even more scared of losing them and you would do anything to not let that happen

 

 

 

side note

Maybe i related it a little bit too much to myself and it might be a little bit intense and you could say the same kind of thing from toms point of view also it might be a little off track

feedback pls x

Daisy’s Voice

“Her voice is full of money…  powerful, attractive, valuable, money is attractive. Sounds like… high society, posh, UK, vocab, confidence. she has so much money but just does what she wants. she embodies everything that comes with wealth that it was. I’d never understood before. it was full of money-that was the inexhaustible charm you never get tired of it/it never runs out of charm. that rose and fell in it, the jingle (bell/coins), advertisements have jingles. of it, the cymbals you hit it and it makes a metallic crashing sound, it stands out. Take second look, musical instrument or just a crashing sound creator?  song of it… High in a white Daisies colour palace A symbol of wealth. the king’s daughter, the golden girl…”

The Valley of Ashes

ABOUT half way between West Egg and New York (on the way to NY) the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from certain desolate area of land (shrink implies that the road wants to pull away from this area but cant go far, its “creeped” by it. Desolate means bleek emphasis, not much happening, its unpleasant, the area doesn’t grow or produce. This is a valley of ashes -valley = hole like, -ashes = burnt out, dying. NY and other surrounding areas dump their ashes from their fires there. a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; Farm, grow, garden – all imply life. however, Fitzgerald states the ashes are growing into things you might normally find on a farm, he also says the garden is grotesque – ugly, disgusting, repulsive where ashes ashes are forming everything. they are things that grow and therefore Fitzgerald is trying to illustrate  take the form of houses

The Great Gatsby – Chapter one

Right at the beginning of chapter 1 we meet Nick, he is our narrator and claims to be non-judgemental but we soon learn that he really is. He moved to West Egg, Long Island which is just outside of New York to learn the Bond Business. He was going to his 2nd cousins house for dinner, her name was Daisy but we first meet Tom, her husband. Tom is described using quite negative words like; arrogant, cruel, gruff, husky and enormous. This is were we realised that Nick is quite judgemental because none of these words give off a kind or nice feeling and its not a very fair explanation of a person if all the words are negative. Nick and Tom are outside and enter the house to see Daisy and Jordyn Baker sitting on the couch in white dresses. My opinion of Daisy at the end of the chapter is that she is very annoying and a lot like a little kid but wise at the same time or maybe just not stupid because when we are told about ‘the baby’ and she tells Nick that she wants her daughter to be a fool, because there was nothing else for a woman to do in that time and she wouldn’t realise all the horrible things that went on in the world. Daisy herself had nothing to do, she waited for the longest day of the year. She is described by Nick as lovely, passionate, charming, sad and ecstatic.

This is your online portfolio

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Chris Waugh