American directors

by | Sep 22, 2021 | America

Part 1: View a feature film made between 1940 – 1970 you have not seen before (or will see later in this class) by a great director. Many directors were active both before and after 1970 so make sure you see a pre-1970 FEATURE fiction film.

Suggestion: American directors such as Frank Capra, George Cukor, John Ford, George Stevens, Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, or William Wyler. Foreign directors such as Ingmar Bergman (Swedish), Luis Buñuel (Spanish), Claude Chabrol (French), Federico Fellini (Italian), Akira Kurosawa (Japanese), Lina Wertmuller (German) or the British team known as “The Archers” made up of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. For other possibilities, try: http://www.filmsite.org/directors.html Comment on the specific film you saw in terms of its genre and the quality of the film itself. Pay attention to the camerawork (cinematography) the editing (montage) and the sound (including music). What did you like and what did you dislike? Why do you like the things you like, and why do you dislike the things you dislike? Finally, is the film successful in creating a work of fiction using the craft of filmmaking and considering when it was made? (Note: This is not the same question as whether or not you liked it. It is entirely possible to like a film that you are aware is not very good.)

Part 2: Draw some general conclusions about the work of the director and one of the main actors or actresses. For example let us say you watched the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia. Did you like David Lean as a filmmaker? Explain your answer. Did you like Peter O’Toole in the role of Larwrence? Why, or why not?

End with your overall impression of the film, including how you see it as an example of the its genre and time period.

PARTS ONE AND TWO SHOULD BE PRESENTED AS A SINGLE ESSAY!

Part 3: On a separate page, insert the heading “My Criteria for Quality in Film.” Under that heading, propose four general statements indicative of your personal taste in movies. These statements should be numbered (1) through (4), and they should be written as complete sentences or a short paragraph. For example, if you commented in your essay that you liked the acting because it was realistic and you liked the script because it had a happy ending, you could propose these two statements as criteria for quality: “(1) Excellent movies feature realistic acting. (2) A movie is more likely to be good if it ends happily.” Think about and then explain what words such as good, excellent, and effective actually mean. Be sure to save your “My Criteria” page to your hard drive—you will be resubmitting an expanded version of it with for the second paper later in this course.

Sample Solution

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.


This question has been answered

God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

This question has been answered.

Get Answer