The Master, directed by Paul Thomas
Anderson, is not your typical piece of cinema. The lack of a traditional plot
form could leave some people unsatisfied. However, I felt that the character
study and acting were rich enough to make for a compelling watch. Phillip
Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd, and Joaquin Pheonix’s Freddie Quell are two
deeply flawed if not broken human beings. One would not have to reach far to
conclude that their relationship is almost a love story. They seem to feed off
each other in every aspect filling the holes left in each others lives. This is
also evident in the way that Anderson
films the movie. It can be tense and uncomfortable at times, especially when
the camera lingers on Quell’s face. There is also a clear juxtapose created in
the way that Anderson chooses to light the scenes with Dodd always being cast
in bright rooms and Quell followed constantly by literal darkness. The score
sets the mood well, being tense and hesitant at times setting a great mood for
the film. The relationship between these two individuals, one being soft and
charismatic, and the other being volatile, and hostile, trying almost in vain
to co-exist. I feel as though you can most definitely see Dodd’s character as a
sociopath, he clings to the idea of being “The Master” of these people that
want to love him. Dodd feeds them ideas to create himself as this all knowing
being. I also believe this intense relationship between Dodd and Quell formed
because Quell was the total body encompassment of a totally lost animalistic
man. Quell’s entire body language suggest animal like traits; his hunched
shoulders, almost timid at times. But once provoked Quell lashed out like a
wild animal toward anyone that spoke against Dodd (Quell being as an animal and
Dodd acting as his master). The Master
is unconventional, brilliantly presented and compelling, which takes you on an
emotional ride. That ride however is the
point of the movie, and in my opinion a ride most certainly worth taking.
klybrook
Monday, September 24, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
#7: Cited Sources
Emerson, Ralph Waldo "Self-Reliance" Essays (1841): http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm
Francis, Mark. 1987. "Some Different Meanings Attached to a City Park and a Community Gardens." Landscape Journal 6(2):101-12
Guthrie, James R. Above time [electronic resource] : Emerson's and Thoreau's temporal revolutions. Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2001.
Thoreau, H. D., Rossi, W. J., & Thoreau, H. D. (1992). Walden: And, Resistance to civil government : authoritative texts, Thoreau's journal, reviews, and essays in criticism. New York: W.W. Norton.
Wehr, Kevin. (2012) DIY The Search for Control and Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. NY: Routledge.
Monday, September 17, 2012
#6: Monsanto
Monsanto may portray itself as a company that wants to help
the local farm industry but the reality is far from it. Monsanto is an American
leader in the genetically modified seed and food industry. In addition to the
modified seeds they have also created a pesticide that protects the genetically
modified seed from insects. So in a nutshell Monsanto does not sound all that
bad. What is very disturbing about this whole process is the fact that Monsanto
has started to patent all of these genetically altered seeds. This means that
everyday farmers cannot use and sell their produce without a license directly
from Monsanto.
The company
Monsanto has gone on to sue farmers who have been found with their seeds on
their farm. They send workers out to collect and test the farmer’s seeds
without their consent. If they find that the seeds have traces of the Monsanto
genetically altered seeds they now have the right to sue the farmers and this
often causes the farmers to go bankrupt and they can no longer sell their crops.
Farmers do not even have to intentionally buy Monsanto seeds to pesticides to
be sued. In one case a Canadian man Percy Schmeiser proved that he had not
bought the Monsanto seeds and that the seeds were possibly carried from another
farmer’s crop or even blown off of a truck carrying the Monsanto seeds.
Monsanto is
creating a monopoly of our food supply, shutting down farms that bring us
organically non-altered grown food. I find this to be a huge problem; this
company is putting many farmers out of business so that their industry can
grow. This could also possibly mean making them our only source for food and
this food could be altered in a way that everyone could have a bad reaction to.
Once they gain a full monopoly they could do anything they wanted to food and
we might have to eat it because it is the only source.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
#5: Hemp: Saving our Earth and Stimulating our Economy
The short video Hemp
for Victory was made during World War II to encourage American farmers to
grow hemp for the war effort. During this time many of the fibers we used came
from other countries, and they were short in supply. The video goes through the
steps of creating hemp fibers to make things such as thread and ropes. I think
that hemp should still be used regularly today, and as the video mentions Kentucky provides the
perfect soil for the crop to flourish. Is it is not hard to maintain and
creates rich soil for the next crop to be planted in.
If we were
to move to mainly hemp fibers grown within America we could continue to
stimulate our economy. As it stands right now hemp products are very expensive
because farmers do not subsidies for growing it. If the farmers were able to
have the government back them up on growing hemp it could easily become one of
the cheaper products to produce and buy, thus creating more stimulation in our
economy. Plus if the hemp is grown within our country by American farmers the
money stays here in America .
There are many uses for hemp, many
of them more environmentally friendly than our current solutions. Houses are
now being built with hemp, hemp plants can lift heavy metals from polluted
soil. Hemp paper is stronger and also does not require us to cut down as many
trees and wait for more to grow. And hemp
biomass fuel produces no sulphur and can be effectively used as a relatively
clean power source due to its 95% fuel to feed ratio. I think because
the government has such a bad taste in their mouth from hemp being associated
with “smoking weed” they have a hard time giving money to farmers that do
produce it. If they even just gave it a chance I think they would easily
realize that hemp would become a large cash crop for America .
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
#4: Politics? It's all foreign policy to me.
When it comes to politics I have no
idea what I even think. I mean, I do understand what I think is right and what
is wrong. Honestly though, I couldn’t even tell you what Obama and Romney our
two “headliners” for this election stand for. For the most part I do know what
I believe is right and wrong and I understand some of the morals and thoughts
my parents tried to instill in me.
As
a starting point for me to further understand what label I should put on my
political views I took a “Political Compass Test”. This test told me that I was
a moderate left libertarian and until I talked to my mother about this I really
had no idea what that even stood for. After telling my mother what I scored the
first thing she said was “I must have not raised you right.” From this I
automatically knew it wasn’t the beliefs that she had tried to rub off on me as
I was growing up. Coming from a very conservative family (except for my father)
I knew it was automatically a disappointment to hear that I wasn’t following
the family tradition. I feel as though I have a much more worldly view than my
family.
This
is what I do believe (for the most part I do think these ideals tend to be
politically associated). Gay marriage should be legal; I don’t think it’s any
of the governments business to say who we can and cannot marry. Yes I
understand that originally and traditionally marriage was a biblical commitment
between a man and women before God. Now I think it is become more of a
statement saying that two people are committed to each other and sometimes they
get a tax break for it. But being a “free” nation means getting to marry
whoever you want to, I do not think that anyone should be able to deny you that
right.
Abortion,
this one I’m not too sure on myself. Again, I do not think it is the
governments right to tell you whether or not you keep your unborn child. If you
do not want it then by all means, don’t. But I definitely think that if your
life is not directly affected by having a child, but you do not want to keep it
then adoption is definitely an answer. Though who am I to tell people what to
do with their lives?
Overall
I think that this country would work a lot better if we just let people have
their own beliefs and practice them as they will as long as it is not hurting
anyone. I do not understand why we have to constantly tell people that what
they think is wrong. Let the people be free just don’t hurt people or kill the
world we live in. This may be a very brief summary and practically shallow
summary of what I think politically, but as I said, I have never really looked
into the world of politics. Though diving deeper into the subject is now
something that is on my mind. I would like to know where I stand with the
thoughts of the people running this country. I had best educate myself quick
before this next election.
Monday, August 27, 2012
#3 Response: Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment originated between the middle 17th
century and the 18th century. The Enlightenment mainly took place
between thinkers in Europe and some in America . This age was more of a
time for people to reevaluate how they lived their lives and what they held as
their values. This became a time for humans to question their authority’s way
of thinking and create their own. These ideals are (but not limited to) market mechanism and capitalism, the scientific method, religious tolerance.
Matthew
Taylor explores the need for a second Age of Enlightenment for the 21st
century. Taylor
points out that we have found new scientific evidence since the first
Enlightenment and this evidence could help all humans realize another way of
thinking and accepting things within our world. Things that we use to not be
able to understand has been researched and possibly been given another
resolution that we previously thought. But because our leaders continue to
think in the standard form we cannot fully grasp and acknowledge this proven
outcome of science as we would with our own thinking and questioning. I agree
that a 21st century Age of Enlightenment is well over due for the
people of the world. If we could learn to question things and seek out real
answers I am sure everyone would be able to agree more. Not making us solely
understand one’s point of view through hearing it but rather everyone knowing
is as fact or fiction based on true scientific evidence.
Sir Ken Robinson also leads us toward
a 21st century Enlightenment. He points out that that our real first
education systems were created during the first Age of Enlightenment and these
systems were based on what we needed at that time period from those youth.
Industrialism was in the process of being created and that seemed to be working
so that is how we “manufactured” the children and educational process at the
time. However now we need another way of teaching our children, we need to
create something that works better for their future. Robinson talks about this
“epidemic” of ADHD and how it’s not an epidemic at all. Really it’s just us as
humans not knowing to keep our children focused, during a time when barely
anyone at all can pay attention due to the mass amounts of things happening at
any given point. If we would just take the time to reconsider that not every
child learns the same way and will react the same way to the information we
give them then maybe they would focus a little more. Thus providing a happier,
more educational experience while they learn.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
#2: Response to They Say
Katie Lybrook
ENG 102
8-23-12
Rushkoff provides many good points
on what modern day media has become. He seems as though he really understands
both sides as being a consumer and an advertiser. Rushkoff’s goal seems to be
to sway the consumers away from being the media’s puppets, but I do not feel as
though he fully swayed me to believe him.
Our whole lives we
are going to be influenced by things around us, and I understand that he thinks
that the media’s influence is a negative one. This is something that I cannot
fully deny. But it is our human nature to be greedy and always want more. In my
mind it is almost as though the media is trying to just make what we want at
this moment more apparent to us. Yes, it is “them” who decide what we want to
have at the moment, but if they just stopped I am convinced we would want it
back. People would not know what to do with themselves; we almost need to be
guided just to know what we want from the grocery store or what kind of clothes
we buy.
This realization
has made me understand how truly pathetic we are as humans, and I am right
there in the same boat with everyone else. There really is no creativity left
in us, we base everything on something that someone else created from years
ago. Fashion is a prime example of this to me. It is inevitable that I’m going
to see what’s “cool” to wear, because as Rushkoff made apparent there is no
escaping it. Fashion has just become history repeating itself. I have not seen
anything original for probably the entire span of my life. Everything is based
on what someone designed years back, they tweak it of course, but it is really
just the same. I think that we are so reliant on what someone else is telling
us to do that we forget to even think for ourselves. It is sad, but again, we
would be lost sheep without the media’s direction.
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