The Great Train Robbery, 1903

The Great Train Robbery, 1903 The Great Train Robbery produced by Edwin S. Porter in 1903 is frequently acknowledged as the first narrative film. Porter, who had previously worked for Thomas Edison as a cameraman, takes the plot from a story based on a real train robbery, written by Scott Marble in 1896. To bring it to life in ways the public had never seen before, Porter utilises various new and innovative techniques, of which previous film-makers had never thought of using in the still relatively new process of film-making. Edisons company, who produced the film declared it absolutely the superior of any moving picture ever made due to the editing techniques that were totally new to the industry.  [1]  Eighteen years later, Victor Sjà ¶strà ¶m produced The Phantom Carriage with Svensk Filmindustri. Sjà ¶strà ¶m wrote the screenplay, which he adapted from a novel by Selma Lagerlà ¶f, as well as directed and starred in the film that Paul Mayersberg describes as a major departure from his [previous] outdo or dramas.  [2]  In The Phantom Carriage, Sjà ¶strà ¶ms creative editing style and new film techniques are illustrative of the progress made by film-makers in the time between the two films production, but also of the unique variety of films being made by the Scandinavian film industry in this fast changing and highly inventive period of cinematic history. As it is one of the first films to follow an actual narrative and not merely a single shot of a simple, everyday situation such as seen in the earlier works of the Lumià ¨r Brothers, the editing techniques in The Great Train Robbery are limited but highly experimental for the time. The film, most notably, makes use of cutting between two locations with use of a visual match to suggest one is happening after the other.  [3]  This is demonstrated between shot seven and eight where in the former, the train is seen moving on the tracks away from the camera, then in the next it is seen moving in the same direction and at the same angle to the camera. The idea is simple, and may seem obvious to modern viewers who are use to these cinematic conventions, but it demonstrates how editing is being manipulated in order to form a linear narrative that would be new to viewers of the time. We also see in this film the beginnings of the creation of a parallel narrative; the film begins in a tel egraph office where a worker is shot and tied up, the narrative moves on from here until shot ten when we return back to the telegraph office with the man still tied on the floor. The fact that the set up is exactly the same as where it was left off in the first shot, despite the plot moving on is indicative that the events that occur in shot ten are happening at the same time as the previous action we have seen is. This idea is consummated with the telegraph workers entrance in the dance hall in shot eleven, as it would obviously have taken some time for him to reach this new location, in which time the previous events could have run their course and in the next shot, number twelve, the two narratives are thus able to meet up as the men at the dance chase the bandits through the woods. Focusing on how editing functions in The Phantom Carriage, a scene which demonstrates Sjà ¶strà ¶ms more sophisticated style comes early on in the film, around five minutes in. Salvation Army Sister, Edit, pleads on her deathbed to see David Holm, an alcoholic of whom she cared for in the past. She sends a friend she met whilst working for the Salvation Army to find him; she and another friend of Edits, Gustafsson, part ways to cover more ground in their search for Holm. The sequence that follows watches both the Salvation Army friend and Gustafsson in the two separate locations they go to in their searches which, though similar to the shots explained above in The Great Train Robbery sequence, is pulled off more sophisticatedly in The Phantom Carriage sequence.  [4]   First the camera, and thus the viewer, follow the female friend to the dilapidated home of Holm, his wife and two children. As the friend arrives at the door to the house, Sjà ¶strà ¶m chooses to enclose the shot in a circular black frame. The edge is sharp not fading out like the vignette effect which he utilises later on and as the bottom third of the circular frame is cut off out of shot, it could be reminiscent of the frame that looking through a key hole would produce to the eye. This effect creates the feeling of the viewer as a voyeur; the viewer has not been invited to look, but is seeing her unnoticed as she unlocks the door. Later in the sequence, after shot thirteen where the friend comforts Anna, Sjà ¶strà ¶m cuts to the path of Gustafsson that runs parallel to this short sequence. The viewer sees him enter a bar and, presumably, since there are no inter-titles in this sequence, ask the staff about finding Holm. A few shots in however, the scene cuts back to the fir st location and the narrative continues from the point it left off, with the friend putting her coat around Anna. We are taken back to the first narrative jut for this single shot before being brought back again to the second, for four shots, and once again cut back for a single shot of the first. These extreme cuts tell us that the two separate sequences are happening at the same time. The fact they go back and forth in rapid succession is makes it more obvious or understandable than the occurrence of parallel narratives in The Great Train Robbery where it only cuts back once. One of the most significant differences in the editing of the two films is the scale of the shots. Porter tends to have the camera further away from his subject so that a large area and all the action can be seen at once, whereas Sjà ¶strà ¶m chooses to vary the shots, some establishing the room and others close-ups of characters reactions and actions. Porters shots are also lengthier, so we see, for example, the whole sequence of the robbers hiding and waiting for the train in shot two. This may have a negative effect on the viewers understanding of the narrative. The closer shots and varied cutting of the The Phantom Carriage sequence allows the viewer to feel like they are in the midst of the story, seeing little detail rather than further away simply watching it unfold. After the framed shot outside the door, the viewer is let inside the room and given a full view of it, as is standard with many films of the time. This master shot allows the viewer to get a feel for the landsca pe of the scene, and gain an understanding of the surroundings, which is necessary in order for the viewer to  [3]  keep up with Sjà ¶strà ¶ms relatively liberal use of cutting that contrasts greatly to Porters extended shots. In this first interior set up, the friend is seen looking toward the front, right corner of the room. In the next shot Sjà ¶strà ¶m cuts so that the camera faces the direction the friend has just faced, therefore we are able to see what she sees, which is the two children asleep in a bed on the floor. This is known as an eyeline match where the angle of the camera matches the eyeline of the person in the previous shot. A similar cutting technique occurs in shots four to nine, where axis cuts (where the position of the camera moves in each shot so it looks back on itself on a 180 degree plane) go back and forth between the friend and Holms wife Annas back, who is sat in the corner of the room. These are examples of the more sophisticated editing techniques that can greatly enhance the viewers understanding of the narrative; firstly because, due to the potentiality for more close-ups, the viewer can grasp who the characters are and be more aware of their emotions displayed by their faces and what they are doing. This insight is lost slightly in the long shots of The Great Train Robbery which dont bring the viewer close enough to the action to distinguish characters or even what exactly they are doing; for example in the mail carriage shot (set up C), one robber seems to take something, or put something into the killed workers pocket; what exactly he does we cannot know as we are too far away to see3. These cutting techniques can allow the viewer to get a grip on the characters position in the room and understand who it may be their emotions are directed at as well. Such methods also enhance the aesthetic look of the sequence, rather than simply seeing the whole scene unfold from the same far off angle that is seen in The Great Train Robbery. The fast cutting used in The Phantom Carriage also effects the tone or atmosphere of the scene which in turn contributes to the way the viewer interprets the narrative. Tension is built up in the scene as the viewer see some part of the action and then is cut away to see a characters reaction to this. Alternatively though, the more drawn-out shots of the film and the lengthy shots in The Great  [4]  Train Robbery could also create a feeling of tension or suspense in the way the viewer is able to see all the action at once where sometimes the characters themselves cannot. An example of this effect is seen in shot thirteen of The Great Train Robbery, the bandits go through their loot as only the camera sees their pursuers creeping up on them from behind. In The Phantom Carriage, in the scenes in which the ghostly carriage of death comes into shot, tension is created by its slow, suspenseful motion across the screen; this could be due to the fact the viewer knows its destination wil l be someone who has recently died, and its slow pace signifies an unease in its path to the dead. -1711 words excerpts from sources to back up/contrast to points = integrate into above paragraphs -100 add in 150 about interior/exteriors conclusion -100 Bibliography Victor Sjà ¶strà ¶m, Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica Online, at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/547219/Victor-Sjostrom [accessed 18.03.13]. Cook, David A. and Sklar, Robert. Edwin S. Porter, Encyclopà ¦dia Britannica Online, at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/471087/Edwin-S-Porter [accessed 18.03.13]. Dirks, Tim. The Great Train Robbery (1903) at http://www.filmsite.org/grea.html [accessed 18.03.13]. Mayersberg, Paul. Phantom Forms: The Phantom Carriage, on The Criterion Collection at http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2000-phantom-forms-the-phantom-carriage [accessed 16.03.13]. Musser, Charles. Moving towards fictional narratives: story films become the dominant product, 1903-1907 in Lee Grieveson and Peter Krà ¤mer (ed.) The Silent Cinema Reader. London: Routledge, 2003.

Polar Concepts :: essays research papers

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/">Sam Vaknin's Psychology, Philosophy, Economics and Foreign Affairs Web Sites The British philosopher Ryle attacked the sceptical point of view regarding right and wrong (=being in error). He said that if the concept of error is made use of – surely, there must be times that we are right. To him, it was impossible to conceive of the one without the other. He regarded â€Å"right† and â€Å"wrong† as polar concepts. One could not be understood without understanding the other. As it were, Ryle barked up the wrong sceptic tree. All the sceptics said was that one cannot know (or prove) that one is in the right or when one is in the right. They, largely, did not dispute the very existence of right and erroneous decisions, acts and facts. But this disputation ignored a more basic question. Can we really not understand or know the right – without as intimately understanding and knowing the wrong? To know a good object – must we contrast it with an evil one? Is the action of contrasting essential to our understanding – and, if it is, how? Imagine a mutant newborn. While in possession of a mastery of all lingual faculties – the infant will have no experience whatsoever and will have received no ethical or moral guidelines from his adult environment. If such a newborn were to be offered food, a smile, a caressing hand, attention – would he not have identified them as â€Å"good†, even if these constituted his whole universe of experience? Moreover, if he were to witness war, death, violence and abuse – would he have not recoiled and judged them to be â€Å"bad†? Many would hurl at me the biblical adage about the intrinsic evilness of humans. But this is beside the point. Whether this infant’s world of values and value judgement will conform to society’s is an irrelevant question to us. We ask: would such an infant consistently think of certain acts and objects as â€Å"good† (desired, beneficial) – even if he were never to come across another set of acts and objects which he could contrast with the first and call â€Å"bad† or â€Å"evil†. I think so. Imagine that the infant is confined to the basic functions : eating and playing. Is there any possibility that he would judge them to be â€Å"bad†? Never. Not even if he were never to do anything else but eat and play.

A Look at Early American Indian History Essay

In analyzing early American history before the 1870s, it’s vital to have a picture of the lives and lifestyles of the native American Indian people, who have witnessed the immigration of Europeans and other foreign people from a completely different perspective as many of the people who consider themselves to be mainstream Americans today. The American Indian population and tribes have dwindled and suffered at the expense of the influx of migrating peoples into what was once their own land, and First Peoples, a book by Colin Calloway, takes a closer look at the history of Americans who were truly native, who freshly walked the shores and farmed the countryside of the great American continent. First Peoples is a documentary survey of the history of the first Americans, the Indian tribes who first roamed the American lands. The introduction and chapters of the book are broken down into several intriguing parts, including American Indians in American history, American History before Columbus, The Invasions of America, Indians in Colonial and Revolutionary America, American Indians and the New Nation, Defending the West, Kill the Indian and Save Man (which begins the area of the book which analyses the Native American experience after 1870), From the Great Depression to Self Determination, and Nations within a Nation. In introduction and first chapters of First Peoples, a total of six large sections of Calloway’s book, go into much detail about the experience of the Native American people in early America before the 1870s, from the roots of Native American life dating back as far as possibly 11,500 BC with the finding of the oldest Clovis spear points to the exploration of the varied tribal journeys until the mid 1800s AD. The introduction of the book gives a general overview of the theme of the book, the topics related to Native American history in the Americas and the documentation and sources used to feed knowledge into the introduction. References noted in the introduction as well as references noted throughout Calloway’s documentary include the several noted here as well as many more: Abler, T. & Einhorn, A. â€Å"Bonnets, Plumes, and Headbands in West’s Painting of Penn’s Treaty. † American Indian Art Magazine 21, 1996: 46. Banner, S. How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Brown, J. & Vibert, E. Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History. Peterboro, Ontario: Broadview Press, 1996. DuBois, M. & McKiernan, K. â€Å"In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. † PBS series Frontline, 1990. Kipp, D. & Fisher, J. â€Å"Transitions: Destruction of A Mother Tongue. † Native Voices Public Television Workshop, 1991. Lesiak, C. â€Å"In the White Man’s Image. † PBS series American Experience, 1992. Steckler, P. & Welch, J. Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Big Horn and the Fate of the Plains Indians. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. Usner, D. (1985). â€Å"American Indians on the Cotton Frontier: Changing Economic Relations with Citizens and Slave in the Mississippi Territory. † Journal of American History 72, 1985: 297-317. In First Peoples, Calloway has utilized a large number and variety of sources, from scholarly books to journals, magazines to films, and the references are noted at the end of every chapter and at the end of the book. On can see that it is through the use of varied and substantial amounts of references and study that Calloway has been able to craft such a detailed and powerful documentary of American Indian life and history. The first chapter of First Peoples focuses on the very early migration and creation theories related to American Indian tribes and the settlement of the first people who migrated across the bearing straight many thousands of years ago, the findings and studies of early fossils and civilizations, and the emergence over time of the Apalachee, Caddos, Chickasaws, Chocktaws, Cheyennes, Cherokee, Creeks, Hurons, Natchez, Iroquois, Mohawks, Neutrals, Petuns, Senecas, Shawnees, Timucua and other tribes. Calloway discusses the hunting and farming ways of life of the native tribes, including the first buffalo hunters of the plains, the farmers of the southwest, the mound builders and farmers of the eastern woodlands, and the affluence of the West Coast. Finally, the chapter ends with a look at the arrival of the European colonists into a world which was already burgeoning with the cultures, battles, celebrations and struggles of the native peoples. In summarizing the second chapter of First Peoples, one notes that Calloway analyses the confrontations of the American Indians with the early European settlers from 1492 to 1680. Through the influx of new people into America, the cultural landscape of America begins to shift and change around the new immigrants even more than it had between the tribal peoples. The Indians face off with the Spanish, French, and English colonists, aiming to balance survival with the struggle for power known as gold, god, commerce, priests, empires, and pelts. The economic and religious impact on the American Indians after the arrival of the Europeans was profound, and both cultures, Indian and European, learned new ways of being and living, were educated by one another in their vastly differing stock holds of cultural history and backgrounds, and clashed together when the trade of goods and ideas seemed tipped too far in favor of one over the other. The balance of power was not easy to manage, and more often than not, American Indians suffered more at the hands of the Europeans than vice versa. The chapter three, Indians in Colonial and Revolutionary America, Calloway takes a look at both Indians in colonial society and colonists in Indian society as they both draw together more closely and clash more violently. The impact of the fur trade and other economic industries brought a reduced capacity to hunt and live off the land, bringing peoples together in tighter communities, resulting in the loss of European and tribal languages for the minority people pressing into the mainstream, the stealing and returning of captives, division within tribal communities, peace treaties, the removal of Indian tribes, and the banding together of tribes and colonists to fight against the most recent invading immigrating force. In reading this chapter, one is able to more clearly understand the attempts at peace and unity merging and contrasting vividly with harsh battles and banishment of peoples. This era of American history is strewn with the movement of individuals, with change and newfound placement, with horrifying prejudice and necessary cooperation. In reading the American Indians and the New Nation, the fourth chapter of First Peoples, one is able to better understand the nation as it gained independence and began working together and a more unified system. Although the emergence of a truly independent America involved new statehood and politics which banded together people from across the vast country, it also brought with it new laws aimed at cleansing Indian people from European and mainstream America. With the populations of American Indians ever dwindling and racism and prejudice haunting the beginnings of American history as an independent nation, the American Indians suffered the loss of political battles as well as the loss of tribal people to death and disease, alcoholism and suicide. Chapter five, the last chapter focusing on American history before 1870, sees only further aggression against the American Indian people and tribes. Policies of detribalization find their ways onto the desks of politicians even as American Indian statehood is granted to Oklahoma. Indian children are removed from their tribes and forced in to state schools across the nation, even to the point of stripping Indian children from their families to live in permanent boarding schools for the effective Americanization or Europeanization of the Indian children. The divisions and suffering within the American Indian families, cultures, and lifestyles during this time are still felt to this day. Although this chapter ends with a look at new American Indian leaders and furthering active attempts to overcome the racism and unfair practices of the European people against the American Indians, it’s important to note the devastation suffered by the American Indians at the hands of the European Americans and the troubling ripple effects of hate crimes against Indians which are still felt within American society today. Overall, First Peoples is a wonderful book for the in depth study of historical life for the American Indian people and tribes, lending insight to the wellness and status of American Indians today in modern America. The creation of America as an independent nation is rife with struggles and diversity, with clashes and vibrancy. The coming together of various peoples has often dealt the people with the most differences a worse deck, however, it is important to view the coming together of our patchwork of American cultures and to know what has happened before, so that people can make informed judgments about the history of yesterday and the future of tomorrow. Luckily, the harsh barbarianism of the past is less and less a part of present society, and prejudice and racism less and less a prominent fixture of modern society worldwide. Although there are still differences to accept and divisions to heal, the world grows more peaceful with every passing decade. First Peoples lend true insight into the well researched history of the American Indians and shines light on what has gone before and what still goes onward in this changing and evolving American culture. Works Cited Calloway, C. First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History. Macmillan, 2007.

Is Technology Has Changed Our Brains - 1443 Words

Don’t Fret: Technology Has Changed Our Brains Humans are creatures of habit. We wake up at specific times to go about our days and then we sit down at our dining room tables to eat at specified times throughout the day, usually habitually. But, humanity hasn’t always been this algorithmic. It wasn’t until the advent of the mechanical clock that our lives began to mold around time. We changed. I would like to assume that we became more productive because of this change. However, humanity historically hasn’t perceived change as good. In Sherry Turkle’s â€Å"The Flight from Conversation† she negatively asserts that technology has changed the way we socialize and communicate by sacrificing conversation for our mere connection to each other through technology and allowing that connection to replace the former. In the same vein, Nicholas Carr’s â€Å"Is Google Making Us Stupid?† establishes the idea that technology has altered the wa y we critically read and think for the worse. As the title of his article suggests, Google (more broadly the internet) has simplified our reading style, and in turn is making us â€Å"stupid†. I choose to defy both these notions. Technology hasn’t become the catalyst for a society where we lose the ability to have social connections or critically read and think. Rather, humans have adapted to change through the use of technology as a new way of thinking, reading, connecting, and socializing in attempt to become more productive and efficient. Sherry Turkle doesn’tShow MoreRelatedHow Technology Has Changed Our Brain1452 Words   |  6 Pagesof technology is not to confuse the brain but to serve it. A computers are machines that use a binary system to store, memorize, and manipulate information, just quite like the brain. A computer is able to carry out a series of logical operations, but yet so is our brain. 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IPhone’s, Blackberries, and laptops are becoming an important part of our daily lives. We are all so dependent on these devices that sometimes we treat them as if it is part of our family. Technology has become a priority for many people, and it is likely that people with choose technology over many other things