Religion and Film 2018

Let me preface this blog post with a warning; I give away some major plot points to the show Altered Carbon , so my apologies. So I just finished binge watching the Netflix show Altered Carbon  last week, coincidentally right before watching Blade Runner with the class. Throughout the film Blade Runner , I kept seeing similarities between the show and the film. The Netflix show, Altered Carbon , takes place on a dystopian Earth, but most of society seems to be blind to all of the wrongs that surround them. Altered Carbon is built on the premise of these devices called "stacks" that fit right into your spine, in them contains your identity, memories and life. Essentially everything that makes you, you is inside these discs. On top of that, "sleeves", or empty human bodies, have been developed so that if your original body is harmed or destroyed your stack can be put inside of a sleeve and continue life, but most of the time it is not your original body. These two ...

Cinematography is a beautiful thing when done correctly. Actors, directors, and camera crews can make viewers feel emotions without even saying any words. Based on the way actors face in direction, do towards or away from the camera, and the angle and shot the camera makes, the viewer can be made to feel certain intentional things. Harold and Maude:               In this scene, we see a mother trying to match make for her son, who does desperate and dangerous things to himself (or other things) in order to gain the attention of his mother. In this case, we see the Harold, set himself on fire (or what it looks like), which makes the girl that his mother was talking to so she could set him up with Harold react in terror. However, it was just a fake and it was all part of Harold’s plan. In the scene, the camera angle is low, so we are put on the same level as Harold and his mother Maude. Harold then has a smirk on his ...

Bunny             The short film Bunny was centered around life, death and the afterlife. The film opens with a shot of a bluish light, and a darker object floating towards it, then panning down to an elderly female bunny baking in her kitchen. The bunny is then distracted by a moth that is flying into her light repeatedly, and as most people know moths die when they are around a hot light for too much time. This ends up being a foreshadowing of what is to occur to the bunny. The moth is symbolizing the bunny and the light is symbolizing death, and that it is time for the bunny to pass into the afterlife. She then knocks the moth into a picture off the wall, which she then proceeds to be angry and picks up the picture, revealing that the wall behind it was a different color, symbolizing that the picture had been there for quite some time. The picture seems to be of her and her husband, a long time ago before he passed away. She t...

Bunny: I really enjoyed the short film. I liked how the meaning at the end is some what up for interpretation with the oven. The music plays a huge part in the film, as it sets the tone and mood for multiple scenes. I also really like how it starts with the light, moth, and then you just see the bunny's hands setting up for his bake. The oven symbolizing the changing of states and her entrance into heaven was very clever, and the light in the over signifies it. Harold and Maude: I've never analyzed a scene from a movie as closely as we analyzed the scene when Harold smirks at the camera. As a viewer, the things we discussed in class are all the things you feel but don't articulate and work out in your head to justify the emotions brought by the film. The connectedness you fell with Harold during that scene brings you on his level and makes it even funnier. The very wide and far out frames contrasting with the very up close frames was interesting. Especially when he was ...

         The Decalogue film series by Polish filmmaker Krzyzstof Kieslowski is a form of midrash for the ten commandments.  The first short film works as a parable for the commandment "you shall have no god other than me.".  It follows the story of Pavel, a young kid who questions many things, and doesn't just take things as they are, instead he investigates to figure out the truth.  This leads him to have many questions about death to which his secular father isn't able to answer to full satisfaction.  The crux of the story follows the father's struggle with faith as it is clear that he also used to be a man of faith.  When Pavel is killed by falling through the ice, even though the ice was supposed to be thick enough, the father returns to the church looking for answers.  This shows the point of the commandment how he could not trust science and measurements, and should have followed god, but also how in times of great distress pe...

Midrash refers to rabbinic literature that contains early interpretations along with commentaries on Written Torah and Oral Torah. Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog serves as his own interpretations of the Ten Commandments. Looking specifically at Dekalog: One, Kieslowski incorporates modern technology to relate to the First Commandment, which is not having any other gods except the “one, true” God. He uses technology to show how society is spending more time and reliability on technology, which will inevitably fail us at one point. Otto said, “Bliss or beatitude is more, far more, than the mere natural feelings of being comforted, of reliance, of the joy of love, however these may be heightened and enhance” (32). Technology is being used more frequently for storing important information, such as credit card information, paying taxes, etc. We rely on it so heavily because our access to it is incredibly easy and doing certain tasks now take less time. No inanimate object is built to last ...

Midrash is an ancient genre of literature used by the Jewish religion that tries to interperate script from the Torah in order to find or display the meaning. Decalogue is in the genre because the visual mediums interoperate the 10 commandments, and the meaning behind them in a chilling and dark way, but also very beautiful. Decalogue one is a representation of the 1 st  of the 10 commandments and we can see it throughout the film. In this visual medium, Krzysztof lives at home with his son Pawel, and in this gut wrenching visual medium Kieslowski brings emotion to all his viewers.    The first commandment “You shall have no other gods before Me” can be related to this film because Krzysztof believes in science over God, and uses science to see if it is safe for Pawel to skate. Kieslowski uses this as a lesson to teach this first commandment in the film and the death of Pawel is very emotional in the film. The emotional impact is very large during the ...