Apocalypse Now begins and ends with the Door’s song “The End.” This directive choice highlights this song as having significance, or a message within the music.
"Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes again."
The second verse draws in components of a possible transcendence from a profane existence to the sacred order, coming to an end of everything that stands and all the plans made throughout life. Whether Jim Morrison was referring to a fall from grace or a transcending into it, the passing from the profanity of “everything that stands” in existence into what you believe to be “the end” is a transformation to the next line; “Can you picture what will be, so limitless and free.” This captures the escape from the cycle we have imagined for ourselves, a break from the chaotic order for a glimpse of paradise. This is seen in Apocalypse Now with the natural order ruling the river versus the attempt at a civilized order on the boat or at various crumbling docking ports.
In the next line, “desperately in need of some stranger's hand in a desperate land,” the men in the film all display a need for help reaching out for guidance among the chaos. They have found themselves “lost in a Roman wilderness of pain and all the children are insane” in the madness of the jungle, the loss of culture, and the darkness of war. The constructed order of civilization is lost, as seen through the development of this song and in the movie, and gives way to the power of nature.
His references to a snake, seven miles long draws direct connections to the wild and the holy significance of the number seven. God’s presence in nature is difficult to discern when thrown into a place of violent wilderness, creating a tension of who will win. The temptation of humans to primitively play God adds to this tension, trying to control aspects of life and death as seen in this film.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Ben France- The Jacket
I really enjoyed this movie and found it to be very powerful. An Idea that I found to be very interesting in the film was the idea of self-sacrifice. Throughout the entire film the movie focuses on the main character journey in finding out what happened to his life. And in the beginning he is going into the jacket to help himself and find out more about why he is going to die. Not until he realizes that he can change another persons life does he give up his persuit of saving his life, he sacrifices his own life to help another and that is a powerful concept. He chooses to not go back and change is outcome but to make the girls life end up better. A key concept to understand is that death is enveitable and we can not change that fact but what we can change is how we impact others while we are still alive.
Ben France- Apocalypse Now
The movie Apocalypse Now is about the struggles between good and evil. The idea that good has trouble over coming evil and that good does not always win. The movie is about the individual struggles Lieutenant Willard has during his time spent in Vietnam during the war.
The story focuses on Lieutenant Willard’s journey into the jungle of Vietnam. Willard travels up a river on a navy patrol boat in his pursuit of a rogue General Kurdtz that the U.S army as told Willard to kill. His journey on the river is quite symbolic. The river symbolizes a change taken place in Willard a transformation. Willard and the crew traveling further and further up the river symbolize them moving out of civilization and into the dark and unknown. The theme while traveling on the boat is to never leave the boat because out in the jungle is where civilization no longer exists and where pure evil lives. The scene where Willard comes out of the water to kill Kurdtz shows his Willard being a messenger for civilization and killing the corrupt.
On of the major themes throughout the film is the idea of darkness and the distinction between what is civilization and what is not. In the film darkness symbolizes lack of civilization. As they go deeper into the jungle the darker it gets and the less civilized it becomes around them. Even when Willard gets to where Kurdtz is located the entire scene when they speak to each other is dark, suggesting complete madness.
Madness is also a central theme in the film. As the company moves further up the river each one of them break down mental. This is very clear in the case of Lance. He becomes completely mad and assumes the role of a non-civilized man.
The story focuses on Lieutenant Willard’s journey into the jungle of Vietnam. Willard travels up a river on a navy patrol boat in his pursuit of a rogue General Kurdtz that the U.S army as told Willard to kill. His journey on the river is quite symbolic. The river symbolizes a change taken place in Willard a transformation. Willard and the crew traveling further and further up the river symbolize them moving out of civilization and into the dark and unknown. The theme while traveling on the boat is to never leave the boat because out in the jungle is where civilization no longer exists and where pure evil lives. The scene where Willard comes out of the water to kill Kurdtz shows his Willard being a messenger for civilization and killing the corrupt.
On of the major themes throughout the film is the idea of darkness and the distinction between what is civilization and what is not. In the film darkness symbolizes lack of civilization. As they go deeper into the jungle the darker it gets and the less civilized it becomes around them. Even when Willard gets to where Kurdtz is located the entire scene when they speak to each other is dark, suggesting complete madness.
Madness is also a central theme in the film. As the company moves further up the river each one of them break down mental. This is very clear in the case of Lance. He becomes completely mad and assumes the role of a non-civilized man.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Matthew Winant - Watchmen (03/15/09)
Before spring break I took the time to read the graphic novel Watchmen and in turn then proceeded to watch the film on opening night. The religious aspects of the film and novel are many in number, but most need greater evaluation. More often than not the religious aspects of the film are paired with some philosophical vision, such as free will and savior figures. The individual characters themselves exhibit some kind of religious, or at most, a spiritual vision towards the world. The most obvious connection to the mysterium is the character Dr. Manhattan. He is a product of experimental disaster when the doors close behind him in the particle chamber, giving him the ability to break down matter and change it, or even create it. However, while understanding how to master this ability he has lost touch with humanity. It is ironic that during the movie Dr. Manhattan mentions that he doesn't believe in God, but if there was one, he (Manhattan) wouldn't even compare, yet at the end of the film/novel Manhattan mentions about leaving this galaxy to move to another, and possibly creating life. Dr. Manhattan is also considered the savior of America for most of the film and is looked upon by the American government to destroy the Soviet missiles aimed at the United States. In terms of human nature, the film agrees that human nature is inherently evil, much like the Christian view of humanity. One of the characters, The Comedian, even abandons the Watchmen because it is pointless to continue vigilante justice when people don't change. Also, the character Ozymandias, the smartest man alive, finds that human nature will become good if there is no threat in the world, to succeed he blackmails Dr. Manhattan to create peace between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, Rorscach's journal is published which shows Ozymandias betrayal of Dr. Manhattan which post-film recreates an evil human nature proving that human nature cannot be changed from evil to good.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
David Godwin- Bunny
A while ago, we watched the short animated film “Bunny” in class. I remember being really surprised by the class discussion afterwards, because I saw the film from a completely different perspective than most people in the class. Although the film seemed to have clear and identifiable symbols of eastern religions, the class constantly used terminology typical of western religion. Some people discussed the moths as symbols of “angels,” and referred to the light in the oven as the “light at the end of the tunnel.” These symbols could definitely be applicable, but I think some other, more eastern, symbols in the film were overlooked.
For one, I saw the moth not as a nameless angel/ messenger, but the very husband over which Bunny was mourning. Thus, the moth was not just an anonymous supernatural being, but an actual (and personal) reincarnation. Obviously, the idea of reincarnation is not a western idea, but one attached to eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. So, when the class discussed the film, it was understandable that reincarnation was not the most obvious or pronounced symbol we saw. The symbol, however, was definitely there. One way the moth indicated it was, in fact, a reincarnation was its desperate attempt to point out Bunny’s wedding picture. In the picture was Bunny’s husband, exactly the image that the moth kept ramming himself into. And, whereas moths are normally attracted to light (and most commonly the flickering flame of a candle; where we get the saying “like moths to a flame”), this moth finds himself attracted to an object that cannot even give off light. Interestingly, a popular Buddhist document entitled, Milindapañha (“The Questions of King Milinda”) compares the passing of the soul to its next vessel to the passing on of a dying flame to another candle. Perhaps the husband in the photograph was once a dying flame that passed on into the form of this moth. Perhaps the moth is simply the vessel preparing itself to “catch flame” before Bunny dies. Either way, the moth’s attention to the picture does not make any natural sense outside of this possible candle analogy. The last shot of the film seems also to suggests the filmmaker’s allusion to reincarnation. In this scene, the transparent outlines of moths rest on the shoulders of Bunny and her husband.
Another major eastern idea overlooked was that of Brahman. In Hinduism, Brahman is the center and source of everything. When one meditates, one is attempting to be “one” with Brahman. Because we are individual souls (atman), too aware of ourselves, we get in the way of this undivided union. However, after one has cycled through the various levels of reincarnation, one’s individual atman unites with the all-encompassing Brahman. After Bunny enters the oven, she begins to float in another realm. Bunny has wings in this realm, and as she floats closer and closer to the bright light in front of her, she seems to look more and more like the moths surrounding her. Eventually all the moths fly so far away that you can’t distinguish them from the light into which they are floating. I see this light as Brahman, and all these indistinguishable little moths as separate souls coming together to be “one” with Brahman.
Finally, the fact that Bunny crawls through an oven struck me as well. The scene was somewhat jarring to me, especially to think that little children would be watching it. I mean, crawling through an oven just seems so graphic, violent, and at least unpoetic. The whole time I was thinking, “Is Bunny really in there? She’s going to burn to death!” That was me and my western perspective. Perhaps an easterner would see this action as poetic imagery. In Indian culture, the tradition used to be that once a man dies his wife follows behind him out of her devotion to him. She kills herself, and thereby joins her husband in death, by jumping into a fire. The oven has obvious connections with fire, so Bunny’s crawl through the oven seems to serve as a modernized example of this fire-jumping tradition.
I think the feeling of shock that I felt (and perhaps that others felt) as Bunny crawled through the oven was only a natural response resulting from my innate western perspective. It was good to feel shocked, though. Whenever films incite such emotions within us, we should not ignore them. Chances are, the filmmaker knows that we’ll have them and has instigated these reactions purposely—so that we will take and consider a cultural perspective foreign to us, a perspective so foreign that it takes animated bunnies before a cute family film for us to see them.
For one, I saw the moth not as a nameless angel/ messenger, but the very husband over which Bunny was mourning. Thus, the moth was not just an anonymous supernatural being, but an actual (and personal) reincarnation. Obviously, the idea of reincarnation is not a western idea, but one attached to eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. So, when the class discussed the film, it was understandable that reincarnation was not the most obvious or pronounced symbol we saw. The symbol, however, was definitely there. One way the moth indicated it was, in fact, a reincarnation was its desperate attempt to point out Bunny’s wedding picture. In the picture was Bunny’s husband, exactly the image that the moth kept ramming himself into. And, whereas moths are normally attracted to light (and most commonly the flickering flame of a candle; where we get the saying “like moths to a flame”), this moth finds himself attracted to an object that cannot even give off light. Interestingly, a popular Buddhist document entitled, Milindapañha (“The Questions of King Milinda”) compares the passing of the soul to its next vessel to the passing on of a dying flame to another candle. Perhaps the husband in the photograph was once a dying flame that passed on into the form of this moth. Perhaps the moth is simply the vessel preparing itself to “catch flame” before Bunny dies. Either way, the moth’s attention to the picture does not make any natural sense outside of this possible candle analogy. The last shot of the film seems also to suggests the filmmaker’s allusion to reincarnation. In this scene, the transparent outlines of moths rest on the shoulders of Bunny and her husband.
Another major eastern idea overlooked was that of Brahman. In Hinduism, Brahman is the center and source of everything. When one meditates, one is attempting to be “one” with Brahman. Because we are individual souls (atman), too aware of ourselves, we get in the way of this undivided union. However, after one has cycled through the various levels of reincarnation, one’s individual atman unites with the all-encompassing Brahman. After Bunny enters the oven, she begins to float in another realm. Bunny has wings in this realm, and as she floats closer and closer to the bright light in front of her, she seems to look more and more like the moths surrounding her. Eventually all the moths fly so far away that you can’t distinguish them from the light into which they are floating. I see this light as Brahman, and all these indistinguishable little moths as separate souls coming together to be “one” with Brahman.
Finally, the fact that Bunny crawls through an oven struck me as well. The scene was somewhat jarring to me, especially to think that little children would be watching it. I mean, crawling through an oven just seems so graphic, violent, and at least unpoetic. The whole time I was thinking, “Is Bunny really in there? She’s going to burn to death!” That was me and my western perspective. Perhaps an easterner would see this action as poetic imagery. In Indian culture, the tradition used to be that once a man dies his wife follows behind him out of her devotion to him. She kills herself, and thereby joins her husband in death, by jumping into a fire. The oven has obvious connections with fire, so Bunny’s crawl through the oven seems to serve as a modernized example of this fire-jumping tradition.
I think the feeling of shock that I felt (and perhaps that others felt) as Bunny crawled through the oven was only a natural response resulting from my innate western perspective. It was good to feel shocked, though. Whenever films incite such emotions within us, we should not ignore them. Chances are, the filmmaker knows that we’ll have them and has instigated these reactions purposely—so that we will take and consider a cultural perspective foreign to us, a perspective so foreign that it takes animated bunnies before a cute family film for us to see them.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Susan Watkins -- Outside Reading 2
I was very struck when I read this passage the other day:
"The word of God hurts as no sin can ever hurt, because sin blunts feeling. The question of the Lord intensifies feeling, until to be hurt by Jesus is the most exquisite hurt conceivable.... The word of the Lord pierces even to the dividng asunder of soul and spirit; there is no deception left.... There can never be any mistake about the hurt of the Lord's word when it comes to His child; but the point of the hurt is the great point of revelation." -Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, entry March 1
I think that modern American Christianity has sucked a lot of the life out of God because many believers don't want to scare non-believers away with a God that is "wrathful." The church has such a bloody history that nowadays Christians just don't want to offend anybody, lest they get grouped together with the Crusaders or Spanish Inquisition, or some other sore memory. However, in turning God into a sugar-coated wish-granter, only there to comfort and support us in any endeavor of our choosing, we lose Him altogether.
Chambers hearkens back to Otto's mysterium tremendum, proclaiming unashamedly that to speak with God is a terrifying and often painful experience. He lays before us two options: the dulling, numbing practice of sin and indifference or the overwhelming life in the sacred. The first option may be more comfortable, but numbness is one of the first signs to death and will eventually lead there. The second is totally uncomfortable, but brings us closer to the fullness of life we were originally intended for. I'm tired of a "safe" God, like a tired old grandfather who can't life a finger to guide us and is indifferent to our behavior. I long for a steadfast Father, who will love and admonish and grow and rebuke me in order that I might reach my full potential.
"The word of God hurts as no sin can ever hurt, because sin blunts feeling. The question of the Lord intensifies feeling, until to be hurt by Jesus is the most exquisite hurt conceivable.... The word of the Lord pierces even to the dividng asunder of soul and spirit; there is no deception left.... There can never be any mistake about the hurt of the Lord's word when it comes to His child; but the point of the hurt is the great point of revelation." -Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, entry March 1
I think that modern American Christianity has sucked a lot of the life out of God because many believers don't want to scare non-believers away with a God that is "wrathful." The church has such a bloody history that nowadays Christians just don't want to offend anybody, lest they get grouped together with the Crusaders or Spanish Inquisition, or some other sore memory. However, in turning God into a sugar-coated wish-granter, only there to comfort and support us in any endeavor of our choosing, we lose Him altogether.
Chambers hearkens back to Otto's mysterium tremendum, proclaiming unashamedly that to speak with God is a terrifying and often painful experience. He lays before us two options: the dulling, numbing practice of sin and indifference or the overwhelming life in the sacred. The first option may be more comfortable, but numbness is one of the first signs to death and will eventually lead there. The second is totally uncomfortable, but brings us closer to the fullness of life we were originally intended for. I'm tired of a "safe" God, like a tired old grandfather who can't life a finger to guide us and is indifferent to our behavior. I long for a steadfast Father, who will love and admonish and grow and rebuke me in order that I might reach my full potential.
Wilbert Hill Jr. : Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now, was a movie about freedom and redemption. It starts with a soldier who wanted to be at war but was in his hotel room drinking liqour, until he recieved orders from a superior soldier to go over to Vietnam and kill a commanding officer who had lost all moral stability in his mind, and also had lost his immoral discretion among men. This commanding officer had turned into a killer and maniac amongst men. He would kill ma and women and leave there bodies hanging from trees or either have there heads cut off and put them on a stack. As this desdened soldier embarks on his journey. He first meets his crew that he will be with while in Vietnam. These men are all from different walks of life, but they are brough together for one purpose. The youngest man on the boat is 17 years of age. This young man is shot and killed while listening to a recorded message from his mother on the boat. The leading officer on the boat and main character says an extremely important statement when he says; Don't get off the God Damn boat unless you are ready to go all the way. This is the most important statement for me in the whole entire movie because he gives the audience a vivid statement of an assigment, and obedience by faith to the assignment that is given. For example Peter in the Holy Bible got out of the boat when Jesus bid him to come, and by faith he was ready to take tohe first steps, but soon as he seen the danger of the waves crashing he started to doubt and lost hope in the hope of glory, which is Jesus. Peter could have walked on the water the whole way, but lost his main focus, which was Jesus. The leading officer told and warned his crew not to get off the boat unless you are ready to die yourself. One of the crew stayed on the boat hidding under a blanket, because he was scared, but in the end he was found by the enemy and was beheaded. The leading officer was not scared and was ready to go the whole entire way no matter if it killed him. He did his mission with vigilence and obedience, and was faithful until the end.In the end the tribe had to bow down to him beacause he was victorious in killing there leader. He was set free and also the tribe was set free from the rule of the perditional maniac.
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