Literature in Film #3: To Kill a Mockingbird

I think this was one of the most heartbreaking trials I've ever watched in a movie. From the start of when he went up before the jury I could tell that there wouldn't be a happy ending to it because of how regardless of how sincere and innocent he sounded and actually was, he didn't stand a chance. When Atticus went up to plead with the jury, I found something so beautifully sad about what he was saying.

Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the government is fond of hurling at us. There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use that phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions.

I've never read the book but I think, here, the author is trying to make note of the fact that our nation really isn't equal at all, that we have to state we are rather than just actually be. The context of this situation where it's a black man going against two white people in front of a jury filled with white discriminative people goes to prove this inequality because already, he is already hopeless before they can even hear his story but also doesn't stand a chance. 

I also thought that his kids being there to see the trial was very important, especially this one if any. It's nice to know that he's teaching them not to discriminate and this is the best way to explain why because it shows that it could mean life or death for somebody. 

Literature in Film #2: Precious

I've watched this movie so many times and never does it get easier to see what Precious has to go through but the ending is always so uplifting in the way that she becomes her own hero.

In the beginning of the movie when Precious is sitting in math class, she tells us that she wishes someone would break through to her, ultimately saving her from this harsh reality that she is living in with all types of abuse coming from those closest to her. I think the verbal abuse that she received from her mother convinced her, to some point, that she wasn't capable of achieving certain things but then there's something so powerful in the way that she makes this break through to herself by herself. We can give a bit of credit to her principal for informing her of Each One Teach One but what it really took was her drive to want to learn and create somethimg of herself.

Not only did she learn to read and write but she also learned a lot about herself; even from the first day when she sat in the front of the class and felt here. Towards the end of the movie, in the scene where Precious is sitting in the office next to the girl with the bruised eye, Shaina pointed out that it's sad how that little girl is ultimately going through the same situation. I thought Precious putting her red scarf around her was a way of saying, "You'll get through this, too".

The other day, I cried. But you know what? Fuck that day. That's why God, or whoever, makes other days.

Literature in Film #1: Rebel

I'm so proud of Anthony's work and happy that I got to see it (although I paid to see the viewing, didn't know we were gonna watch it in class). I've never seen Rebel but I've watched They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and I thought the cross referencing he did and where he incorporated the one scene from the movie was actually very powerful. It went a long way in showing just how disturbed the kid was even after we hear about how he wrote an essay about torturing kittens.
There were a lot of things I was still really confused about. Like who shot the kid he was racing with? Why? Or what was up with the trash bin covers? What was it that he wanted from the girl, there was never any conclusion as to what happened between the two of them. Wait, why were they even racing in the first place?
Lastly, I thought the cinematography was great. My favorite was the beginning when it showed shots of the main character as well as played the credits.

It was great, Anthony!

Poem #6: "Pass/Fail" Linda Pastan

"You will never graduate
from this dream
of blue books.
No matter how
you succeed awake,
asleep there is a test
waiting to be failed.
The dream beckons
with two dull pencils,
but you haven't even
taken the course;
when you reach for a book -
it closes its door
in your face; when
you conjugate a verb -
it is in the wrong
language.
Now the pillow becomes
a blank page. Turn it
to the cool side;
you will still smother
in all of the feathers
that have to be learned
by heart."

Linda Pastan's poem reflects both on the waking life of school as well as the stress it brings in ones sleep. It also argues that there are two types of exams, really, the ones you take while you're awake and the ones that haunt you in your sleep. Lines 1-7 are saying that no matter how successful you might be in your waking life with passing exams and getting good grades, there is something about it that follows you into your sleep. I think it might be the fear of failing that creates this stress that disturbs your sleep but I don't think it happens to just everyone. The speaker of the poem must be someone who encounters true anxiety or a sort of paralyzation when it comes to taking tests that causes them to do poorly (the speaker's probably me...).

"The dream beckons/ with two dull pencils,/ but you haven't even/ taken the course"; I'm not sure if these lines are measuring how unprepared one might feel to the point where they haven't even taken the course, or if it is saying that the stress and fear sets in before even having taken it at all. In terms of it being an exam in a dream, I think it means that it's just waiting for you to come and take it without any idea of what it could be on or. Reaching for a book or conjugating a ver in the wrong language could be signs of rejection and unavoidable failure that the dream has on you. The last 7 lines could mean that every time you go to sleep, the stress of exams will follow and therefore "...the pillow becomes/ a blank page".

Poem #5: "Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes" Shakespeare

"When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
     For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
     That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

I can see what Shakespeare is trying to get at. I think for the most part we've all been in that position where we look at our lives and choose to see the bad in that moment, for whatever reason, and it saddening. Shakespeare wishes for the talent, social life, and riches of another as opposed to what he does and the more he think about, the more depressing it gets and the more he'll weep, "Wishing me like to one more rich in hope...with friends possessed...this man's art and that man's scope". It's hard for me to think about and visualize one of the greatest playwrights comparing himself to anyone else. It shows that it is just human nature for anyone to do that.

What interesting, and something I will never understand about poetry in general, is this sudden change that turns everything around. In the tenth line, he brings in someone else, "Haply I think on thee". Without any say as to who that might be, just the mere thought of this person was all it took to uplift his state of mind. "For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings...", meaning that the remembrance of this love must bring a wealth greater than any of that in the world, making him feel rich again but just in a different way, from love.

Poem #4: "My Papa's Waltz" Theodore Roethke

"The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy. 

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself. 

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle. 

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt."

I felt that Theodore Roethke's poem was very heavy; reading it really made me feel a sort of deep sadness, like melancholy, although I think it has to do with father issues that I have in my own life.

What I questioned throughout the poem was if the father was really dancing or if it was just a literary technique the author incorporated to visually represent his movements, or to even soften them if, in reality, they were violent and rough. I just find something really beautiful about his poem. It's this contrast between destruction, which the father sort of brings in with his heavy intoxication and how the smell is so powerful it could "make a small boy dizzy" as well as the mother's sadness as she watches, but the most admirable part is that the boy isn't even ignorant to his father's drunkenness. Now that I think about it, maybe the father is actually really gentle and just wanted to dance with his son but because he's drunk, it turned to be a little rough. In the end the boy is still clinging to his father's shirt which should means that he enjoyed the dance.

Have you ever seen a part of a movie where it's an action scene but instead of hearing the fighting and the guns, there's opera playing in the background over the whole thing? That's the way I pictured this poem. With the two of them roughly waltzing in the kitchen as the mother watches and opera music crescendos in the background over the sound of the destruction and pans falling.

Poem #3: "Rite of Passage" Sharon Olds

"As the guests arrive at our son’s party
they gather in the living room—
short men, men in first grade
with smooth jaws and chins.
Hands in pockets, they stand around
jostling, jockeying for place, small fights
breaking out and calming. One says to another
How old are you? —Six. —I’m seven. —So?
They eye each other, seeing themselves
tiny in the other’s pupils. They clear their
throats a lot, a room of small bankers,
they fold their arms and frown. I could beat you
up, a seven says to a six,
the midnight cake, round and heavy as a
turret behind them on the table. My son,
freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks,
chest narrow as the balsa keel of a
model boat, long hands
cool and thin as the day they guided him
out of me, speaks up as a host
for the sake of the group.
We could easily kill a two-year-old,
he says in his clear voice. The other
men agree, they clear their throats
like Generals, they relax and get down to
playing war, celebrating my son’s life."

The image that Sharon Old's "Rite of Passage" depicts for me is a group of little kids with their sleeves rolled up, about to tussle. It's interesting to me how the speaker of the poem, who is the mother of one of these little men, can see these kids as sort of small figurines of men of the future or amateur business men in the making.

The actions of the kids, such as eyeing each other, looking like "a room of small bankers", folding their arms and frowning, and this competitiveness of trying to let one know that they could easily be beaten by the other proves true to this model of grown, business like men. Kids pick up on things very easily and so it made me think that maybe they got this behavior from watching their fathers or male figures. Lately, what I've come to believe is the idea that kids are now pushed into growing up too early; for them to already look like bankers at the kid's birthday party is kind of sad. When the speaker's son suggests that "We could easily kill a two-year-old", it's scary to think of that sort of violence coming out of a little kids mouth and even more upsetting to realize that they already know about such things and that their force could outweigh that of at two year old. What I don't understand is how the mother couldn't say anything about it.