The Only Story Ever Told about a Giants Emotional Colorless Garden

“I was born, I fell in love, and then I died” this is hailed as the only story Monomyth. There is four stages that can be thought about like the cycling of the seasons. Spring, not necessarily the beginning, but it often is. Life kicking in, spring so beautiful. Summer youth, discovery, and passion. Fall the beginning of the end, fleeting youth, crisis. Winter tragedy, irony, death.

Pleasantville had such an interesting series of colors, and interesting angles, and that really heart felt scene with the Dinner guy, and the lady. It was great to see how her emotion brought color to her face. The emotion made life more real despite the fact it was painful. The art in that scene was more beautiful to me than the scene that had almost complete color. The art was among colorless emotionless surroundings, so it seemed more precious. The thing that interested me the most though had to be the fact that the one painting made the man smile, and the women cry. They got something so different, and it was real to both of them despite whatever the artist’s intentions were.

The story of the Giant was so pretty, its wording was so well worded. The line “who hath dared to wound thee” going after his anger, was excellent placement. The giant had let the children play in his garden “whatever you do unto the least of my brothers you do unto me” so the little boy let the giant join in paradise. Perhaps the greatest thing was when the children found the dead giant. Somehow death was the most beautiful thing in this story, because of what it meant for the giant. The most beautiful garden ever. If we forget the idea in the back, of paradise in Christ, this story is still beautiful, and touches the heart. So why don’t we tell stories, we need not always be direct to Jesus. That is not to say I think we should always be speaking about Jesus behind parables. But what if sometimes we could approach people who do not like the idea of Jesus in an indirect, and beautiful way that gets past the name that they have come to be opposed to hearing. That’s the thought I had when I first heard this story.

 

The Life of Color

Color is a wonderful and beautiful thing. And now that I really put thought behind it, I take it for granted not on how I just see things but with how I use them. Not only is it a wonderful thing in the human life but its also can bring joy, sadness, anger into someone's life just by seeing something in that hue or in general. It brings emotion into art and life. The one thing that I really like in thursday's film was when the basic store keeper found a new passion for his art. And even though he may not be the best at it right at that moment but he's willing to try to find that color again.

But the scene that seem to struck me was when the store keeper talking to the woman that came inside after seeing the painting on his back wall and the many others that he showed her. I just liked the idea of how she ended up crying after seeing picaso's painting giving her back her color that she had obviously long forgotten about. Not only that but when he told her don't hide her color had a small meaning behind it. Like, you don't need to hide the "color" in your life, enhance it. Don't be afraid to show it off after all it is yours not others.

Brave Hearted

It's been some time since I've watched Spirited Away and watching it recently brings back the memory of the first time I seen it when I was younger. I wasn't quite sure what I was watching at first. I knew that it was different and I knew, well thought I knew, that it was anime until someone announced last week that it wasn't. I'm not all into/familiar with the anime cartoons and comics but honestly the most anime I've ever seen is Inuyasha, One Piece, and Dragon Ball Z. Lol everyone has seen the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z series... Right? But Spirited Away is something unique but I believe not only to me but to others as well. This ten year old girl, Chihiro, is all alone in some odd and mystical world while her parents, because of greed, were turned into pigs as she is under a life contract by some witch lady with an oversized baby. This girl not only develops bravery but she shows the characteristic to be grateful for where she is and what she has. She shows us that you have to fight for what's right and face your fears when times get dark. And I give her props because spirits and ghosts are not my thing. 

GODISNOWHERE

I am a wee bit behind with the tragedy posts, but I was so shaken up by Tuesday's class that I couldn't think of what I wanted to say until now.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the Gospel as tragedy, and it made me think of a Bible study that my mom and I attended together. I was the only child (I think I was about 14-ish at the time), and the pastor made us read the phrase "GODISNOWHERE." After listening to all of the adults read it as "God is nowhere," I narrowed my eyes and thought really hard. Suddenly, it occurred to me. The phrase does say "God is nowhere." But it also says, "God is now here." And that's the beauty of it. God is nowhere and everywhere all at once.

In the film Fridge, which was about two drunks trying to help the little boy who got locked in a refrigerator, it's very easy for the drunks to believe that God is nowhere. Nobody will help them, Alice got attacked at one point, hours and hours go by, and they begin to lose hope. They think the boy will die, and they're mad about it.

But at the end of the film, they realize that the boy is still alive. God didn't want him to die yet. God kept him alive. Even in a hopeless situation where God seemingly abandons everyone, he is with everyone at the same time, and it's wonderful.

It also reminds me of the last few lines from the song "God Thinks" by Voltaire.
God thinks puppies need to die and
God thinks babies need to drown 'cause
God is neither good nor bad.
God is you and me.
God is everything.

The rest of the song does not really fit, so don't look it up. You'll probably be disappointed and offended, hahahaha...

 Voltaire ^

Speaking of Voltaire, he has a stop-motion short film called ODOKURO all about how humans can get stronger and adapt to their environment, but we'll all inevitably die, anyway, and how life will beat us up and cause us to be hateful, and... yes...

I love Voltaire, I think he's a genius, and I will probably talk about him and Kino's Journey every chance I get.

This was a little less tragic than some of the other tragedy posts. Should I... apologize for that or...? I don't know.

Is it Tragedy?

                         Now I know that the opinions that follow will not be favorable with the general populace, however, this is my blog. We are ordained by our creator with unalienable rights, and mine includes the right to speak freely. So, here is what I believe to be true. Humans are corrupt, they are negligent of their duties, they are sadistic and enjoy harming one another, and they have not learned for centuries, so I am afraid they will never learn. Humans are ignorant and until they are smacked in the face with truth, they will refuse to see it. Now this may seem like a rant, however, it does apply to the films we watched in class.
                           The first film I will be analyzing will be Small Hands. Now this film may be sad to watch, but why should it just now occur to you that this is sad? This process has happened for countless years, in fact it is happening right now, and do people care? No. People are concerned about their own well being. To illustrate this point, I will quote the words of a popular rock band. "It's ironic, at times like this you pray but a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday.... -Linkin Park" See Small Hands was just a short segment about a daily occurrence, and why did it impact you? Why did you never care before? There was a reason why God only took two of each type of animal on the ark. These things must happen, and so they do. So, I really don't see any sense of being sad over it. If there wasn't a purpose for this circle of life, then we would all live forever. But, on one fateful day a human corrupted the entire species and damned them for eternity. Now fortunately, a savior was sent to help reverse the damage done, but some things haven't changed. People die, animals die, civilizations fall and genocides occur; that is just the way the world is. I'm sorry if you got depressed because an orchestra played as innocent animals were massacred in their homes, but this happens every day.

                       The next two films I will analyze together. Both of them blatantly show what I had opened this blog with. Humans will go about their business as usual unless they profit from it in some way. If the people in these films had been rich or had power, the outcomes would have been entirely different. But, these were commoners; so doors were shut, eyes were turned away, and people didn't care. In life nowadays, people no longer show each other God's love. It doesn't matter if life is threatened, it doesn't matter if people are round up and slaughtered, and it doesn't matter if souls are lost in the struggle for life. If people don't get something out of the situation, they won't care. Humans are altered by greed, as shown by the film Spirited Away the other night. Almost no one follows the rules instituted by the divine, the human race has lost itself, and now there is only one solution. These films show all to well how far our race has fallen, and although those who believe in his son have been saved, the rest will soon be cleansed. So, yes these films evoke emotion, but this is a daily occurrence, and so life will go on the same as it has been. The same as it did before we watched these films. God's grace is the only outcome left to save the human race, and without it, I fear for the people of this planet.....

The Tragedy of Being a Christian

As kids, we were told that God will always be there for us, and he will never hurt us. We were told that if we pray about something, God will listen and answer our prayers. When we are little we don't see all the violence and pain in the world. As we got older, those once invisible things become clear and right in our face. Once I got older, I started feeling like God never answered my prayers, and that he couldn't save us all. It didn't help that I was always around people who were pessimistic and didn't believe in God all that much. That's the tragedy of being a christian in this world today, we are surrounded by negativity. But also being christians, we must stay positive and keep believing in God.

In the short film "Small Hands" we saw pretty much the circle of life. They all had each other and lived in peace and happiness. But then negativity (death) comes and takes one of each animal, leaving the other to be in pain and suffering. Sometimes I ask myself "why do these things have to happen to me?" I think those animals felt that same way when they felt that pain. The film shows the pain that each animal felt (the rabbit shivering and crying almost made me cry btw). And then every one of them dies and goes away. And yeah, I guess that is what happens when you don't have God to look to. That's how some people in real life see our existence on earth. Even though we might ask ourselves "why doesn't God listen to me?" or "bad things only happen to me" we have to remember that he is always there for us and he always will be.

Spirited Away

I still love this film so much and was very glad to watch it again. This movie has a lot of lessons that all of us can relate too. Chihiro was thrown in for a long ride in discovering herself, growing up, loving others, and being responsible for her own actions. I think when she started to change was when Haku took her to see her parents and he was helping her in any way he can so that she wouldn't forget who she is. By the power of love that she had for Haku she saves his life and goes to Zenbeba's to asks her for forgiveness after Haku stole the seal from her. We can clearly see she grew up and didn't think the world add being about her, but about everyone within her world and the world of the spirits. This film is a must see for all ages to teach us the value of love, friendship, and being responsible for your own actions.

Art Changes People

It was interesting what we talked about in class today.  It reminded me just how important it is to value what's in front of you instead of seeking something that could destroy everything in front of you the very moment you don't value it anymore. We can see that clearly in films and different kinds of art sometimes, and it changes our lives and makes us see and appreciate what we have. Just like the artists' paintings we saw in Pleasantville their tragedy made us see their world through their eyes and made us value or world and how we see it. The discussions we had also reminded me of Wolf's Rain and how that story goes the the cycle of birth, youth, decay, and death. In the show the world is decaying and a group of teens/wolves are trying to find paradise and open the gates to go there. At the end

the world is dying as well as all the characters who are seeking to find paradise.  After the characters die the world is reborn but then is slowly being corrupted moments after the world was born again.  A never ending cycle that we might never get out of. In a way our world is seeking paradise as well, but everyone fails to see that we are in paradise with everything that we treasure the most as well as our relationship with the Lord and the paradise that most seek is heaven.

Anime....Not animaniacs

Anime....Not animaniacs

I just got back from watching my first anime movie "Spirited Way".  It was this 10 year old girl who had to move to a new town.  As she and her parents drive around their new town, they come across this old building with a tunnel that leads to a place for the spirits.  Unaware of where they are, this girl manages to loose her parents find a building that happens to be a sauna for the spirits to rest.  Freaking out by the new creatures around her, she goes back to where she lost her parents and finds them turned into pigs.  Even more freaked (more like spazzing) she runs around scaring other spirits of her humanness.  Along comes a friend to help her along her journey to regain her parents, save a friend in need, and learn the true meaning of working hard and respecting others.  

One thing that was brought to my attention was "No face".  "No face" is an outcast who was not allowed into the sauna and was basically shunned for life.  Irony was he had a mask for a face.  That still counts as a face.  He was all alone until this girl comes in and shows him kindness by letting him in the sauna and by giving him recognition.  Everyone else said he was a monster until he gave them "gold" (which turned out to be really nothing at all).  Everyone then accepted the gold and him.  But when he offered the girl gold, she turned it down.  Money can't buy friendship, the kind of friendship worth having.  

Even though this is a terrible movie to start when you're just grasping the concept of anime, it was a great movie (even through all the confusion and Radish spirit).  The characters did grow and they did learn something, which hopefully taught the other viewers something as well.

The Selfish (And Arrogant) Christian Screenwriter

I just want to make a public confession in today’s blog with the fact that for the longest time I had a very clear idea of what movies I was going to make and how they were going to affect the audience. However, after today’s humbling class, I realize that I have been going about this the wrong way. What Professor Leeper said was true. You cannot make an audience respond, act, and change in a certain way.

I have now learned that I can present material in my films that offers audiences the chance to change, but ultimately, it is up to God and the audience for that change to be accepted. I admit that I have been somewhat of an arrogant Christian in the past. I was up on my “pedestal” thinking that I knew everything that was right and that I could “fix” people.

I was wrong.

The truth is that I can only make the introduction to the material that may change an audience. I will always strive to make God honoring films, but they will not be filled with heavy preaching, Bible beating, and arrogant Christian attitudes. Hearing “The Selfish Giant” today made me realize that it is very possible to incorporate wonderful Christian messages into stories that everyone loves. This is my new focus, and I think it was knowledge toward which God was leading me.

From now on, I am going to create stories that everyone will want to watch, not just Christians. No more will my screenplays be filled with “inspirational” speeches laced with Christian theology, but rather, the scripts will contain entertaining tales with important underlying messages such as love your neighbor, don’t lust, and avoid selfishness.

By no means have I given up on putting God into the film industry. However, with this new perspective I feel I will be far more effective in reaching out to the audiences that need to hear these stories.

Let Your Colors Shine Through

In the short clip from the film "Pleasantville", we are transported into a world from a 1950's sitcom where most of the characters are not living their lives to their fullest. The characters are shown in black and white in their conservative, nostalgic existence, but once they become self-aware and begin to feel real emotions the colors of life start to shine through. A book of well-known, beautiful art pieces is the only color in one of the scenes.

The art is shown in color because they're such beautiful, unique and inspirational pieces. The man working at the diner is so inspired by the art, that he decides to try to recreate some of it and display it for the town to see. When one woman sees the sadness in one of the paintings, she begins to cry, washing off the black and white and exposing her true colors.

Another scene that shows the beauty a song and nature can bestow takes place when two characters are driving down a black and white road and the radio plays Etta James' "At Last". The flower petals from the dogwood trees lining the road appear pink at first, then as they drive to a beautiful park, the world around them begins to be colorized. The two characters; however, continue to be shown in black in white because they are not living to their fullest potential, they are holding certain things back.

In Oscar Wilde's short story, "The Shelfish Giant", we learn the story of a greedy giant who is enraged when children continually play in his garden. The giant decides he wants to have the beautiful garden for himself, so he builds barriers to keep the children from enjoying it. The garden becomes lonely without the company of the children, and during the winter it freezes over like normal. But once the spring arrives, the giant is alarmed when the snow and frost doesn't melt like it normally would. After a long while of missing the songs of the birds in his garden, the giant looks out his window and notices the kids had crept back into the garden. He is overjoyed when he realized their presence has thawed the winter and welcomed spring, but there is still one corner of his garden that spring hasn't touched. When the giant sees a young boy that is too short to climb the branches, he helps him up and becomes a much more unselfish person. The garden is thawed. When winter comes and goes again, the corner of the garden is left unthawed again and the giant wonders what happened to the young boy who used to play there. Many years later, the giant discovers the same child with nail wounds in his hands lying underneath a tree with white blossoms, golden branches and silver fruit. The giant asks the child why anyone would wound him, and the child responds "these are wounds of love" and says "You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden - which is paradise." The other children who play in the garden dissevered the giant lying dead in the garden, covered in white blossoms. The colors play a very crucial role in this story; the garden is represented by spring and pastel colors, life is represented by the fruit in the garden and gold colors, and death is represented by winter, blossoms, and the color white. These are also the same colors mentioned in the "Mythic Cycles" by Geoffrey Hill.

Color plays an important role in storytelling and almost anything, it can depict emotion, beauty, vibrance, and life. A personality can be described as 'colorful' if the personality is lively and fun, a vocabulary can be described as 'colorful' if it has a wide range, a person's imagination can be described as 'colorful' if it is very creative, and a rainbow can be described as 'colorful' because it has a variety of colors. There are many things that color brings to life. Living life to the fullest and expressing creativity is a great way to let people see you in your true colors.

It Doesn't Belong To You

-something a little different-

In this day and age, there is nowhere safe from opinions. They travel faster than the speed of light; back and forth back and forth until the comments grow and the feedback floods in and more opinions are shoved down throats. There are the magazines: one advocates for health, one advocates for self love, one says youre not skinny enough, one says you need to eat more. There are the tv shows, where you can go from one news station to the next and get a whole different perspective of that car crash on the highway, who’s hurt, and who’s to blame. The opinions are constantly coming, and they never stop. People are always trying to get their voice heard, and are trying to get other people to believe in their view, and not someone else’s.

                  Leeper’s comment today in class really sparked all of this for me. I’ve been thinking about it all day. It was directed towards Christians and the Bible- “It doesn’t belong to you, you don’t get to tell the rest of the world how to read it”.

                  Isn’t that so true though? Not just of Christians but people in general? We’re so busy to get our word out there. We get possessive of things we are saying and defending or arguing against. But they’re not ours.

                  Everyone sees things differently; everyone has their own perspective- why does anyone HAS to see something the way someone else does? Especially of something like the Bible, or the same goes for art, as well. What I love is how in this class people have so many different views and things to say about every film we watch and can just say them. It’s all about acceptance of opinion and being judgement-free. But I don’t understand how so much of this world is so tainted and possessive. It’s all this narrow-mindedness that people these days face and it really just… I don’t know. Gets under my skin.

                  So next time somebody says something, and puts their opinion out there, think about it, before you say anything. You don’t own them. Doesn’t belong to you.

also, this ranting is not a normal occurrence for me! so thanks for reading anyways :)

Tragedy: The many faces of it.

As a gut instinct, we do not want to see something bad happens to anyone. We don’t want bad things to happen to us. We want to see the world as a happy place where everyone holds hands and sing happy songs. However if this world has proven to us one thing, it’s that the world we live in is shit. We do not live in a world where nothing bad ever happens. The probability that someone will die, either from cancer or being murdered, while I am writing this. And there is nothing to change that. It sucks!

Now with art, while having people forget about the bad things and have an escape route into a world of fiction where we cheer for the hero and have him, her, or them, succeed. However not every piece of art are happy, because sometimes an artist needs to have you think. And an artist can convey tragedy in different ways.

 Small Hands is an “animated” puppet short film (animated is in quotes because your mileage may vary on how you view puppetry as live action or animated) that is about tragedy. Specifically the film shows us three animal couples, a pair of owls, rabbits, and frogs (presumably a boy and a girl because this is a Christian college after all *wink, wink*) as they are happy with bright colors surrounding them. Until the world decides to say “NO!” to happiness and has the couple spit apart; a snake eats one of the frog, a fox eats one of the rabbit, and a hunter shoots one of the owl. Then the color changes from happiness and into darkness as we see the remaining frog, rabbit, and owl lonely and sad. And for us to see the cute animals sad, it’s heartbreaking. I got upset when the owl pair was spilt up because they looked so cute together. Yeah I said cute! What about it! >:C But anyways, I feel that this is effective since the cute, adorable puppets, and might I add that the art direction looks fantastic, which I can’t help but feel like it was supposed to be symbolic for childhood innocence as we feel broken by what happens. And really that’s actually a good thing that it wasn’t sugarcoated. I mean how many times in a kids film that you saw (even when you were little) where someone dies but then comes back to life for a quick fix or a fake out? All too often. It’s refreshing to see someone takes, pardon my crudeness here, balls and puts it bluntly that life sucks!

Fridge is a different view of tragedy. It takes place in Ireland (I think. Maybe it’s in Scotland. I forgot and I’m always getting the two mixed up) and in it, a boy is trapped in a fridge where his only salvation are two drunks who must save him from suffocating but they are practically bipolar. They try their best to get some help however no one takes them seriously because…they’re drunks. This can be viewed in two ways. One, and my initial reaction, is how most of the world turns a blind eye to bad things that happens. Whether on the news or by word-of-mouth. Which then they do tend to become ignorant of the problem and shut people out who need help because we are selfish. On the other hand, the second reason why is because…they’re drunks! The boy does make it out when someone helps the two, ironically it was the same guy that had him trapped, even though it was his brother that locked the kid in the fridge (I don’t know if they were brothers, I could barely tell what any of them were saying). The good news is that the boy lives, but the bad news is that the drunks don’t get their rightful reward or recognition. Except from the guy who trapped him then saved him. It’s more bittersweet in tragedy, but the film shows how we turn a blind eye to what’s really going on and how we treat people that are considered improper. In this case the drunks. They don’t show them as misunderstood since one of the two leaves for what seems like hours to get a beer after an argument, which brings more of a reality to this.

World of Glory, which is by far the darkest (arguably but after the opening scene I don’t think anyone will fight me) out of the short films we watched. In it, we are witnessed to something out of a Holocaust
movie, ala Shindler’s List, and we see how this effects the main character, a business man, who took part in this horrific act, who tries do forget it and move on with his life, which while we watch it turns out that his real life isn’t as great as it seemed. However we see people from the event in the first scene appear who are in this guy’s life. The more the movie goes on, the more we see his mental status decrease. The symbolism is that we can never forget something horrific. And it’ll be even worse when you took part in it since it eats at your conscious. Because really how could you? This is a metaphor for how in life we tend to move on with tragedy but in doing so we are reminded by how haunting it is. At the end of the movie we hear someone screaming. The man is disturbed by it. The wife tells him that it'll be alright and that he must sleep. The man tells him it won't be alright.

The importance of the videos is to show us that as an artist, or for an art form, that we (or they) must never shy away from being brutal and honest. That you can't just tip toe over a subject. Because the most powerful message is showing how (pardon my French) fucked up this world is. There shouldn't be any sugarcoating when dealing with dark material, it needs to be honest with it's audience, not condensed to them.

And yes I know this post is late. :P