Religion and Film 2020

Bunny This comes across as somewhat of an odd story, with a rabbit chasing a moth around the house. However it uses Quality between dark and one focused light in which the moth chases after. Works towards the religious narrative of dying. Harold and Maude This movie uses the effect of shallow focus on movie scenes. Initially you could easily be confused easily by focusing on the conversation between the two women and not catch the prank of setting themselves on fire in the background. This leads to a close up shot of Harold and is his mother in which he is giving a devious smile before cowering under his mother's death stare. This image that helps work towards the narrative that is painted by Harold who only searches for emotional recognition from his mother.  Northfork The movie Northfork gave the constant feeling of the end that was coming. It did an excellent job of this by not eliminating color or making it really dark. Instead it’s achieved this by using lightin...

Bunny  The Bunny film that shows an old rabbit battling with a buzzing moth that is flying around his kitchen annoying him. The Bunny keeps trying    to kill or get rid of this moth. The    bunny falls asleep and wakes up but is actually dreaming. The bunny gets inside the oven to follow the moth that the bunny is so annoyed with. There is light coming out the oven and the moth goes into it as well as the bunny. This movie used a lot of color and light / darkness.    The director uses light    in the very beginning of the film as the moth is attracted to a very bright light. During the the movie, it is dark and composed of grays and blacks colors. The bunny had a very raggedy and beat up image. The bunny looked very old and was ready to die and meet back with the bunny’s spouse, who was shown in the pictures in the bunny’s kitchen.       Harold and Maude    In the clip from Harold and Maude, Harold seems...

  Bunny is a short film that shows an elderly rabbit battling with a buzzing moth. As Bunny continues to try to kill this moth, Bunny tires and falls asleep and to pass away and in a "dream" she climbs into the oven to follow the moth that has disappeared. The use of light is introduced in the very beginning of the film as the moth is attracted to an intense blue/white light. The rest of the movie is dark and composed of grays, soft whites and dull colors. Bunny also has a grizzled and worn image in the movie and truly appears to be old and ready to die and her see her deceased husband.        In Harold and Maude, Harold longs for the attention of his mother and goes so far as to be destructive and fake his own suicide on a regular basis. In the shot where Maude looks at Harold, their eyes meet in a pan shot and Harold makes direct eye contact with the camera. Maude's eyes show a look of absolute disapproval and disappointment in her son. He only wants he...

Harold and Maude The first scene that we watching in Harold and Maude involved Harold's mother attempting to find him a girlfriend interview style. This scene used angles to show the viewer what is happening behind the mother that she cannot see, but the viewer and the date can. The deep depth of field is also used here so that the viewer can see what Harold is doing in the yard outside along with the conversation taking place indoors. The girl sees what appears to be Harold setting himself on fire outside of the window and runs out of the home. The scene then transitions to a shot of Harold and his mother watching her leave. There is no dialogue in this shot, but the characters' body language says a lot. Harold is positioned in front of his mother, with the camera positioned from below to make Harold appear taller and above his mother to evoke a feeling that he has won over her. He has succeeded in scaring off another girl, and he is proud of how it irritated his mother. Thi...

Harold & Maude  Harold is 18 years old and his mother is a smothering mother who controls his life. Harold discovers his mom only shows him emotion during a chemistry lab when there was a bad explosion and she cried because she thought he died. Since then harold has now started to commit fake suicides. Maude teaches him that life has meaning and its more than this. In the scene they put a window in the background where harold attempts to commit suicide. The furniture is very formal and dark dull colors to help the background stand out more. The background is very light out with an explosion of bright light which is fire. The angle of the camera is shooting up so you have the actors view. They also set up Harold and his mom in a position that displays their emotion on how the young girl reacts to Harolds fake of suicide. The actors acknowledge the audience by the way they look at camera and the way they gaze off into the “crowd” and each other. The mother also gives off a loo...

Harold and Maude : In this film, two selected scenes highlight the overall intended meaning and demonstrate symbolism. First, we see Harold commit another act of deception as he tricks yet another date into believing that he has died. Harold appears in the room as his date flees in horror, while his mother stares at him inquisitively unaware of the fact that he faked setting himself on fire in the backyard. Harold is obsessed with death, constantly faking suicides such as the one mentioned and others previously. He attends funerals and drives a hearse, committed to the notion that he likes the thought of being dead. This scene invites the audience to participate, as he makes direct eye contact with the camera while his mother looks him up and down simultaneously. This tactic is a way of breaking the 4th wall, so to speak, where the audience members are no longer spectators. This close-up and point of view shot in which the camera makes direct eye contact with Harold communicates mea...

Herold and Maude  In Herold and Maude we have a young boy and his mother standing together after his latest date flees from the room in a hurry. As they stand next to each other, the boy involves us in the movie by making eye contact with us and keeping us in the loop with his conspiracy. The mother on the other hand has no idea who he is looking at looks him up and down, confused. Herold then looks back at her directly in the eye, holding his head up almost knowing that we are now on his side. The mother however, meets his eyes almost immediately once again showing her confidence and control over the situation. Herold quickly looks away as he becomes intimidated once more. In the second scene of the film Herold meets an older woman in a garden. The old woman talks about the wisdom of life and death and change. The camera follows them as she talks and focuses on the reflection of the water as they look over it. Interestingly enough, their reflection is upside down, a...

How does the visual medium of film work as Midrash? The visual medium of film works as Midrash as it helps us interpret these concepts through visuals rather than through reading. The director does an exceptional job of helping portray Midrash through emotions seen through the father and son throughout the film. In the first episode, we view the commandment “I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt not have strange gods before me.” The film relates these “strange gods” to the computer through the father and son as they become obsessive over this computer almost as a symbol of God. Similar to faith in God, it is tested at times and these characters also test their faith in the computer when they go to confirm the computers output on the ice. Do any of the visuals of the film work as symbols that bridge the gap of understanding? How? One character seemed to stick out as a symbol of God throughout the film. This figure was shown multiple times throughout the films and represents that G...

How does the visual medium of film work as Midrash?  The visual medium of film works as Midrash, because film is a visual in which viewers have the ability to interpret differently. The aspects of film being film scores, colors, emotions, and language can all play significant roles in how the meaning of a scene enlightens/teaches the viewer. The four aspects of Midrash (Pashot, Remez, Sod, and Darash) all give different ways for the interpretation of biblical text through literal meaning, deeper meaning, hidden meaning, and comparative meaning. These same interpretations of meaning can be applied to film, because film contributes itself as "visual text" and speaks to different people in different ways. The same Midrash applies to the Commandment of "I am the Lord thy God, thou shall have no other strange Gods before me." This can be left to interpretation because gods can come in the form of material things, meaning materials that can become your priority and it t...

Episode 1: Do any of the visuals of the films work as symbols that bridge the gap of understanding? How? Be specific in noting these visuals.  The first episode is full of symbolism in order to portray the author's message to the audience. We see a man sitting by the pond in front of a fire from the very beginning of the episode. I believe this represents God because the father comes face to face with him when checking the ice for his son. It is almost as if God is waiting for the son to drown and take him to heaven because the man is gone after the ice breaks. Another symbol is the bottle of water that Pavel and his father set outside. When they check on it the following morning, the water turned to ice, and when Pavel asks what will happen if they keep it outside even longer, the father replies, "it will eventually thaw." This foreshadows the pond eventually thawing, leading to Pavel's death. Additionally, it emphasizes the father's complete faith in knowled...

Midrash is Hebrew method of interpreting the meaning of biblical texts. It allows us to understand the meanings of the biblical text through real life scenarios. In Decalogue, we see midrash in both episodes 1 and 5. Each episode has a different meaning that relates to one of the 10 commandments given to us by the bible. The commandments state what is required of you as a person of faith under God. The first 3 concern the love for God and the last 7 are about love of you neighbor. Episode 1: I AM THE LORD THY GOD: THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME In episode one, we see this man who is sitting by the fire that represents something or someone, but we are not sure yet. He is cold, lonely, and sitting by a faint fire with a dead dog at his feet. Next, we see a boy running on a television screen in what seems to be a commercial and a shot of a women crying. This event is explained by the midrash of what episode 1 brings. The episode in full, is about a boy and his dad. The son ...

How does the visual medium of film work as Midrash?  Be specific in answering this question, relating the answer to the Commandment and the way the medium works to throw you into the struggle to find meaning.  As I understand it, Midrash is essentially just updating or re-contextualizing the Ten Commandments to fit within a newer time and place from when they were first introduced. I think this is best show in the first Decalogue. In the modern era, people aren't as likely to worship golden cows for food. However, they often do listen more intently to what they hear from someone famous or on TV.  Throughout the film, the computer is presented and framed as the father's God or place of worship. He seeks answers he doesn't know by asking the computer; a trait he passed down to his son. The father in the first Decalogue is a bit more nuanced than those earlier examples though. He does have a lot of faith in the computer's mathematical calculations, but he also later goes...

How does the visual medium of film work as Midrash?  Be specific in answering this question, relating the answer to the Commandment and the way the medium works to throw you into the struggle to find meaning.     The visual medium of Midrash as it runs us through actual simulations of the rules  we are attempting to interpret how to properly follow. For instance in the first Decalogue we look at the commandment “I AM THE LORD THY GOD: THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME.” We begin to see what it means to have a strange god before the Lord. We see a relatively ordinary person who has a passion for computer programming, to the normal eye we might not see it as an unhealthy relationship but we learned that he has let his faith in god wain and decided to put more trust into that which ultimately leads to the death of his son. Additionally “THOU SHALT NOT KILL” observes the hypocrisy we have against this commandment, punishing someone by killing him when we...

Midrash is supposed to make you think of the deeper meaning within something and the comparative meaning that makes it personal to yourself. I think that midrash makes things more complex because the meaning of a movie, for example, is not cut and dry. It makes you think deeper and makes you find the meaning within the film for yourself. Kieslowski did a good job of finding and choosing narratives for each of the Ten Commandments that related to the correlating commandant but were not just black and white. the two episodes we saw in class were emotional and made me think more of what I would do if I was in the shoes of certain characters from each episode. I think using film made it easier to convey the emotion within the episodes, at least within such a short amount of time. In the first episode, We were able to see a lot of the young boy character and it made me feel attached to him in a short amount of time, as well as protective since he's such a young kid. so when he ended u...

Kaylee Carico-Decalogue February 07, 2020        In the first episode of the Polish film Decalogue, the commandment "Thou shalt have no other God before me." is emphasized on through the episodes following of a particular boy with a brilliant thinking mind, Pavel. His father, a technical athiest who beleives more in the rational than spiritual, is made out to be a caring and lonving father simply teaching his son about the ration and technial way of viewing the world. Pavel's aunt, on the other hand, sparks Pavels wonder for the divine in answering his questions about love and more emotional topics that require more that calculators and computers to answer. In the end of the episode, Pavel falls into an ice covered pond and dies after his father calculated and tested the ices density with not only his computer, but with his own bodyweight as well. As one watches the movie unfold, their personal takes on the purpose behind the lessons unravel which is where the m...