Religion and Film 2020

The key takeaway from Thin Red Line is that nature is indifferent to war. Man lives and dies but nature simply exists in time. Nature has no higher calling as it only exists in the present and objectively only does what is necessary in an effort to survive. Despite the war that is transpiring in the film nature slowly returns to normalcy as the smog of war settles. Man on the other hand never fully returns to normal after a conflict such as war. Man simply has to move on with life and reflect on how their actions impact their inner selves while nature is able to simply return to itself.   Within the context of the film nature represents the sublime as a whole. The wide panning shots of the hill particularly before the conflict begins command a sense of awe. The calmness and peace experienced within the shot of the grass rolling over the hill is quickly juxtaposed by explosions, gunfire, and death all around once man becomes involved with nature. Throughout the film the shots of nat...

Most people cannot function without their phones or the internet. Speaking from personal experience limiting internet access and phone usage for a week can really make a difference in how much the awareness of your surroundings heightens when you aren’t buried in a phone. My family has a home in the blue ridge mountains with limited cellular service and no internet access. It’s strange in this day and age to actually have to have knowledge of where  you are going and not rely on gps. In my personal opinion deprivation of these modern conveniences actually helps reduce mindlessness.

The director's choice of automobile in a film can have a major impact on how a character develops. Cars can be an object to show status or success such as the Porsche 928 in Scarface signifying how Tony Montana has made it in the world. In other cases, the vehicle which transports the main character in a film can help the character grow and develop within themselves. In Cold Fever, the fact that the Citroen DS even starts when the psychic sells him the car is symbolically a testament to how journeys through Iceland toughen things that wouldn’t otherwise hold up under less stressful circumstances. The Citroen DS has a notoriously complicated hydraulic lift system which realistically shouldn’t be functioning but, this specific car is “special” as if it has been toughened by the years in Iceland. With almost a herbie esque charm the DS pushes Hirata past his breaking point with its stuck radio. By challenging Hirata’s sanity the Citroen DS introduces Hirata to the brutality of the...

Big Fish explores the relationship between a father and son and their journey to reconciliation. Edward, a charismatic traveling salesman with a fantastic sense of humor constantly tells the story of his life with a bit of embellishment and never really seems to take anything too seriously. Edward’s world is viewed through a lens of optimism that is infectious to almost everyone around him. His son Will, on the other hand is a wealthy businessman who seemingly can’t take a joke. Will constantly feels that his father’s tall tales are a means to hide his true self when in reality it is Will who refuses to acknowledge who his father really is. Will eventually learns that his father’s stories are slightly embellished for entertainment purposes but the people Edward met along his life journey are all real as are the lessons he learned. Bloom first meets Jenny in the town of Spectre when she is only 8 years old. When Bloom returns to Spectre the second time Jenny is 18 and tries to make a p...

       Growing up on a farm is something that has taught me many life lessons, from when I was young death was taught to me from how calves and mother cows would die from childbirth. I learned that even adults cry when my mother lost her childhood horse Licorice when I was seven. When my old yellow tabby cat died when I was thirteen, that was the first time I had ever felt true heart ache. Animals are what taught me about love and the sacred. They taught me their language and from that I learned my passion of devoting my life to preserving these wonders of life. Growing up on a farm, a child will grow up fast and learn life lessons that haven’t been learned by some adults. I never realized until my freshman year of college just how much people will judge you based on where you come from. I was always judged in high school because of how urban I was compared to my friends with deep southern accents and now being at a university surrounded by people from...

      I have a cow named Buddy on my farm. He’s a two ton steer who could sell for hundreds if not thousands for his size. When he was born he was separated from his mother and when we found him that morning I picked him up and carried him to his mother. By that time, however, his mother would not let him take to her bag and we were forced to bottle feed him until he was old enough to eat hay and grass. My grandfather really wanted to sell him after the first year given he got to be the size of a young bull but I told him he better sell me to the slaughter house as well if he wanted to sell buddy. Although Pappy likes to complain about Buddy all the time, he loves to brag and take the neighbors out to see our gentle giant that loves chin scratches. Buddy is great to have when we have out of town visitors,  who aren’t used to seeing cows on their daily commutes to work. Most of our cows will run away like crazy because of how timid they are and Buddy wi...

  I find it very surreal that I just finished my last semester of my first half of college, while I know I have grown tremendously as a person being at CNU I worry that in my striving to achieve something better for myself than this small town life I’ve grown up in, I threw my social life out the door. Coming into college I had the mindset of “I’m not here to make friends” because I realize how much my parents are working to help me stay at this university that’s twice as big and fifty times as nice as I ever would have imagined achieving. Coming from a high school that had only three hallways, and a graduating class of just barely over 200 people, the amount of kids that didn’t just decide to cut their losses there and join the workforce were slim to none. While I admit, I partied hard in high school, the amount of people I meet at college who haven’t seen even one third of the amount of things I’ve seen in the backwoods of southwest Virginia, I did not expect for people to b...