Of Mice and Men

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/micemen/

Go to the above Sparks Notes for a detailed set of notes on the book.

Mister Pip

Here is a video made in class about quotations that support the themes

crash book

The whole book is not on the web so I'm trying to get a link to it

go to the webpage

Hi, everyone. I've shifted my efforts to the webpage where I can separate out each topic properly. You should all now be revising your literary topics and practising essays.

http://mjansener.googlepages.com/englishandmedia

Don't hestiate to email me at

mjansener@gmail.com

if you have questions or essays to send.

New webpage

I have started a for external exam revision. Click on revision to go there. I have started to put up material for years 11, 13 and 12 Media. It is easier to see what is there than it is on the blog. I'll continue using the blog for regular commentary.

Exam essay: Crash

To what extent do you agree that films offer an insight into society (past or present)? Respond to this question with close reference to a film or films you have studied.

This essay requires you to discuss theme. However, a good film essay should include some reference to the features that make film different form a novel or other type of text. I have tried to include some references to film techniques here. I've indicated this in blue.

ESSAY

Good literature always offers insight into society and films are no exception. In fact, Paul Haggis’ 2004 film, Crash could almost be accused of trying too hard to preach to us about the dangers of racism. However, this does not prevent it from making us think about the way we interrelate with other cultures. He paints a powerful picture of stereotyping, ignorance and fear in the multiracial city of LA.

One of the film’s gentler characters, Daniel, a Mexican locksmith, is twice the victim of stereotyping. Jean Cabot the wealthy wife of a Los Angeles District Attorney lashes out at her husband about Daniel because of his obvious Mexican appearance, his tattoos and low slung jeans, referring to him and his associates as “homeys” and “gangbangers”. She has just been car jacked by two black youths and seems to be fearful of all non-whites. Later Daniel tries to repair the door lock of a Persian shop-owner who accuses him of ripping him off when Daniel says the whole door has to be replaced. This eventually leads to Farhad the shop owner almost killing Daniel after another break in which he thinks Daniel must have engineered. Haggis shows how wrong Farhad and Jean are in their stereotyping of Daniel by techniques such as the “invisible cloak” this loving father gives to his little daughter and the religious aura of the scene where Daniel and his wife clasp the little girl after she and he miraculously escape death at Farhad’s hand.

Related to stereotyping is cultural ignorance and misunderstanding. Los Angeles is one of the most racially mixed cities in the Western world but people show surprising lack of knowledge about other races. Anyone Hispanic is referred to as Mexican with all the connotations of illegal immigration and poverty that the word gives rise to. Even black LAPD officer Graham Waters calls his partner Mexican when in fact her parents are from Guatemala and El Salvador. Antony, a black car-jacker who is redeemed somewhat by freeing some Thai slaves, calls every Asian person a “Chinaman”. When he frees the slaves he gives them money for chop suey and when they look at him uncomprehendingly, he mutters, “fucking Chinanmen!” People who attacked the Persian shopkeeper’s gift shop accuse them of being Arabs and when Farhad and his daughter argue and hesitate over buying a gun, the red neck shopkeeper says, “Plan the jihad in your own time.” This motif of stereotyping is repeated in many of the ten or eleven storylines and is linked effectively by editing so that the tension-filled scenes segue seamlessly into each other. Haggis is trying very hard to make us see the results of racism in society.

While stereotyping and ignorance go hand in hand, they also give rise to worse manifestations of racism: fear and frustration. In Crash, this results in a near murder and an actual murder. The one kind and neutral police officer in the LAPD, Tommy Hanson, tries throughout the film to rein in his bigoted partner, Ryan, who harasses an innocent black couple, Christine and Cameron. When he informs his superior of Ryan’s behaviour, he receives no sympathy. However, he is able to assist Cameron in a later incident, assistance for which a now embittered Cameron is not grateful. Finally he picks up a black hitchhiker, Peter, and in spite of all his good intentions, he too falls victim to racial fear and shoots Peter when he reaches for a St Christopher statuette, thinking it is a gun. This might sound incredible but in the overall context of the film where one racial incident is piled on another, Tommy’s actions give us an insight into how stereotyping and fear inform attitudes to other races in virtually all of us. The wide camera shots of the barren roadside where Tommy throws Peter’s body, sum up the sense of desolation that such division in society can give rise to.

In the post 9/11 world, cultural tensions are high, not just in America but throughout the world. Detective Graham Waters’ words at the start of the film tell us that LA is a city where different races make contact only when they ‘crash’ into each other. The car crash of the title therefore becomes a metaphor for racial division and confrontation, a problem that is particularly bad in LA but also a problem in many communities, including those in New Zealand. Haggis therefore offers us vivid insights into society.

Editing in Crash

Editing is the way the film is cut and put together. It also refers to the transition from shot to shot. In a film like Crash with its multiple storylines, editing is even more essential in conveying the story of the film.

• Remember that there is much meaning at the point of the cut. This is where ideas can be linked between scenes etc.
• Process like fading to black or white as well as dissolves can create a sad mood and give the effect of time passing or of someone's thought processes. It is editing that helps a director to show that a character is remembering the past as in a flashback scene.

Crash won an Oscar for editing. Why?

• the short scenes with segue into each other involve 10 or 11 storylines. It takes real skill to edit these together without confusing the viewer and without a jarring effect
• scenes are matched by common features like the stop sign which is shared at the end of the scene where Cameron tells Antony "You embarrass me, you embarrass yourself" and drops him off at a stop sign. A stop sign is seen in the inpoint of the next scene where Fahrad looks in the rear vision mirror as he waits for Daniel to return home. The visual link is also a symbolic link because stop signs remind us of the central metaphor of the film: the collision of cars and cultures.
  
• Other appropriate links are vehicles. The stolen black navigator is seen driving by when the scene changes from Antony and Peter to another set of characters.
• In the scene where Ryan rings Shaniqua from a cafe, we see in the same location the Thai slave deal being finalised between two Asian men. When Ryan walks outside a white van drives past and obscures him: the van in which we will later see the Thai slaves. Then the film cuts to Antony and Peter in the black SUV which drives fast, turns and skids after which we see a crash scene where Conklin has shot Lewis the black cop and Graham Waters and Ria have been called to investigate. The movement of the black SUV is to the right and the movement of the officer pulling the crash scene ribbon is to the left so the two scenes merge into each other seamlessly and are linked also by the motif of cars which continues through the film. In this short section of the film we see three different scenes but between them and within them are links because they all do with racism in many different forms: Asians against other Asians, resentful black youths stealing from rich whites and a white police officer abusing a black health official. This is an impressive feat of editing.