Chariots of Fire_Run For A Purpose

Chariots of Fire is a fascinating film that describes the motivations of runners. Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams are two main characters in this film. Sometimes they’re driven by different motivations.

             
Eric Liddell ran because of approach causes. He stated that he could feel God’s pleasure when he ran. He said that “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” This is the way he worshiped God.

                          
 Liddell also faced an approach-approach conflict. Liddell loved running because of his faith. He kept the promise that he would not run on the Sabbath as well because that’s the way he showed his faith to God. In the Olympics Games, Liddell faced the dilemma. He would like to keep his principle and he would like to run as well. However, he made his decision that he would not run on the Sabbath day.

                          
Harold Abrahams actually ran due to avoident causes. He was facing prejudice because he was a Jewish. Normally some people would use negative attitudes towards him. He would like to use running to kick them off.

                           
The dilemma he faced was an approach-avoidance conflict because the results of the run vitally impact him. Victory could help him to prove himself, but lose could undermine his self-esteem. It was hard for him to find the balance between these two consequences.

                           
Liddell was also a great example that how he was driven by the intrinsic motivation. When he talked to the leader of Britain athletes’ team, he said that he loved running and even willing to endure suffers and challenges from relationship and works.

                           
Equity theory was able to explain Abrahams running behaviour as well. As a Jewish, he was willing to run because it gave him back the prestige and respects from others. Especially he was admired by his Sybil and his girlfriend’s brother.

Schindler's List_The List of Mercy

Obviously, there were a lot of prejudice in this movie. There were institutionalized discrimination and envious discrimination. A lot of interactions between German and Jewish were performed in this movie. Most of the interaction was between soldiers (except for Schindler) and Jewishs.

The soldier showed German's typical negative emotions which were created and triggered by Hilter. These emotions include envy, resentment hostility and fear. Hitler chose Jewish to be their German's enemy in order to unite the German and hold the power. There were some behaviors would be shown from those individuals with envious prejudice.

Individuals with envious prejudice would avoid, exclude, segregate and exterminate the people they have a prejudice with. For examples, Nazy extensively segregate Jewish from German's community. In this film, the governors repeatedly labeled all the Jewish and Poles. They treated them as some flesh that could provide labor. They created an atmosphere that they pretended them as non-human. For example, a soldier told a girl he liked that he thought the girl was seducing him. He would not develop a romantic relationship with her because the whole German society should treat Jewish as rat or other species but not human.

The Jewishs were controlled by the feelings of fear. They were not able to fight back, but some of them were still trying. Schindler could eliminate his prejudice towards the Jewish because he truly understands the situation. He was in a situation that he knew he could do something for his own good at first. However, gradually he started to sacrifice and put more efforts for his Jewish workers after having  a clear understanding the whole situation and realized that he could do something. The  situation he was in actually was a two-side situation. He had to choose which side he stands for. However, Jewish's side was more able to fulfill his demands based on social identity theory.

Grace is Gone_Unspeakable Pain

This film is a pretty sad film. The feeling of sadness is unspeakable to their daughter (Heidi and Dawn) as a father (Stanley Phillips). However, the emotion of grief has to be expressed in order to fully accept the truth and get out of the sadness.

We could notice that Stanley experienced 5 stages of grief from the moment he got the unfortunate news. The 5 stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.

Primarily, he was in the stage of Denial. He denied the truth that his wife, Grace, was killed in Iraq. He tried to not talk about their mother in front of Heidi and Dawn. He just tried to act normal. He also tried to escape from the reality. He called home and informed her wife that they were alright and they were heading to Enchanted Gardens to have some fun.

Later on, in the stage of Anger, he showed some angers while he was talking to his daughters. Anger is an emotion that would apparently impact the people surrounds you. Stanley might feel that he was abandoned in certain extend because he had to deal with the grief and the daughters alone at that moment. For instance, he kept putting pressure on Heidi and asked Heidi to have some funs together. Probably he just wanted to pretend that his wife was actually still alive, so the family was still complete and they should be joyful as usual. However, he got mad when his daughter told him that she felt stressful from being asked to have funs. This scene probably symbolized that the illusion of happiness he wanted to maintain was destroyed by her daughter, so he got angry. And also he got really angry when John tried to pursue Stanley to inform the daughters the truth. He even pushed him to hit the door.

Bargaining is the third stage. Taking the girls for a trip is also a way to show Stanley’s thoughts about bargaining. After taking them out from the D&B Game Centre, he asked the girls where they wanted to go and Dawn suggested Enchanted Gardens as an option. At that moment, Stanley agreed with it and said “What if we did?” This question symbolized that he might able to get rid of the pain if he could do something for it.

During the stage of four, Depression, he made the second call to Grace is to show his depression and sadness. At first, he seems like he was to deny the truth again, but actually he cried and had started the process of accepting the truth by asking Grace to tell him what to do. He showed the sign that he was kind of losing the direction.

He was in the stage of Acceptance when they were on the way back to home. Obviously, informing their children the truth, holding their child and crying with them together were to show his acceptance about what had happened to him and the daughters. He accepted the truth that grace was gone.The scene of reading a eulogy and three of them presenting in front of the grave is a pretty wrap up to show that they were ready to accept a new phase of life after the great loss.

            Sometimes the person would not strictly follow the sequence to experience the 5 stages. However, throughout the whole trip to Enchanted Gardens, it could be seen as a trip to go through the 5 stages of grief. 

The Sixth Sense_What Are You Afraid Of?

This film has a pretty good ending. There is a plot twist which shows that actually the Malcolm was dead after the housebreaking.

Actually, there are some techniques to evoke the feeling of fear in this film. 

Music is one of the major components. We could imagine that all the horror scenes without frightening music. Music is a step to initiate suspicions of audience. Music gives them a hint that something might happen, but you do not exactly know what you are going to see. Also the fear comes from imagination with something unknown and expected.

For the purpose of scaring people, the pace is important. Frankly, I think the pace is important for evoking any kind of feeling.

Basically, there are 4 steps to scare people. At first, there must have a long period of peaceful scenes. Those peaceful scenes help the audience to stay calm.


Before the horror scene, the camera would bring the audiences to the venue and frightening music possibly will be inserted now or in the next step.









In the step 3, something unusual and anomaly must happen. They could be the occurrences of unusual behaviors, thoughts or people.

In the final step, the horror part will come out. Normally, people will be terriefied in the third or fourth step.

Additionally, the angle and movement of the camera will help to initiate the feeling of fear as well. 

The scene who had a boy with a big wound behind his head is an example. Before the presence of the wounded boy, the camera space out the left side of the screen, in order to be ready for the appearance of the wounded boy. This kind of unusual angles implies that a horror scene is ready to come out.

Using the point-of-view shot would also create a sense that you are actually in the film. Sometimes they would make it a bit shaky to create a sense that there is someone watching the actors.

You would feel that someone is watching, but you do not know who the persons are because they are invisible at that moment. 

At the end, I have a question, would people be frightened anymore if everyone of us has the sixth sense? Or what would be happened if everyone has the "talent".

Film review of Forget Paris

Couplehood is the theme in this film. What makes this film stand out from other romantic films is in their focus on what happened after they were together. In the normal films, the directors would only show how two persons find each other attractive and live happily ever after. In this film, they focus on the interactions, developments and conflicts after being together. Mickey was a NBA referee. Ellen was a dedicated airplane employee. They met in Paris. After one week, Mickey went back to America because of his job. They started their long-distance relationship, but very soon they get married.

Conflicts:

Mickey (Billy Crystal) and Ellen (Debra Winger) sometimes they could not find a balance.  Ellen gave up her job in Paris and went back to America to accompany Mickey. However, Mickey travelled a lot because he had to referee NBA matches in different states. Ellen also did not enjoy her job. Hence, Ellen felt lonely and quarrelled with Mickey. In order to find a balance, Mickey took one-year leave of absence and became a car salesman. However, Ellen got promoted and be head of one development.

Soon after, they fought again because Mickey thought that he had invested too much in this relationship. It is an unbalance relationship.

Improvement:

At the end, they came back together. It seems like both of them missed each other so much during the period of absence. However, they eventually got together because they focus and work on their life. Normal people cannot love a person without full life, especially when this person gives up his/her own life for you. It puts a lot of weights on the partner. Thus, that’s a right choice that they choose what they want at the end. Both of them have a full life again, that’s their preconditions for being together again.

Movie Review of Strictly Ballroom

It’s quite an impressive movie about dancing. I am amazed by the fact that most of the actors are not professional dancer, but I could see the enthusiasm and concentration.

There are three main components in Social Influence which are conformity, compliance, obedience. These three different types of social influence appear in different scenes. I will try to explain the presence of three theories in sequence.

Conformity

If we observe the ballroom dancing in another perspective, it is one kind of conformity. It has set rules asking people to follow. Obviously we know that most of the people follow the rules of the Australian Dance Federation. They want to win. They want to win so no one dare to be different. The settings and social norms make them conform. In the ballroom settings, social norms require dancer to dance “formally” and by rule. However, I think there’s still good in conformity. If everyone dance their own moves, how to compete with each other. We have to aware of the conformity, but the rules help us to be organized.

Conformity level is higher when there has confident confederate. In the first half of the movie, most of the people excluding Fran and Scott have no courage to dance in their own style, especially when the president Barry Fife is so confident and powerful.

Lastly, the scene of applause from his father Doug is a good example to show how minority could influence the majority. As a minority, his father shows great confidence and consistency in his applauses. They are loud, firm and clear.

Compliance

Normally there are three factors which are mood, reciprocity and giving reasons would develop compliance.

At first, Scott is not convinced under the authoritative influence of his mother. However, Barry presented in his mother’s ballroom. Mood and Giving Reasons factors are applied. Barry did not persuade Scott in the very beginning, but he told him a fake story to trigger his emotion. At the end of the story, he “beg” Scott to win the champion in order to help his own father to realize his dream. In this scene, Barry used foot in the door because story telling is a small request, but asking Scott to join the competition with Liz is a larger request. However, the technique was used in persuading Scott could be considered as door in the face. Most of the people got tough and required Scott to follow the rules and dance with Liz or Tina, but the atmosphere suddenly became soft and sentimental in this scene.

  

Obedience

There is one scene to show that Fran was threatened by Scott’s mother Shirley and others. It could be explained why Fran was influenced by three reasons which are proximity, group pressure and strength of the pressure.

In the famous Milgram’s electric shock experiment, we could know that physical presence and separate room could impact individual decision. In that scene, Fran and they are alone in the dressing room. Their physical presence gave Fran a huge pressure as well. It even involved touching when Shirley was dragging Fran into the room.

By considering the amount of people present, there are 3 versus 1. The strength of their orders was so determined and forceful as well.

Why do people dance?

There is a research found that dance is related to confidence, mate-selection and social bonding.

From a very practical point of view, dancing can help people to get in shape, express emotion and even establish relationship. However, if we look at dancing from the existential perspective, dancing might be a mirror that could reflect who you are. Scott is a passionate and open-minded person. We could describe his characteristics by only comparing the way his and others’ dance.

Sometimes words are insufficient. We look at the male lead Scott. Sometimes we might feel his words are less expressive than his dance. His dances were full of energy and emotion. For some people, dance is a better way to express themselves. 

Eat Drink Man Woman

The traffic scene actually means the complicated situation in the family. The traffic situation looks messy even though the traffic police try to control the traffic. It might also represent the feelings of Mr Chu. He is the traffic police who tries to control the situation. There has no traffic police in the first scene, but there is a traffic police in the second scene. It might mean that the traffic police is Mr Chu. The tension of the family started to be mediated.

This movie can be analyzed by the sequence of the family dinner. Based on family theory, this family could be viewed as a unit. The interaction between any daughter and father actually influence another relationship. In the second family dinner, the unexpected decision and announcement of the youngest daughter, Jia-Ning, actually influence the decision process of others. In the first meal, the family is restricted in a repressive atmosphere. After the changes of Jia-Ning in the second dinner, all the things are starting to change rapidly.

In this movie, apparently we could see that the Mr Chu cares about the Jia-Chien the most. However, Jia-Jen is the one who really contribute to the family and their father. In her world, there are only three places where are church, school and home she get used to. She envies why her father puts so much attention on Jia-Chien, but not her.

The death of the mother has an impact. After the death of the mother, Jia-Jen started trying to play the mother’s role. She takes care of her father. She also tries to control and discipline Jia-Chien and Jia-Ning because of the role of a mother. 

At the end, the separation eventually brings harmony to the family. They finally feel peaceful even though they are not together. They do not need to restrain anymore. 

Gandhi (1982)

Undeniably, Mahatma Gandhi is one of the greatest leaders of the world. In this 1982 film which was directed by Richard Attenborough, the Gandhi’s character was played by Ben Kingsley.

Most of the articles identify him as a transformational leader. Normally there are four characteristics of a transformational leader.

In the first place, transformational leader should be able to provide vision. They are conscious about the future. According to what we watch in the film, Mahatma Gandhi apparently developed a vision that they wanted to get back the indepence and sovereignty from the British Empire.

Secondly, it is being authentic. A leader who has the characteristic of authenticity is commonly perceived as someone who hold the humanistic worldview and beliefs, such as honesty, ethical as well as practical. Especially, he always put attention on ethics. He showed his anger on the Massacre of Amritsar. Besides, his main weapon of this indepence campaign is non-violence.

Third vital characteristic is to lead by example. For those followers and publics, he was a role model. One of the ways he led was to show people what he expected others did. Once he said that, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” For example, he advised Indian citizens to abandon all the British Empire’s products. Hence, he started to sew his own clothes. He transformed himself from a lawyer to be an Indian citizen.

At last, creativity is another characteristic of Mahatma Gandhi. Throughout his life, we can notice that he keeps innovating a new method to fight the British Empire.  For example, he encouraged people to make salt and their own clothes rather than using violence to fight.

Simon Sinek said that a great leader eats last. Throughout his life, we could realize that he was that kind of leader who could fast and sacrifice himself in order to gain the wellbeing of his people.

Running on Empty

8.5/10

The social background of this movie is in post-Vietnam War period. Hence, based on Bronfenbrenner's Ecological theory, we could notice that each of their systems keeps changing.

The impact of an unstable and changing systems worth discussing.

According to Murray Bowen, a family should be seen as a system or a unit rather than individuals. The interaction between any two family members are influenced by another family member as well. We can observe the interaction between the father, Arthur Pope (Judd Hirsch) and the eldest son, Danny (River Phoenix) is actually influenced by the mother Annie (Christine Lahti). Let's imagine, what if there're only the father and son in the family, is it possible that Arthur will let Danny go in the end of the movie?

There are eight concepts under Murray Bowen's family system theory. 

We can realize that Danny is developing his differentiation of the self in this movie. He started to realize that he wanted to be independent. He could be his own person. Triangles are happening in the relationship between his mother, his father and himself. The interaction between any two family members influence another one. 

Family Projection Process could be observed through the movie. Arthur feared of being caught by the FBI, so he also projects his fear on Danny.

I could feel the pain and struggles at the last scene of this movie. I could find the similarity between my father and Arthur. Both of them are sometimes lovely, but sometimes being authoritarian. He would let you go when you require to change and he thinks you need to. Leaving from the closest people is always painful, but they're just physically leaving, not emotionally detaching. 

Movie Review of Awakenings

8.3/10

Acting performances of Robert De Niro (Leonard Lowe) and Robin Williams (Dr. Malcolm Sayer) are stunning and breathtaking.

I saw hope in this film, but I also saw fear in this movie. These are the two major emotions I felt in the movie. In my opinion, Dr. Sayer mainly represents hope and Leonard represents the combination of hope and fear. It does not mean that they only showed these emotions, but these emotions are noticeable in their performance.

Fear of Leonard can be observed in many scenes, even when he's healthy. After his awakening, he did not have the courage to sleep in the first night. He was afraid of losing consciousness and the ability to move.

After some days, he started to realize that all the patients were awakened, but they were not allowed to leave the hospital. He started to be feared that he would lose his/ their freedom. Fear will lead to anger.
When people are experiencing fear, they will choose to "fight or flight". Obviously, Leonard chose to run away from the Bronx hospital. However, he could not make it. Hence, he chose to fight, he resist to be dragged back to the hospital. He also fought when Dr. Sayer went to see him in the cell.

Creatures become irritated when they have poor health and dangerous situation. Leonard started to realize that he was unable to go out by his own will. His health deteriorated as well. Hence, he was much more angry in order to protect himself. His fear of losing control and had little control of everything.

His mentality was only a teenager. He had not had enough time to develop the ability to control his emotion. Especially he was experiencing such an uncontrollable and unpredictable disease.

It will be awesome if everyone can be like batman. Batman accepts and turns his fear to be his motivation and determination.

Review of Cinema Paradiso

Cinema Paradiso

Watching the movie was a community activity in the old days. The atmosphere of watching movie together was special. It might be the only “modern” entertainment in the countryside. I think this history of cinema happened in most of the place because some articles show that similar culture and this kind of communal experience happened in China before.

In this movie, Salvatore Di Vita lost his father in the World War 2. To Salvatore, Alfredo had a father figure and also a friend.

Social influence can be observed in this movie. Watching movie is one of the most important entertainments at that time. All of the people could be easily attracted. Simultaneously, observational learning impacts Salvatore during his childhood. As a significant person and role model of Salvatore Di Vita’s childhood life, what Alfredo did was observed and learnt by Salvatore (Fryling, Johnston, Hayes, 2011).

According to Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, we can notice that Alfredo was experiencing stage of generativity in the first half of the movie (McLeod, 2013). He obviously involved in community activities because of his job. All the community members know who he is. During this stage, he became a father figure to Salvatore and took care of him. For example, he gave his own money to Salvatore’s mother when Salvatore was beaten.

            In the second half of the movie, old Alfredo probably experience a state of despair (McLeod, 2013). He was blinded because of the fire. He was not able to work anymore. He also advised Salvatore that Salvatore shouldn’t follow his path because the life of projectionist was boring. He didn’t have any other skill except for projecting film. Hence, maybe it’s one of the reasons why he wanted Salvatore to explore the world and never come back. He might feel that he couldn’t teach him anything in that moment.

            At the end, Salvatore was touched by the short film because he realized that old Alfredo kept his promise. He promised him that he would give all the films to him during his childhood and he did it. He realized that Alfredo always remembers him. Classical conditioning is happening in this part as well because the old film triggered his feeling of love. The interaction and memory between Salvatore and Alfredo is the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). The unconditioned response (UCR) is the feeling of love. The old film is the neutral stimulus (NS).

            After watching this movie, I hope everyone can meet a mentor in one’s life. If we can’t find even one, we can be the mentor of others.

References

Fryling, M. J., Johnston, C., & Hayes, L. J. (2011). Understanding Observational Learning: An Interbehavioral Approach. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 27(1), 191–203.

McLeod, S. A. (2013). Erik Erikson. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html