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