Friday, January 24, 2020

Taxi Driver, Directed by Martin Scorsese Essay -- Film Films Movies Mo

â€Å"Taxi Driver† New York City that is depicted in Taxi Driver seems to be too real to be true. It is a place where violence runs rampant, drugs are cheap, and sex is easy. This world may be all too familiar to many that live in major metropolitan areas. But, in the film there is something interesting, and vibrant about the streets that Travis Bickle drives alone, despite the amount of danger and turmoil that overshadows everything in the nights of the city. In the film â€Å"Taxi Driver† director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader find and express a trial that many people face, the search for belonging and acceptance.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The character of Travis Bickle roams the nights in his taxi cab, and witnesses all of this â€Å"open sewer†, loathing the people who live within it’s realm. Travis is a complex character in his hate for the world in which he works. The streets on which he works are the same streets that he makes his living, and pays his rent, buys his booze, and eventually buys his guns. He is a victim of the world that he hates, because it is the only world he knows. This is viewed best in the scene where Travis takes Betsy to the â€Å"movies†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When Travis was in the cafà © with Betsy earlier in the film, it would be hard to say that there was really anything to odd about it. But later on in the film, on Travis and Betsy’s second date, things become clear that Travis has a different understanding of what is socially acceptable. Travis can’t seem to understand why Betsy doesn’t want to go see the pornographic movie that he has taken her to. He thinks that this is a place where couples go, and seems to think that it’s a decent place to go on a date. There is something alluring about Travis’s naivete, something comical, and maybe a little ironic. Travis isn’t naà ¯ve to the world of drugs, sex, and smut; Travis is naà ¯ve to the world of decency, where the majority of society attempts to dwell.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As Travis’s taxi drives down the road, the viewer gets the chance to view the streets through the eyes of Travis. You see things through the windshield and rearview mirrors, all luminescent in the neon glow of the night. The streets are filled with different sorts; prostitutes on the street corners, pimps in the cafes, and homeless people wandering through the mess aimlessly. As film critic Leonard Quart put’s it â€Å"The city seen through Travis’ windshield a... ...ally acceptable world of Betsy, his infatuation, Travis is much of the same.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Aside the Director, and screenwriter, many people can relate to Travis’s struggle between worlds, and the uncertainty of how to attain status in the better of the two. This film depicts the striving that we take to find morals. This quest isn’t always successful though. This is viewed in â€Å"Taxi Driver† as Travis’s assassination attempt on a presidential candidate, which fails. Film critic Amy Taubin explains this best when she writes, â€Å"†¦.the assassination failed is only fitting, since Taxi Driver is a film steeped in failure—the US failure in Vietnam, the failure of the 1960’s counterculture and†¦the failure of masculinity as a set of behavioral codes on which to mold a life.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The film â€Å"Taxi Driver† is a true undertaking of the human longing to fit in, and be adequate. It depicts all aspects of this, by showing the triumph of Travis’s heroic emancipation of Iris, and the failure of the assassination of the presidential candidate Palentine. â€Å"Taxi Driver† shows all of this in a least expected but very beautiful way, it is a timeless ballad to all unsure, astray, and wandering personalities.

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Sontrary to popular belief, a natural emotion or feeling Essay

What is sadness? Sadness is, contrary to popular belief, a natural emotion or feeling. People feel sadness whenever they lose something that they previously enjoyed such as someone they loved, or something as simple as a stuffed animal. This particular emotion is actually good for you. It offers relief from the pain of the loss and it gives you some measure of the importance of what you’ve lost. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury strives to create a society that lives in the absence of sadness. He aspires to give everyone happiness by getting rid of conflict and inequality. However, what the society did not recognize was the value of this gloomy emotion. Guy Montag, the central character in the book, has learned to conform to the idea that the society he lives in is so very rigid and standard. Our Service Can Write a Custom Essay on Sadness for You! However he eventually realizes that the society he lives in is not suitable for a happy life. In an attempt to solidify happiness, society became dehumanized through its abandonment of human instinct, which ironically caused society to become anaesthetized. In the various attempts to abolish despondency by the elimination of literature, all emotions in society were destroyed. In the past, the society was able to read books, and therefore had no reason to burn them. For this reason houses were not fireproof, and therefore Clarise alludes to the fact that firemen used to put out fires, not start them. (8.) Thus proving that at one point in this society, books were accepted and then eventually were banned. While education doesn’t seem like an awful attribute, it created inequality, which made people unhappy. In order to explain the abolishment of books, Beatty expressed to Montag, Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the timeЕÐ ¤ (58). As Beatty explained, the government utilized technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure to eliminate sadness. One example to substantiate the statement made by Beatty would be the use of the houn d. The government used the hound in order to find and destroy books, which would, according to their society, create equality and peace. They believed that the elimination of books would solve everyone’s problems, and as a surrogate for books used controlled technology. Since there were no learned people, there would not be controversy over the explanations of ideas, or ideas themselves. However, what he did not account for was the fact that without thought, there was no emotion, and therefore no happiness or sadness. Happiness and sadness interplay off of each other, there cannot be happiness without something to contrast it to. Therefore, in the attempt to make everyone happy by eliminating literature, the ultimate outcome was a society that was essentially all robots. These â€Å"robots† were incapable of comprehending personal history, and therefore had no sense of the passed time. The theory behind destroying a sense of time was that if no one were to grasp the idea of time, then they would, among other things, have no awareness of aging, and everyone would be happy. However, unexpectedly in doing so people were not happy nor sad, merely indifferent. In the conversation between Montag and Mildred the morning after the ordeal with Mildred’s blood cleaning, Mildred cannot remember the events of the past night and therefore questions, â€Å"Last night- What about last night?† (19). Mildred had no recollection of time or of past events and therefore no one knows whether Mildred was unhappy or just couldn’t remember. The attempt to eliminate sadness did not work, because since she couldn’t remember anything in the past she not only couldn’t remember the bad things, but she also couldn’t remember the ha ppy events. The two therefore neutralized themselves between the happy and the sad causing Mildred to be apathetic or even sometimes depressed. It is extremely hard to live a happy life when you can’t remember any of the past joyous moments because of the dehumanization impressed onto society. Unfortunately, this dehumanization made people even more depressed, because it could cause them physical harm, moreover it could cause them emotional harm because they may not be able to remember joyous moments. The supreme consequence of the mechanization of society was that the feelings about life and death became more depersonalized. To many, death is a very personal and emotional event. Contrary, though, in Montag’s society, death was absolutely depersonalized. People rarely were affected by death, however, just continued with their standard life because they believed that death was just another â€Å"thing† that happened in life. When depersonalizing death, the intent was to eliminate the sadness that went along with it, and therefore make everyone happy. While it did eliminate the sadness, it also eliminated the happiness that went along with life. People had no reason to cherish life, because they believed didn’t think about the possibility of dieing, since it was such a minor part of life. When probing the idea of death, and looking deeper, it is essentially a culmination of life. However, since the citizens were unable to remember life, the idea of death was changed. In their minds they lived for just a moment, and therefore when someone died, nothing essentially died because nothing essentially lived. Mildred articulates the ideology of society by expressing her feelings about the woman Montag killed. â€Å"She’s nothing to me; she shouldn’t have had books. It was her responsibility, she should’ve thought of that.† (51). Mildred wasn’t at all concerned that someone’s life was just taken, she was concerned that Montag was sick because of her. This clearly illustrates the ideology of society in that no one cared about death, it wasn’t happy nor was it a particularly sad time. So in the end, since no one understood that death was actually a very catastrophic event, no one therefore cherished life and lived unconcernedly, not happy nor sad. Eventually Montag grasps the fact that his society is extremely corrupt due to the mechanization and dehumanization. There are various causes, which lead to the demise of a normal society, and lead to the society prevalent in F451, which relies on technology and abandons human instinct. As a result, the citizens have become non-threatening, non-interesting humans who can be easily led and manipulated through fear. The intent was to eliminate sadness but the end result were humans with absolutely no emotions.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

The Great Depression Essay - 961 Words

The Great Depression The great depression hit the nation quite hard with an un-comparable feeling of instability and weakness. The United States and other nations including Europe and Great Britain were quickly affected. The depression, caused by the fall of the stock market in 1929, caused many individuals to panic and the depression was everywhere by 1932. Many people were affected by the depression. Investors, the ordinary work force and consumers sank rapidly with the panic that spread across the world. The United States tried to gain security through several attempts at restoration. With the help of president Roosevelt and his attempt to restore security with The New Deal the nation would†¦show more content†¦Their attitude towards the economic downfall and the depression settling in was approached wrong in all ways. The only hope the U.S. would gain was the idea brought on by President Franklin Roosevelt. After Roosevelt?s election in 1932 he approached the situation with a brighter solution, and what would be known to the world as The New Deal. When all the sources of government had hopelessly failed many followed Roosevelt without an ounce of reluctance. Over twenty-five percent of the workforce was unemployed when he was elected. His first action was to reopen the banks across the nation and he did this by depositing savings guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. He issued the Federal Emergency Relief Act, which replenished the funds used by cities and states. The New Deal approached the nation with a strong backbone and gave the suffering individuals the support they needed and the stability to turn to. Roosevelt supplied these theories and backed them with acts and limits to many areas of the hurt economy. The Agricultural Adjustment Act paid farmers and limited the amount of production. The Civilian Conservation Corps hired many individuals and put them to work on improving the environment and also the community. The National Recovery Administration established codes of fair competition to limit competition and this in turn set the standards for many businesses to beShow MoreRelatedThe Depression Of The Great Depression1223 Words   |  5 Pagesfar-reaching consequences as the Great Depression. This experience was the most extended and severe depression of the Western world. It was an economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted until 1939. A large amount of America’s labor force lost their jobs and suffered during this crisis. During the nation’s financial disaster, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president and made extensive changes to America’s political structure. 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