First Generation Students and the Community College Essay Example for Free

First Generation Students and the Community College Essay Ethnography EssayMy experience with people outside the school as well as inside the school has earned me the nickname â€Å"experience† amongst most of my friends. As a strong-minded student with a growth outlook, caretaker individuality, and high value in the community, I flourish in relationships with people as well as the experience I have gained in the school. I am constantly trying to be an example of those who are experienced love to those around me. This drive to improve my relationship with the school fraternity, as well as the outside community, has sent me in many different directions through several kinds of school activities and volunteer opportunities. I think I inherited my caretaking boldness from my godmother. My godmother has worked with several students for the past twenty years and finds great joy and purpose in these relationships. Centered on his passion, I am supposing the adult students in this school and others as well will be genuinely invested in their friends and community like my godmother. I have also experienced this devotion to caring in the leaders of one of my favorite activities either in the school environment and the home or outside school communities. Activities unique to my college such as the involvement in sports as well as the interactions with other schools and motivations from the school authorities is an opportunity to form relationships among students in our building with special adaptability to the changing life both in school and the outside communities. The long periods of staying outside the school prepare the adult students to deal with different challenges either mental or educational due to their experience with different scenarios or cases. Through actions like playing, word exchanges, and debates, we create bonds with all students outside of our mainstream educational experience. When I first joined school some years ago, I was initially intimidated by the activities of my friends. I felt my usual confidence slip into a â€Å"store mode,† a feeling awkwardness in conversation and uncomfortable with silence. Conversely, after spending more time doing activities with these students, I’ve discovered the ir valuable hearts. Each student is welcoming and outwardly caring towards myself and the school staff, as well as the community, are privileged to have them. The adult students I am aware of in the school are very honest with little to no filter. They speak their minds without thinking twice, allowing for a truly unvarnished relationship. Based on these experiences, I am expecting the all the adult students, to be honest, and welcoming, and for our interactions to become natural with time. Through conversation with some of the adult students, I’ve heard plenty of talk on several ideas as well as what they need for the comfort both inside the school as well as outside the school. I know adaptability and experience in school include both respect to the authorities and an accepted mode of behavior which must go hand in hand with the right morals and friendship. Luckily, I found out my friends, one of the adult students studying in this institution who have demonstrated a sense adaptability to many activities in life inside and outside the school. As eager as I am to understand how the long stay outside the school and the experience to come back to the learning institution feels, I am also curious to see how it impacts their psychological life through their interaction with the several challenges in life as well as their experience with other students. Over the years, the education system in many countries has been modified to suit the learning requirements of people in all age groups. This is due to the increased rate of adults with the increased desire to enhance their knowledge through education. This process has enabled many adults to embark in the search for programs which offer educational opportunities to people who are elder than the required age group which is stipulated to be at different educational levels in the academic system of a given country (Espie, Rod, Josie, 4). Therefore, to adapt to the learning environments at different levels of education, there is the need for those who are willing to return to school after years to prepare themselves both psychologically and emotionally in order to suit in the system. This will ensure that they develop characteristics and behaviors which enhance their relations with other students in the educational facility and that the system will not compromise their time and beliefs i n the process of acquiring the kind of education they desire. Adult students are normally encountered by different challenges due to the beliefs they have as well as the psychological challenges they face as a result of the difference of their age accompanied by the misconceptions accompanied with adult education (Nahas et al, 43). Adults who desire to return to school normally think that they are too old to attend school. This myth discourages most adults with the motivation to acquire knowledge at an advanced age thereby leading to the individuals relent from the idea of returning to school. Other people believe that it is too late for them to acquire education. This discourages many people to return to school thinking that it is too late for them to reap the benefits of the education at an elderly age (Espie, Rod, and Josie, 5). They believe that by the time they are done with acquiring education there will be no opportunities for them. The adult students are also challenged by the way they can strike the balance between the time they are go ing to be in school, work as well as the time to be with their families. Therefore, to ensure that the educational system does not compromise the behavior of the adult students at the school as well as their actives which they undertake out of school, a special program needs to be implemented in order to accommodate all kinds of adult students (Espie, Rod, and Josie, 2). This will ensure that the system increases the self-esteem among the adult students and ensure that they do not feel discouraged in the process. This system should ensure that it entails reasonable goals which are attainable to ensure that the students are motivated all through the curriculum (Nahas et al, 42). The process of attainment of the goals should be easy to follow and understandable. Continuous feedback should be enhanced so as to ensure that the students are continuously guided on how to undertake different activities. This will ensure that the errors made by the students are easily corrected by offering explanations and demonstrations in case of technical activities. The learn ing strategy should involve appropriate evaluation processes which are goal oriented in order to enable the students to evaluate themselves as well as check their progress in the education system (McGrath, 110). Finally, the education system should provide incentives and undertake activities which enhance motivation to the students. This may include activities which are interesting to the students in order to enhance their memory capacity as well as make them enjoy being in the system thus increasing their motivation to continue learning. The  entrance  to  the  school is  only  attained after  navigating through the windy  roads and  numerous â€Å"adult education poster† signs.  The entrance provides a learning enabling environment that is supported by the cooling collection of green trees.  The environment provides a wonderful and a thrilling interest for anyone to feel the need to learn and achieve their goals in life. The compound of the school is surrounded by different photos that give a hint to every visitor that the place is a learning institution. The  walls of the classrooms are  lined  with  motivational posters,  such  as  one  stating with different messages; some indicating happy moments and others providing serious information of learning and praises to the school and the learning system as well. I did not expect a large, bare ground of prairie grasses next to me in an institution slopped down in the center. As I alighted the car, I walked onto freshly flagg ed tar which had clean, white space lines tinted on it. Walking in the direction of the school, I started noticing how quiet the institution grounds could make me feel as I looked at the freshly transplanted prairie grass plan-out swing softly by the influence of the wind. This stunned me, bearing in mind I may not habitually feel that calmness upon arriving in an archetypal institution because of the noise originating from the students playing at bay. Then it happened to me that there were adult students making plays on a huge, exciting playfield alongside the school, although the status of anarchy originating from it was low. I later came to comprehension that calmer than the majority of city schools and was well-funded because of the costly concourse facilities. The first adult student to interview was a gentleman who appeared very happy and composed as he answered various questions from me. He said that it is better for him to be at school at this time than he would have been some years back as a younger student. Further, the student mentioned that he was feeling more confident because it was his personal choice to learn at this time. The fact that learning at an adult age is through volunteering, is crucial in allowing adults strongly involve themselves in the learning process because they need they are highly motivated. The personal decision to attend the learning institution is a major drive for the student to learn as well as feel comfortable in learning different thought-provoking approaches to life. I learned that the fact the adult students have stayed for long days is an advantage for them to use their abilities to learn to link their experience with any new challenge. The student also said that there is a feeling of self-direction which makes the adults students have a good control of their learning. The control and monitory of their progress in learning involve self-assessment as well as the good relationship with the instructors and other students or the outside community. He further said that the students may be reluctant to change due to a feeling that they are mature and experienced. Slower learning was also evident through more intensive than before. Due to many responsibilities that adult students need a good amount of personal life which makes them busy in many hours of their time. The responsibilities and interactions with different communities as well as individuals allow the adult students to adapt to life in the learning institutions and elsewhere. It had been some minutes as I stood at a window of a class observing how Susan was interacting with the other young students during as they were being taught. Everyone seemed cool to see her busy listening to the tutor as the lesson went by. Everybody seemed busy in the class all trying their best to understand the concept being taught by the teacher. From time to time, the teacher would ask the students randomly and answers were provided and the teacher would continue with the teaching. When it came to the turn for Susan to answer the given question was asked by the tutor, the other students would look at her and listen keenly if she would make any errors in the process of providing an answer to the question asked. When she made an error in answering the question, the other students would laugh at her. The teacher would then maintain order to the class and then elaborate the solution to the problem asked and ensure that Susan has understood the concept in question then proceed to th e next concept. During break time I met with Susan to understand how she feels in the learning environment where she was different from the majority of her colleagues. â€Å"It is fun to be around this place†, she answered with a smile on her face. â€Å"I feel great when I undergo different challenges in the process of learning. It makes me feel proud because it is a great opportunity for someone like me to acquire the knowledge required to survive in this in this environment with a lot of learned people.† Happiness could be seen on her face. She seemed adapted to the environment and she was determined to learn at all costs no matter the challenges involved in the process. On the question of how she viewed the teaching system in the institution, she was satisfied with the procedure. â€Å"The teachers are cool, they treat all the students equally and are keen to ensure that everyone has understood the concept taught†, Susan stated. The environment was cool to her and she was no t bothered by the way other students viewed her. I was greatly concerned about how Susan was able to balance her time concerning her daily routines as well as her income-generating activities. I was eager to know how she was able to maintain her tight schedule during the day. It requires a lot of dedication to achieve a given goal she claimed, I normally plan all the activities that I am doing the following day in advance to ensure that no activity will collide with another. She added that she undertakes part-time jobs which she undertakes after school so as to support herself financially. Susan claimed that the support she gets from her family and friends is what keeps her moving. The determination she had in acquiring the knowledge enabled her to focus on the learning process. â€Å"I made up my mind long before I decided to come back to school, I believe it is through education that I will be able to improve my living standards†, she concluded as I eagerly listened to why she was so determined to learn. I was excited by the way Susan was able to merge her family life, work as well as find time to undertake her education program which was somehow demanding. This enabled me to understand the different challenges faced by adult students and how they managed to push through such a challenging environment in the search for knowledge and skills. Although  some  people  may  view  adult students as an inefficient and a struggling way to learn, the adult students have a good chance to learn and achieve several objectives due to the facts that they are highly motivated. The adult students have  taught  me  the  need of having  motivation, teamwork, compassion,  slowing  down,  and  being  intentional  in relationships. The adult students have a high chance of succeeding and engaging in learning more than normal students because of their duty and responsibility to spread kindness and knowledge through  their  own  lives  and  the  lives  of  those  around  them.  As  the  adult students have treated me,  their actions are indicative of their good behavior and evidence of success in their education and adaptability as well as experience in life. After spending some time in studying the adult students sub-culture, I have learned that I have some similarities with some of the practices in that culture such as the ability to access oneself and plan for one progress. I always have a means of evaluating my progress towards the achievement of my objectives and take responsibility for ensuring I perform everything to my great potential. There are high collaboration and team among the adult students due to their need to succeed I life. As times goes many people will realize the need for the adult education and feel proud to join it. Works Cited Espie, Rod, and Josie Viola. A Place for Political Literacy in Adult Education. ARIS Resources Bulletin 10.3 (1999): 1-4. McGrath, Valerie. Reviewing the Evidence on How Adult Students Learn: An Examination of Knowles Model of Andragogy. Adult Learner: The Irish Journal of Adult and Community Education 99 (2009): 110. Nahas, Markus V., Bernie Goldfine, and Mitchell A. Collins. Determinants of physical activity in adolescents and young adults: The basis of high school and college physical education to promote active lifestyles. Physical Educator 60.1 (2003): 42.

Biography of Federico Garcia Lorca :: Spanish History Poets Poetry Dramatists Essays

Biography of Federico Garcia Lorca Federico Garcà ­a Lorca was born into an educated bourgeois family in Fuente Vaqueros, in Andalusia, Spain, in 1898. His mother was a teacher and his father a rich farm labourer. He read literature and music at Granada University and in 1919, at the age of 21, he published his first book, Impresiones y Paisaijes, that was inspired by a trip around Spain that he took as part of his degree. That year, Lorca went to Madrid to continue with his studies. He moved into the Residence of Scholars (residencia de estudiantes), a liberal institution that taught according to the social, political and religious philosophies of Krause. Their view of religion gave way to what is called pantheism, which is a perspective Lorca embraced in his work. The importance of the residencia in shaping a generation of writers and poets that became known as the Generation of ’27 cannot be underestimated. All the latest innovations in the arts were discussed and debated within the walls of this institutio n and its students included names as was a had a profound affect on Lorca’s generation, where he would meet and make good friends with the famous Spanish poets, Juan Ramà ³n Jimà ©nez (born in Huelva in 1881-1958), Emilio Prados (born in Mà ¡laga in 1899-1962), Rafael Alberti (1902-present) and Jorge Guillà ©n (1893-1984), as well as the famous Surrealist artist, Salvador Dalà ­ (born in 1904 in Figueras), to whom he would write an ode in 1926, and Luis Buà ±uel (born in 1900 in Teruel), among others. Through his friends at the Residencia he soon got to know a number of other poets with whom he also shared a bond in terms of friendship and ideological leanings and who have since been given many names including that of â€Å"La Generacià ³n del  ´27† (The Generation of  ´27). This group, or generation includes his friends Prados, Alberti and Guillà ©n, as well as Pedro Salinas, Gerardo Diego, Dà ¡maso Alonso, Vicente Aleixandre, Luis Cernuda and Manuel Altolaguirre. Of these, Lorca’s poe try has most often been compared with that of Rafael Alberti. Lorca was a prodigious artist, poet and playwright; his first play, El Maleficio de la Mariposa (The Butterfly's Evil Spell), premiered in 1920 and his first book of poems, Libro de Poemas (Book of Poems), was published the following year, although neither of these initially received the acclaim that his later works would. In November 1921 he wrote Poema del Cante Jondo, which would not be published until a decade later, in 1931.

Buffalo ’66 (Directed by Vincent Gallo) Film Essay

Buffalo ‘66 (Directed by: Vincent Gallo) Buffalo ‘66 is Gallo’s ode to his childhood and hometown. Like most artists he writes from what he knows. Having moved to New York from an early age (around 17), for his directorial debut he went back to the city where he grew up, and even shot scenes in his real parents’ old house. Buffalo made him what he is, and still resonates deeply in him. He had enough emotional distance when he made the movie to be able to find the humor in it, but watching the movie it’s clear that his past still haunts him, â€Å"It’s an open wound†(1), as Roger Ebert describes it in his review. Spite, resentment, revenge and anger seem to fuel Gallo’s energy; they’re his motivation to create. He is infamous for his public antics, his idiosyncrasy and statements like â€Å"’I stopped painting in 1990 at the peak of my success just to deny people my beautiful paintings. And I did it out of spite.â₠¬â„¢Ã¢â‚¬  A one man army, nobody praises and hypes Gallo more than Gallo himself. He’s never short of bravado and macho, like a kid forever competing with everybody else to be the coolest, most hands-on and authentic. And yet in his art, his stories and songs, we see a fragile man, haunted by his past, broken by the hardships of love. He presents himself that way, his heart perennially broken and sad, looking for revenge or closure. He’s a bitter man, but he is sad in style, of course. His looks and sense of fashion and â€Å"cool† are integral to understanding what he does and where he is coming from. His cult of personality, gigantic ego and vanity inform his work a great deal; it’s his approach, what makes him different. Gallo is an artist that operates as an outsider, but looks like a rock star. He understands that to stand out, to be noticed, an artist has to create his own hype, his own legend; his persona is as much a creation as his work. Which is why he likes to keep people guessing, and building a mystery around him. Provoke people and they’ll pay attention, elaborate on your own past, make things up, and you’ll appear more interesting. Consider the scene in Buffalo ‘66 where Ben Gazzara’s character performs â€Å"Fools Rush In† for Layla (Christina Ricci). The voice we hear is actually an old recording of Vincent Gallo’s father singing the classic song. In 1998, after the release of the movie he told Village Voice journalist Jerry Talmer that he himself had recorded his father, praising his own engineering skills: â€Å"So 10 years ago,† says 36-year-old Vincent, â€Å"I’m drivin g across the country in a car with one hundred of my cassettes, and at the end of the B side of some punk-rock thing there’s this old, dirty, sun-baked tape, and I hear that â€Å"Fools Rush In† and I’m stunned at my father’s talent and my 13-year-old engineering skills. And that’s the inspiration for the whole movie†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (2) In 1992 though, he wrote an article for Sound Practices magazine where he tells a different story: â€Å"I remember my Grandma’s house. It was small and it had a smell, not a good smell or a bad smell just a certain smell. There was no TV, no radio – just this old wind up 78 machine with this big metal horn that had flowers painted on it. Underneath in a shelf, she had 9 records: three by Domenico Modugno- you know, the guy who wrote Volare, four Caruso records, and her two favorites – one by Dean Martin and one by my father singing â€Å"Fools Rush In†. Before my Pops went to prison, he was a nite club singer. He got to record one single.†(3) Wouldn’t he mention the fact that he recorded his father’s single at age 13 on an article for a DIY sound magazine if it was true? And if his grandmother was listening to it on vinyl, clearly it wasn’t a homemade recording. But even if he’s contrived, small minded and petty, he seems to be self aware enough to be able to not only talk about it straight, but to also make art out of it, and if a movie like Buffalo 66 ultimately works is because Gallo can find the humor in his own story and persona. He has to be poking fun at himself and anyone with his outrageous provocations and massive trolling. Just look at his website, where he offers himself for $50,000;(4) or his claims that he’s a republican, and that Bush is a great man. Through his work he can transcend himself and reach out to other people: â€Å"I’m clearly a small-minded person, with my own petty grievances. Hopefully, my work transcends my own petty grievances and small-minded nature. It’s best for me to remain small-minded on an emotional level and broad-minded on a conceptual level. It doesn’t matter whatever it is that makes me do my work. Neurosis, obsession, wanting people to like me, wanting my parents to feel bad for underrating me, making a lot of money, power, and social status, wanting girls to like me or just to meet one girl on a job. All of this doesn’t matter as long as the work that I do to achieve these small-minded needs is a lot more interesting than me and my reasons for making it.†(5) But if the starting point, the initial motivation to do art was revenge, he’s past that, he says: â€Å"One begins one’s adult life trying to conquer the voices and the demons and the hang-ups of one’s childhood emotional life. At a certain point for me, I became actually interested in what I was doing to take this revenge. I became more interested in the activity and the result and the objects I was making out of these motivations so I became more preoccupied with what I was doing than what he was thinking and that happened gradually. At about the age of 30 I was finally more preoccupied with my work than with what my father thought of my work. At this point I have very little interest in proving him wrong, I am more interested in the work.†(6) He is an artist who identifies himself as a working man, a â€Å"hustler†; he doesn’t want to be seen as some delicate poet: â€Å"I don’t identify myself as an artist in that way, like a pre conceived concept of what it means to be an artist. That’s what a bunch of TV actors who finally get a movie job like to think of themselves. I’ve done so many different things. I’ve done a million different things for money. I’ve done a million things to have impact into culture. I’ve done a million things for love and approval and social status. So when I said ‘I hustle’ I was trying to describe the basic premise of what motivates me to do all these different things, and it’s certainly not poetic and anybody who tells you that it is for themselves is full of shit.† â€Å"I’m not a young poet. I’m a working person.†(6) The Buffalo shown in the movie is the one Gallo remembers, the one he describes in interviews. â€Å"It’s miserable. It’s a failed city living in a delusion of grandeur. It’s a regressive unambitious fat ass city with a bunch of real pricks who are controlling things like the newspaper and things like that. Some peop le are very charming there, and I’ve banged a lot of cute girls there, but I would say that it’s an unpleasant place and it certainly has had impact into my personality hang-ups and my personality struggles.†(6) This resentment and unresolved issues with his past are all over the film. Was he looking for closure by making it? Did he find it? One of the central themes of the movie is the relationship the main character Billy Brown has with his parents. They don’t think much of his son, football is more important to his mom than his kid. She regrets having Billy, she lost a game the day she had Billy. According to Gallo, the character of the father (played by Ben Gazzara) is just like his own father.(2) Even though there’s plenty of humor in the scenes involving the parents, it’s evident that Gallo holds a great deal of resentment towards them and his whole upbringing. What is unclear though is the way he resolves it, the way he deals with it. Why would Billy Brown bother going to the lengths of kidnapping a girl and taking her home to his parents to try to impress them, when they couldn’t care less. Nothing in the movie makes much sense if you try to rationalize it, because the story is more about emotions than reason. But that’s what makes it feel urgent and alive, and how the moments of humor and fantasy make sense. We don’t get to know the other, real side of the story. Gallo went back to his hometown to make this movie, shot scenes in his own childhood house and used an old recording of his father singing. How is his relationship with his real parents, what did they think of the movie, what was it like when Gallo came home shoot it, how did that affect their relationship? What about his old neighborhood, old acquaintances, how did that all play out, and how did that ultimately affect Gallo himself? These are all questions we cannot answer, and of course you don’t have to know all the details of an artist’s personal life to understand his oeuvre, but in cases like Gallo, life and art are so intermingled that you’re always aware that you’re only seeing half the picture. He has a problem with people seeing Buffalo ‘66 as an autobiographical movie, for he feels that it takes credit away from all the work he did in it (writer, director, composer, star): â€Å"I feel that when you or anyone else refers to that film as â€Å"autobiographical† what you are really doing is creating a sense or an idea that I didn’t really write the script. It sort of wrote itself. And since I am playing myself, I’m not really acting and since I’m not really acting and the script wrote itself then the film sort of directs itself. Well, it wasn’t autobiographical, it’s a real screenplay and a real performance and a real soundtrack.†(5) He might have a point, but as a viewer it’s very difficult to separate the character of Billy Brown from the persona of Vincent Gallo, especially if you know anything about him. Billy Brown is just like the Vincent Gallo you read in interviews: jumpy, never relaxed, easily offended, perpetually at war with everybody, never hesitates to throw threats and snark, brag about his many talents or dismiss the work of others. Except of course Billy Brown is a pathetic nobody and Vincent Gallo a model and multidisciplinary artist. His movies and art are confessional, but in a very capricious way, we are always reminded that he does things his way. Everybody knows that film auteurs are the ones that do what they want and are stubborn enough to get complete control, it’s just that Vincent Gallo makes really sure you are aware of this at all times. In 2004, around the time his second movie The Brown Bunny was released in America, Gallo told Ebert that he’s an entertainer: â€Å"Film has a purpose. It’s not art. Real art is an esoteric thing done by somebody without purpose in mind. I’ve done that in my life and I’m not doing that making movies. I’m an entertainer. I love all movies. I don’t divide them up into art films, indie films.†(7) But he makes movies for himself. About himself, by himself, for himself. The obvious proof being Promises Written in Water, his third feature. Premiered in 2010 at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, it has not been showed since, and Gallo says he has no plans to release it to the public, so that it is â€Å"allowed to rest in peace, and stored without being exposed to the dark energies from the public.†(8) He was invited to screen it this year at the Whitney Biennial in New York, but he didn’t bother to show up. His movies are made from his very specific point of view, always just his. It’s all about finding sympathy for him the lead. The world revolves around him, everything transformed by his view. His female characters are concepts, fantasies, vague and elusive; we never really get to know who they are. Christina Ricci’s character in Buffalo 66 is more than willing to cooperate with him from the beginning. He doesn’t hold a gun against her, doesn’t need to use much violence (except verbally) to persuade her. By the end of the movie it’s her that’s begging him to return. It’s like Billy Brown is so used to antagonizing with everybody that he doesn’t even know how to deal with someone who actually likes him. A self-professed perfectionist, he wants to control as much as possible in his movies, equaling his directorial app roach to the carefully constructed classic Hollywood musicals: â€Å"When I made the movie, in my mind I was making a classic musical. So when Ben Gazzara sings, or when Christina Ricci does her tap dance, or in the bedroom scene where we kiss, it’s choreography. Those are musical numbers like in those old Hollywood musicals.†(2) He insisted director of photography and camera operator Lance Acord that the film be shot on 35mm reversal stock, a very rare old type of film stock that created many problems during production. Gallo got the idea from an Italian jeans commercial he had previously worked on with Acord. â€Å"The director wanted the spot to look like an old print of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 film Pierrot Le Fou†, recalls Acord, â€Å"With Vincent as the Belmondo character. I chose to shoot with reversal to obtain that faded look you see in older prints, while still maintaining strong saturation in the primaries.†(9) The other key visual references for the look of the film were the NFL Films feature presentation of the 1969 Jets Vs. Colts championship game, and the look of old pictures, according to Acord, â€Å"the kind you might find in a suitcase under a table at the flea market. Some were nudes of someoneâ €™s girlfriend, probably lit with Photofloods and shot on Kodachrome. The girl was reclining on an avocado couch, against a brown curtain and a dull orange rug. There is a sincerity and purity in the crudeness of the technique that somehow makes work like that very revealing and powerful. We tried to bring some of that to the movie.† As for the NFL movie, apparently Gallo was taken by his father as a kid to see its production. It was shot on high-contrast reversal Video News film, and made a strong impression on Gallo. (9) The visual components of the film include the use of the picture-in-picture technique, which consists of a small window of footage superimposed over a larger window at the same time(11) (in the beginning of the movie, after Billy is released from prison, he lays on a bench in the street while the screen fills with small windows with different scenes that show us his time in prison, and later on as he sits on the table with his parents, complimentary windows appear a couple of times to show us painful moments from Billy’s childhood); the use of Japanese filmmaker Yazujiro Ozu’s â€Å"Tatami shots† (Christina Ricci’s car plates read â€Å"OZU†(12)), in which the camera is placed at a low height, at the eye level of a person kneeling on a tatami mat, so that the audience is on the same visual level as the characters sitting, to place the viewer right into whatever conversation is going on(11) (the dinner sequence with Billy, his parents and Christina Ricci sitting at the table); and the striking 3D-like virtual pan in the moment where Billy enters the strip club and imagines killing the owner and then turning the gun on himself. Lance Acord got the idea from French director Michel Gondry, who had employed a technique where â€Å"A circular still-camera array was simultaneously triggered, â€Å"freezing† the subject from multiple angles. The resulting frames were then sequentially morphed and animated to create a virtual pan and 3-D effect†. Instead of using still cameras, Accord used a movie camera to produce the stills, moving the camera around the actors as they stood still holding their positions. Blown-glass pieces resembling splashing red liquid where attached to Gallo’s head so that they resembled blood coming out of his head to help achieve the effect of a moment frozen in time.(9) Somewhere between John Cassavetes (or that school of 60s-70s American realism) and art films, Buffalo ‘66 can feel overcrowded with visual motifs and ideas, at times style overcoming substance, but the overall mood and tone of the film are well maintained. The emotions and the urgency of Billy Brown’s character (and Gallo’s performance) feel real enough to go beyond the pose. He even has enough perspective to be able to laugh at himself. Roger Ebert argues that the movie doesn’t offer a payoff, a real resolution. â€Å"Buffalo ‘66 isn’t really about endings, anyway. Endings are about conclusions and statements, and Gallo is obviously too much in turmoil about this material to organize it into a payoff.†(1) But the movie actually ends on a positive note; he’s opting to be optimistic, embracing the possibility of love. After envisioning a fatal ending to his story, he backs out and chooses a happy ending, and that is a resolution. Bibliography 1) Ebert, Roger. â€Å"Buffalo ‘66†. Review. Chicago Sun-Times (Chicago) 7 Aug. 1998. Print/ Online. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980807/REVIEWS/80807 0302/1023 2) Tallmer, Jerry. â€Å"Vincent Gallo and Buffalo ’66†. Interview with Vincent Gallo. New York City 1998. Online. http://www.siegelproductions.ca/filmfanatics/gallo.htm. 3) Gallo, Vincent. â€Å"Mono Mia†. Article. Sound Practices Magazine. Summer 1992. Print/Online. http://www.drowninginbrown.com/dib_sp.htm 4) Vincent Gallo’s website. http://www.vgmerchandise.com/store/home.php 5) Kaufman, Anthony. Vincent Gallo. Interview. Soma Magazine. November 2001. Print/ Online. http://www.vincentgallo.com/writing/AnthonyKaufman.html 6) Taylor, Lee. â€Å"The Cover Star: An Interview with Vincent Gallo†. Flux Magazine. UK, No.9, Oct/Nov 1998 Print/Online. http://www.galloappreciation.com/print/flux.html 7) Ebert, Roger. â€Å"The whole truth from Vincent Gallour†. Chicago Sun-Times (Chicago). August 29,2004. Print/ Online. http://www.galloappreciation.com/index2 .html 8) Lim, Dennis. â€Å"R.I.P. ‘Promises,’ It Was Nice Knowing You†. New York Times (New York Edition) June 8, 2012. Print/ Online. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/movies/vincent-gallo-keeps-promises-written-inwater-off-screens.html 9) Oppenheimer, Jean. â€Å"Playing a Risky Stock on Buffalo 66†. American Cinematographer. July 1998, Vol. 79 Issue 7, p32. Print/Online database Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson) 10) Video Glossary. Online. http://www.video-editing-made-easy.com/video-glossary-p.html 11) Criterion. â€Å"The Ozu Shot: Tokyo-ga and Late Spring† Criterion film essay. Online. http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2257-the-ozu-shot-tokyo-ga-and-late-spring 12) Internet Movie Data Base. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118789/trivia

Not The Bern An Inspirational Slogan Essay - 860 Words

â€Å"Feel the Bern† – an inspirational slogan that resonates as the presidential race approaches its zenith, and as the rhetorical Bernie sanders, the crafty Hilary Clinton, and the booming Donald Trump lay their values, visions, and views on the table, they pray that they will win over the American people. One of those views, held prominently by Mr. Sanders, lies in the proposition of eradicating college tuition. Published in The Washington Post, â€Å"Make College Free for All† outlines the position of Sanders: â€Å"Education is essential for personal and national well-being†¦hundreds of thousands of bright young people cannot afford to go to college while millions more leave school deeply in debt. It is time to build on the progressive movement of the past and make public colleges and universities tuition-free in the United States — a development that will be the driver of a new era of American prosperity†¦we will have a stronger economy an d a stronger democracy when all young people with the ambition and the talent can reach their full potential, regardless of their circumstances at birth.† Individuals in the U.S., in light of the outrageous amount of resources available, ought to fund their own education. America would undoubtedly â€Å"feel the Bern† if Mr. Sanders’ socialistic views reach execution, given that once a government funds anything, it ultimately controls it. Sanders’ initial premise indicates that â€Å"[college] education is essential for personal and national well-being.†