i have blogger's block...

which is unfortunate, considering i have about an hour before the deadline.

Let's see...

I guess I'll write about the Film Festival--get my bonus points...

In the first film, Still Roommates, I noticed a few things that I would have missed, had I not taken this class. First of all, I noticed the use of the 180 degree plane in the dialogue between the two actors. The filmmaker also made good use of close up shots to emphasize the characters' feelings of disappointment, frustration, etc.

The film She is Sister also made use of close up shots. I think these shots had a different effect than the close ups in Still Roommates. Instead of revealing the emotion of the character, I think the close ups of Sister evoked emotion from the viewer. I'm not sure why, or what the difference was... hmm.

Also, on a more personal note, I noticed that I found more enjoyment in the films that were purely entertaining than I did in the ones that were trying to communicate some deeper message. I think that's partially due to a misconception I have that movies=entertainment. I don't explicitly believe this, but I think it is an underlying expectation that I have. When I sit down to watch a movie, I expect to enjoy it--not to be challenged by it. Not that I can't enjoy something AND be challenged by it. I don't know... I just found myself wondering if the films I liked more were actually better, or if they were just more entertaining. And of course, an important aspect of any film is that it captures the attention of the viewer. So maybe the films that I didn't enjoy as much were lacking in some way artistically, despite their good message?

wow. Did that make any sense? I'll stop rambling now.

One of the biggest things I've learned as a result of this course is that everything is so much more complex than I even realize!

The Holiday

The book Eyes Wide Open challenges us to respond as Christians to the popular art that forms our society. Last night, I watched the movie The Holiday. I thought it might be good to share my thoughts on this particular movie, as a Christian...

I'm really becoming a sucker for chick-flicks and sappy love stories. I used to watch and roll my eyes. Now I ooh and awe and giggle and cry (well, not quite!) like the girly-girl I am. It's disgusting. Anyways...

...that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It was great--two feel-good love stories for the pirce of one! But--one of the things that bothered me was that one relationship started with friendship, the other one started with sex (literally--they knew each other for about 5 minutes first), and they all lived happily ever after regardless. God created sex for marriage, so it seems to me that there would be consequences when it's taken outside of the way it was created. While this movie makes their relationship look close to perfect, in the light of the way God wants us to live, I can see that this is not an honest picture of life.

Now, I'm NOT saying that they should change the storyline of the movie, or that Christians shouldn't watch this movie. That attitude is what Bill Romanowski is criticizing.

As a Christian, what I can take from this movie is the understanding that our culture views sex as a natural and acceptable part of any relationship, and that it expects people to act like they're married without actually getting married. This can point me to look at the bigger issues of our culture's idea of the value of marriage in general, the rising divorce rate, and the need that everyone has for love. Instead of watching a movie and saying, "That's bad--how can they do that?" I should try to understand the characters and see what their lives can tell me about the world I live in--the one I'm trying to be in and not of and point to Jesus all at the same time.

Contibuting to the Conversation

"We need to look as Christians at the stories that contemporary culture is telling by learning how to discern and evaluate perspectives in these representations of life in God's world. And as Christians we also need to create popular art that shows what it means to live everyday life in God's world, while others consume and eavesdrop on our contribution to the cultural conversation."
-Bill Romanowski, Eyes Wide Open, page 19

This quote presents a wonderful picture of how we're supposed to interact with the world around us. I love the idea of culture as a conversation. I think Christians can sometimes be like those people who butt into conversations with something totally irrelevant and off-the-wall. No one likes that! Especially when you're talking about something that's important to you.

We shouldn't be interrupting the "conversation" with nice, Christian-sounding cliches. We need to be contributing to the "conversation" with words that are meaningful and relevant to the world around us.

The only way to truly engage in a conversation is to listen first. That's why it's so important for us to pay attention to "the stories that contemporary culture is telling us." These stories are "representations of life in God's world." They may not show things the way God intended them to be, but the people who are telling the stories are telling them for a reason, and we need to listen. Then after we listen, we need to reply with our side of the story--not in a way that is condescending, but in a way that is honest and real.

Stars

I had forgotten that the constellations had stories behind them...

Cassiopeia, the Queen, is visible in the Northern Hemisphere all year long. Cassiopeia is bound to her chair and forever circles the pole with her head downward. A fitting punishment by the Nereids (Sea Nymphys) for her boast of being more beautiful than all the Nereids. Cassiopeia was the wife of Cepheus and mother of Andromeda.

and some of them are pretty elaborate and dramatic...

Perseus, the Rescuer of Andromeda, can be seen in late summer and autumn in the Northern Hemisphere.
His quest was to bring back the head of Medusa, not knowing her whereabouts he went to the three sisters of Polydectes, who were blind and shared a glass eye. They refused to help him until he stole the eye and would not return it until they told him where to find Medusa. Using a shield given to him by Minerva, he avoided looking directly at Medusa and beheaded her. Pegasus sprang out of the Medusa's blood and he rode him back to Artos, where he found Andromeda chained to the rocks as a sacrifice to Cetus, using the Gorgons head, Cetus turned to stone. Perseus and Andromeda fell in love, both were placed among the stars.

and touching...awe...

Coma Berenices, Bernice's Hair, is visible in the northern hemisphere in spring and summer and may be found between Virgo and Ursa Major.
Bernice's Hair, is the hair of Queen Berenice of Egypt, which became a constellation around 230 B.C.E. When her husband (and brother) Ptolemy Euergetes went off to war, she offered her hair as a sacrifice to the gods, if they would grant him a safe return. He did and she cut off her hair and placed it on the Altar in the temple of Venus. The locks were stolen and placed among the stars, some say Venus herself was the thief, while other think it was just an astronomer named Conon, who made up the whole story in order to comfort Berenice when she heard of the theft. Some other versions of the story said that the hair was turned into a hair-star, or comet.

and there were villians...

Scorpius the Scorpion, can be seen in summer from the Northern Hemisphere, but is best seen from the Southern Hemisphere or southern US. Scorpius is the slayer of Orion. Sent by a jealous Artemis, Orion was stung by the Scorpion and caused his death. Orion could not be saved even by Asclepius, the god of healing.
Scorpius was also responsible for the runaway horses of Phoebus Apollo when Phaethon tried to drive the Chariot of the Sun, he caused great havoc as he careened around the skies, drying up rivers and scorching the earth.

Society hasn't changed all that much... we still relate to each other through stories...we the only things that have changed are the meduims through which we tell those stories.

Content Creators

According to a study done by Amanda Lenhart and Mary Madden of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 57% of all online teens are "Content Creators." They say this percentage translates into 12 million teens who share their own personal artwork, photos, stories, music, or videos online, or who have made a webpage for someone else.

This statistic is not at all surprising to me--especially because even creating a blog counts as content creation--and i think i have three! New technologies make it so easy to create personal webpages, to share pictures, to "publish" poems, to post videos...and the list goes on.

I'm trying to figure out how this "low culture" expression is actually a threat to "high culture." If the Internet is opening up areas of self-expression that are more accessible to the common person, isn't that a good thing? I suppose this could be eroding standards of what is "good" art or "good" music...but is that really the case? Last weekend, I had the opportunity to visit the Chicago Institute of Art. One of the pieces of "art" on display was a large, red-orange, 3-D rectangle propped vertically against the wall. With all due respect to the artist, if that can be considered art, what else can? We also saw a couple canvases with scribbles, stick figures, and doodles all over them--on display in a very "high culture" art museum! I don't understand how we decide what's "good" and what's not. Who makes the decision? What do they base it on? And how is the rise of self-expression on the Internet a problem for anyone?

If any of you have some answers/thoughts, please leave me some comments :0)