Doctor Zhivago - Jake Lyon

Title/Year: Doctor Zhivago, 1965
Director/DOB: David Lean, U.K., 1908
Budget: $11,000,000
Gross: $111,721,910
Synopsis: Yuri Zhivago is eight years old when his mother dies. He is adopted and raised by an upper-middle class family. Later in life he becomes a doctor and an accomplished poet with a compassion for his fellow man. In the midst of political struggle, he uses his skills to try and help people, but is turned away by the government. Yuri is engaged to his childhood sweet heart Tonya, when he meets Lara. Yuri and Lara work in a hospital together during the war. They are obviously attracted to each other but suppress their desire. After the war, Yuri returns to his family in Moscow. The Bolshevik revolution has begun and the people are poor. When Yuri decided to steal fire wood, he encounters a police officer who turns out to be his long lost half-brother Yevgraf. Yevgraf helps Yuri and his family escape Moscow to their estate at Varykino. As Yuri builds a life in Varykino he again encounters Lara. This time they cannot control themselves and have an affair. One day after a year of living in Varykino, Yuri is kidnapped and drafted into a Red Guard Unit as their medical officer. Eventually he escapes making his way back to Varykino to find that his family has left for Moscow. Starving and injured, he makes his way to Lara's house and stays with her. The government is closing in on the town and they must flee. They make arrangements to travel to Manchuria but Yuri does not make the train thus separating the two once again. Lara is pregnant. Yuri is found again by his long lost half-brother Yevgraf eight years later. He then dies of a heart attack. Lara and Yevgraf reconnect at Yuri's memorial, they then go on to look for Lara's lost daughter Tonya. Lara then disappears.
Key Words: Love, revolution, Bolshevik, Russia, World War One, scandal, separation
Character Arc: Yuri Zhivago just can't catch a break. We see his entire life and feel the struggle that he goes through. Although an educated man, it seems that no one is powerful enough to escape a social/political climate with disaster written all over it. Yuri maintains a positive attitude though. His main goal is to protect his family. When he decides to have an affair with Lara, his true love, he feels guilty. His character makes us feel what it must have been like to live in the times of the Bolshevik revolution, add all the romantic drama on top of that, and you've got Doctor Zhivago.
Social/Political Commentary: Doctor Zhivago takes to a time and place where common things like food, running water, and heat are scarce. We see a society in crisis where people who once were considered upper-middle class struggle to feed themselves let alone their families. Survival in these conditions depends on clear thinking, experience, anticipating, and adapting. To look after a family in a region where the political landscape changes every five minutes is quite a challenge. This is still the case in many parts of the world today. The film takes a common human condition; love, and applies it to a time of social and political uncertainty, creating a very dynamic piece of drama.

Three Kings-Benjamin Hilton

Title/Year: Three Kings/1999

Director/Birth Country/Year Born: David O. Russell, USA, 1958

Budget: $48 million

Gross: $60.6 million

Synopsis: A group of American soldiers at the end of the Gulf War go on a search for Kuwait gold that was stolen by Saddam Hussein. Along the way their plans are changed when they find Iraqi prisoners and are unable to do anything because of the signed peace treaty.

Narrative and Visual Keywords: Gulf War, ass map, map, stolen gold, gold, president Bush, cease-fire, prisoners, mines, bunker, rescue plan, death, bullet, C4, Saddam Hussein, torture, oil, electricity, handheld camera

Characterization/ Dialogue: We are introduced to the main characters by a quick narration. Each character's name and a brief relative fact is given about them. This gives us an easy and quick view into the main characters and makes it easier for us to understand their goals.

Camera/lighting/editing technique: Handheld camera was a common technique used in this film. It is prominent in the beginning of the film when the camera feels like the POV of another soldier; moving back and forth between two soldiers talking to each other. The shots give the film the feeling as though someone was actually filming in real time.

Political/ Social Commentary: The film incorporates tones of anti-politics. The tones are not so much how horrible politics are or how horrible war is, but how unfair it can be. The main conflict involving politics is abiding by the rules the politics put in place, the cease-fire.

Historical Relevance/ Recognition: The movie is based at the end of the Gulf War. The film makes numerous mentions to political tensions at that time.

Notable Collaboration: There are many well known actors in this film. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cubes, and Spike Jones to name a few.

Random fact, Etc.: Sayed Moustafa Al-Qazwini, who plays an Iraqi defector who sells Maj. Gates cars stolen from Kuwait, was in real life tortured and kicked in the eye by Saddam Hussein's security forces. Like many advisers and extras in the film, he is an actual refugee from Iraq. 

Examples of P.O.V., Identity, Morality & Memory:

POV:

At the beginning of the film the perspective is from a group of screwball soldiers who see a get rich quick scheme in the form of the cease-fire recently signed by their government. However, the perspective changes when these soldiers are forced to make a choice between their wants and their ideals. The POV is not of just one person, but a group of 4.

Identity: 

Morality:
The morality of this film is centralized around the idea of the cost of a human life. The main characters are Army soldiers trained to survive and to protect others. These soldiers are forced to make the decision of whether or not to ignore this basic instinct within them, or to do what may not be politically right, but what is morally right. When they kill the Iraqi soldiers and take the rebel hostages with them to safety they make the choice to side with their moral views. But even after, these morals are constantly challenged when one of them is captured, and they face the challenge of getting the rebel hostages across the Iranian border.
Memory:
No real scenes of memory are present in Three Kings.
<www.IMDB.com>

Das Boot - Jake Lyon

Title/Year: Das Boot, 1981
Director/DOB: Wolfgang Petersen, Germany, 1941
Budget: $14,000,000
Gross: $73,482,661
Synopsis: The film opens with a title saying "40,000 men were sent out on German U-boats, 30,000 never returned" It is 1941 and the Nazi fleet has taken a beating. Over the past couple years the British fleet has become increasingly keen at hunting U-boats and now a the crew of U-96 must continue the Nazi naval campaign of ambushing allied supply convoys accompanied by the U.S. and British navy. Capt. Lt. Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock is introduced as a drunken disgruntled sailor, fed up with Nazi party ideology. As their mission proceeds, they sit and wait, but opportunities to sink convoys pass them bye. Finally they receive a mission to sink a convoy and take it without hesitation. They ambush an oil tanker and torpedo it, but are then ambushed themselves by a british destroyer. With lots of damage to the sub, they dive passed the sub's limits, increasing the damage and injuring the crew. They repair the sub, and miraculously rise to the surfaces hours after the destroyer has left. When they reach the surface they survey the damaged oil tanker and hit it with another torpedo for good measure. As the tanker sinks, survivors swim up to the U-boat begging for rescue. They crew denies them in violation of maritime law with hesitance. They then proceed to a friendly port to resupply, repair, and accept a suicide mission. With no other options, the capt. leads the sub into the straight of Gibraltar in an attempt to dive under the british fleet and reach the Mediterranean. They encounter fierce resistance from the British fleet and are badly damaged, sinking again past the subs limits. They again repair and surface passing the fleet and reaching the Mediterranean. Upon their arrival they are hailed as heros with a big celebration. Spirits are high, then, an allied airstrike kills them all, the end.
Key Words: Nazi Party, maritime, naval fleet, u-boats, the war in the atlantic
Political/Social Commentary: The film takes a human perspective, portraying the older officers as disgruntled and sick of bureaucracy. We see the Capt question Nazi ideology when drunk, making a speech at the opening ball. The young officers are clearly buying into the Nazi propaganda, but are still portrayed as human, thinking twice and showing signs of guilt when they're forced to turn away survivors of the crippled oil tanker. In the film we see the leaders constantly questioning their leaders, the Nazi Party. The reporter, who is eager to use their situation to generate propaganda, eventually becomes disgruntled himself and loses the will to document. The crew forms a bond that is more important than the goals of the Nazi party, in the end, it's about survival.
Character Arc: Through out the film, the Capt. carries the same ideology. He disagrees with the Nazi's but does his job for his crew. The rest of the crew experiences a metamorphoses. As morale is depleted, they begin to question their leaders and the strength and intelligence of Nazi party officials.

The Thin Red Line - Jake Lyon

Title/Year: The Thin Red Line, 1998
Director/DOB: Terrence Malick, USA, 1943
Budget: $52,000,000
Gross: $81,000,000
Synopsis: A young, AWOL, soldier is found living in a village with a tribe of pacific islanders and is returned to combat. His unit is sent to Guadalcanal to relieve the marines. Through out the battle, their numbers shrink and their personal bonds grow. By the end of the film the horrors of war have taken their toll on the men, leaving nothing but the pure will to survive.
Key Words: Soldier, Guadalcanal, Japanese, War in the Pacific
Character Arc: Although many characters are depicted through out the film, Private Witt (Jim Caviezel) remains in the spotlight. He is a deserter, living with native tribes in the pacific, he appears un-soldier like in the beginning. As he is caught and returned to combat, his survival reflexes kick into high gear. Through out the film he is portrayed as a free spirit among killers, someone who understands the complexities and contradictions of war, but who is caught in its grasp and must survive no matter what.
Social/Political Commentary: The film focuses on the soldiers point of view and tends to leave politics aside. It does however portray the bureaucracy of chain of command. When a general orders the troops to advance, an Lt. disobeys the command claiming it to be a suicide order. The Lt. is then relieved of his command and replaced with a more aggressive officer.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by Christiane Butler

Title/Year: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas/2008Director/Birth Country/Year Born: Mark Herman/English/1954Budget: 12.5 MillionGross: Approximately 40.5 MillionSynopsis: The son of a high ranking German Nazi soldier and his family move so that the father can command a concentration camp. The son doesn't understand the war and befriends a Jewish boy from the camp.

I believe that the director’s purpose was to show the argument amongst Germans regarding WWII. Most commonly we see it painted that all Germans were for the war and hated Jews, but this film shows that some disagreed, and some didn’t understand the war at all. The film portrays the family of a high ranking German officer, Ralf, and the struggle they go through while he commands a concentration camp (Assumed to be Auschwitz). The mother, Elsa, disagrees with what is going on, the daughter, Gretel, becomes infatuated with a soldier under her father’s command and begins to obsess over Hitler in support of the war, and the son, Bruno, doesn’t understand why the war is happening in the first place. He is told that the Jews are evil people who have destroyed Germany, but the Jewish people in his life, the nanny/maid, garden hand, and boy from the camp, Shmuel, who he befriends, all appear to be nice people. The way the film ends seems to be a sort of punishment for Ralf.

The effects of the film all seem very natural and don’t distract, but they help to pull you into the film as a reality. The dialogue seems to be mostly natural for the time period though slow moving at times. The musical score sometimes gets a little loud and over dramatic to match the feel and story, which becomes distracting because it is so startling.

I feel like the acting seemed fairly believable, Ralf has a relentless drive to do his duty, and Elsa is convincingly angry and distraught at the situation. Bruno seems realistically bored with the empty house and convincingly confused about the whole situation with the Jews.

The film does a fabulous job showing the inner struggle of a German family during the war, with the arguments between the parents and the complete confusion of Bruno. He sees only nice things coming from the Jewish people he meets and only mean acts from the German soldiers towards them, for no reason at all. At one point he is swinging and falls off, the Jewish Gardner/kitchen hand carries him inside & bandages his him up, admitting to having previously been a doctor. Later when the man accidentally spills wine at a supper a Nazi soldier drags him into the other room and Bruno hears him be beat to death. Not only does this confuse Bruno, but Elsa doesn’t approve of it, which leads her to argue with Ralf, ending in them deciding to move the children away.

We start this first clip the morning after the Jewish doctor was beaten (By the Nazi soldier we see in the clip), and the boy that Bruno has befriended, Shmuel, has been sent to the home to work. It starts with a small recap of various things Bruno has been told about the Jews.

Youtube 54:55-57:55 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8ygCnILBCo)

In this second clip we start after it has been decided that Bruno and his sister are to leave. Bruno has snuck off to say goodbye to Shmuel. Shmuel reveals that his father is missing and as an apology for betraying him previously, Bruno agrees to help him search for his father. He digs a hole under the fence, dresses in the striped uniform, and once they begin their search, Bruno’s parents realize he is missing and go searching for him.

Youtube 1:20:00-1:25:00

I enjoyed the film in that I thought it was believable, I got into it, I was rooting for Bruno. Though I know the outcome couldn’t be good I wanted Shmuel to find his father and escape. I think it was very well put together and tells a story of WWII that to my knowledge hasn’t been shown before.

Platoon - Jake Lyon

Title/Year: Platoon, 1986

Director/Birth Country/Year Born: Oliver Stone, USA, 1946

Budget: $6,000,000 (estimated)

Gross: $137,963,328

Synopsis: Chris is a fresh infantry recruit thrown into the Vietnam jungle with a platoon. When one of the sergeants murders an innocent civilian, the platoon becomes divided into two sides. Through the stress of combat, Chris becomes a hard soldier.

Narrative/Visual keywords: War, combat, battle-stress, murder, death, companionship, camaraderie, chain of command.

Main Character Arc: Chris volunteers for military service out of ignorance and pride during a time of major dissent in the public. He goes to Vietnam expecting to fight for freedom and defend democracy. Instead, he finds himself awash in utter hell. As his service continues, he goes through stages of fear, frustration, anger, hatred, and finds within himself the ability to take human life. He becomes a killer. Through this transformation we see the destruction of the boy he once was, and the birth of a soldier.

Political/Social Commentary: Platoon questions authority on all levels, from the chain of command to the mission of the Vietnam war itself. Watching a platoon fight it's own internal civil war, while fighting the Vietnam war shows the connections in the cycle of violence that becomes everyday life in war time.

Camera/Lighting Techniques: Many pyrotechniques, dark jungle scenes with steady camera movement.

A Few Good Men - Jake Lyon

Title/Year: A Few Good Men, 1992
Director/Country/DOB: Rob Reiner, USA, 1947
Budget: $40,000,000
Gross: $237,300,000
Synopsis: A hot-shot navy lawyer in Washington D.C. is assigned to defend two marines from Guantanamo Bay accused of murder. The marines contest that they were following orders from their commanding officers. Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is a young, talented, fast talking, quick thinking officer with a reputation in the military law community for settling quickly and never having to fight a prosecution. His father, who passed away quite some time ago, was known in washington as the best lawyer in the military. This puts pressure on Kaffee to live up to his father's expectations.

Assigned to the case along side Kaffee is Lt. Cdr. Joanne Galloway (Demi Moore), a young, passionate, female officer. After a rough introduction the two travel to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to investigate the crime and interview personel, including the commanding officer Col. Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson). After numerous inquiries and the same answers over and over, the case appears to be a dead end, yet the two marines still contest their charges claiming that they were following orders.

A break comes when Lt. Col. Markinson (J.T. Walsh) confesses to Kaffee that the order for a "code red" was given by Col. Jessup, the highest authority at Guantanamo. Kaffee's optimism is crushed when Markinson takes his own life before taking the stand. He left no option but to put Col. Jessup on the stand, drawing a confession out through aggravation tactics, an extremely risky, career ending move for Kaffee. Going out on his last limb, he calls on Jessup. After an intense bout, Jessup is infuriated to the point of losing control. He screams he ordered the code red, and would do it again. The marines are found not guilty of the murder charges, but guilty of conduct on becoming a marine, and face a dishonorable discharge.

Keywords: Honor, courage, truth, justice.

Character Arc: Although Kaffee is known as an already accomplished lawyer, he still has little experience in a court room, having closed most of his cases with a deal before prosecution, and riding on the reputation of his father, he still has to prove himself as a remarkable lawyer. The deeper the case goes, the more his passion for arguing for the truth grows. By the end, he has fought against the odds and risked his privileged career to defend the truth.

Political/Social Commentary: The film brings the internal practices of the U.S. military under the glass for examination. The murder in question was caused by a "code red" being executed on a marine as punishment for his physical short comings and an attempt to circumvent authority by ratting on a fellow soldier for misconduct. The film goes on to make an example of the chain of command by questioning authority. This results in the famous line "you can't handle the truth", implying that the powerful officers of the military consider themselves above the law.