Goose father

Most essential visual moments:

·      Setting: Apartment-balcony, Karaoke

·      Main theme: His loneliness, missing his family after 6 months and needed contact

·      Color scheme – cool greys and blue where the boy would have a cool palate

·      Protagonist: Gilho

·      Ages would be changed to 25 and 35

·      Scenes:

o   Need to establish that he has a family and that he is sending money to them / show his loneliness

o   The arrival of the boy – sitting on the door matt

o   He hates the goose – the boy never mentioned a goose

o   6 the next morning - boy made breakfast (uncomfortable to see a man preforming a woman’s role) – talks about his poetry

o   Walks in on the boy talking to the goose, tells him that the goose is his mom reincarnated – shows the difference in their thoughts

o   Montage – of the boy clinging to him, sponge on his feet saying poems

o   The boy felt emotional after watching a whale documentary, he took him to karaoke to cheer him up

o   Talking to wife about how weird the boy is, wife says to get a new one

o   Karaoke scene – the boy tried to kiss him, slaps the boy, boy disappears

o   He worries about the boy, telling the police

o   Goes to get a green card, man said he was so lucky, but he didn’t feel like it

o   Walking through the slums, comes across 2 prostitutes, he touched her breast but her hip kept appearing like a boys and in her eyes he say the boy – had a revelation

o   Goes to the Bar – talks about how horrid kids are these days, but they envy them

o   He returned with Taeyeong, both drunk from the bar

o   The boy is home – the snow begins to fall, there is a glow in the room

o   Taeyeong tried to pluck a feather from the goose

o   Gilho thought about killing the goose, choking it, but he didn’t – he compares himself to the goose

o   Then the goose mom scene – He asked the goose for forgiveness, he sees the goose as the boy’s mom – he sees life through the eyes of the boy

§  He saw the silhouette of a woman before he walked out on the balcony – but then when he goes out on the balcony it just the goose

§  Everything has a glow, there’s a full moon, everything has a warm glow, which contrasts the cool scheme the movie had before

o   Gilho says his final lines to the boy/ “I’ve been lonely, I’ve been lonely all my life”

The Grand Budapest / 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman

The Dew Breaker

How are our characters connected to the world?

The Dew Breaker is a novel published in 2004 by Edwidge Danticat. This book has a collection of 9 short stories that has no connection superficially. Characters from each stories had pain directly from the dew breaker. The dew breaker character is a barber in America.  Before he moved into America, he worked for Haitian government helping dictate and torture people. He is important man in the Haitian community like a leader in America. He is a respected leader helping people well settled.  But he was the person murdered their parents, daughter and son. In Bridal Seamstress, The father who is the dew breaker wanted to rape her, she said no, he whipped bottom of her feet and made her walk long trip with bloody bare feet. In the funeral singer, the woman who sings at the funeral whose husband he killed. By telling individual chapters different stories we see how crossed over and interrelated the crimes people, places are. We learn more about the father.

Author didn’t judge character.  The dew breaker is in both their life in Haiti and America. He is the reason why they couldn’t live and could live. Even though he did not reveal himself to them and say that he was the dew breaker, he pays off and repents what he has done in his country by his own way.

Story of An Hour

The story is about a woman having heart disease whose life is dominated by her husband. One day, the railroad disaster happened. People thought her husband was on the list of killed and they told her hesitating since they were worried the case her heart attack happening by getting shock. However, her reaction was dull. Later after she realizes her husband is alive by looking at him came back to home, she gets heart attack.

This story has some points to discuss; economically, politically, socially and psychologically of patriarchy. Economically, her husband had all the power. He worked and controlled money. Women had no jobs; she just stayed home and did household things. She was relying on her husband entirely. If her husband dies, it means money dies and she looses everything. Politically, She used to getting controlled by her husband. Death of husband is birth of her independence of herself. Reading the story, I found one thing interesting. In the book, main character’s sister who called as Josephine told her that her husband died by accident. In reality, Josephine Henry who was a major activist in the fight for women’s equality made the Married Woman’s Property Act in 1894 when this story published. I think this is meaningful. Socially, the main character is protected from stress. Even heart issues, everything about her shows her as frail, weak and breakable. Psychologically, her emotion has been changed from sad and dominated with no freedom to happy and self-controlled.  Her life is getting freedom back. People think the reason of her death is that she got heart attack cause she was so happy to see him which is not true. The fact is that she died because she was sad to see him.

Wonder Woman

There are several categories when I can talk about hero; physical such as age and race, talent, history, abilities, strengths and weakness.  Also how they solve their problem is important. I am not huge fan of hero genre and I’ve never though about designing my own hero character. I would rather have brilliant problem solver than physically fighting hero.  My hero is young female who likes reading books. She was famous as spelling bee when she was young. She can spell all the words.  She understood physics when she was 7. She has no limitation of brain capacity. She also has one special talent that other people never have. She can listen people inner voice. She can read people’s thought. She is going to solve the things using her intellectual power. 

True Grit

’True Grit' is a novel written by Charles Portis in 1968. It is about a fourteen year old girl named Mattie Ross who avenges her father’s murder. Mattie’s father is killed by Tom Chaney, while on his way to buy some horses. After killing him, Chaney escaped by running onto Indian territory. Mattie meets Marshal Reuben Coburn and a Texas Ranger called LaBoeuf who are also looking for Chaney. They join together and long story short, they find Chaney. Mattie shoots Chaney in the chest and kills him. After her successful revenge, she is bitten by a snake which results in the loss of her arm.

This book was quite interesting because I was able to learn about several new things, such as American Western culture and cowboys. I noticed some words/terms I am unfamiliar with, such as ‘bunk-house’, ‘marshal’, ‘Henry rifle’ and ‘bottom land’. On the story side, it was interesting (find a better word for this, you’ve used it already) to read about this 14 year old girl who walked 75 miles to avenge her father’s death.  I think the title suggests Mattie’s persistence and her actions reveal the meaning of ‘True Grit’. Mattie never gave up and stayed true to her ethics and moral ideas. She was successful in her execution of her revenge, but in return, she lost her arm. Mattie’s fate reminds me of a quote from the book: “You must pay for everything in this world one way or another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.”

I think the author found it appropriate to use a young female to tell the story. In respect of understanding the Mythology of the text, I read an article on our course blog about ‘The Child Savior Myth’, where people identify the image of youth as innocent and incapable of dishonesty. In ’True Grit’, Mattie exemplifies this myth; to the common man, she did not look like a child on a murder mission. In ‘The American Eve Myth’, females use their own beauty as their attribute. However, in ‘True Grit’, Mattie has characteristics such as intelligence and bravery that are not generally talked about in the ‘American Eve Myth’.  I think this what makes ‘True Grit’ interesting in a Mythology perspective.