Brian O'Connor--Movie Clips

Clip #1—Bunny
This short clip showed an elderly bunny in the kitchen baking something. There is also a moth rattling around the light in the kitchen and then the light outside when the bunny puts it out there. The constant fluttering through the film made me experience the sense of annoyance just like the bunny. The lack of light through the film, being nighttime, could have showed a possible end. With the bunny being old, shaking, and moving slowly, this could also back the idea of an end. The bunny eventually let the annoyance from the moth show when it beat it into the oven and turned it to bake. Just like how the moth did through the film, the bunny did the same when opening the oven and experiencing the celestial light. The oven acted as a portal between the two worlds. I thought it was interesting that the moth portrayed the angel of death and the escort for the bunny. It was something so ordinary in everyday life that you wouldn’t think about it.
Clip #2—Northfork
This movie was easy to follow because we had watched it in a previous class. The first scene was of the 3 cars going separate ways on the cross in the road. This showed the division of people on the crossroads of life. The next scene was an interesting portrayal of the power of man. The front of the picture had bison in a pen, all rather stationary and not doing much at all. The boy, in the field outside the pen, was running carrying a suitcase/trunk. It showed his freedom and man’s dominance. The third scene was a nature shot with a car with a coffin on top of it. The nature part of the film is beautiful and the car inserted into the middle of the picture just seems out of place. It followed the film because the people were being asked to move through the whole film.
Clip #3—Paris, Texas
This movie was all about communication. In each of the pictures shown, there was a form of communication whether it be the roads/freeways, the power lines, cars, or the airport. I thought that the movie was interesting the way it opened with Travis standing there in a suit and tie with a ball cap. And then being covered in dust you knew he wasn’t in a good place. When he gets out of the desert and is walking by the power lines, you feel better for him because the environment is better and less harsh with all the greenery around. When Travis’ brother Walt shows up, the close ups with the mountains behind each brother also gives you a picture as to what each is like. The mountain behind Walt is strong looking and normal. The one behind Travis is rugged and unsure terrain. Through the parts of the film that we see we think Travis is crazy because he doesn’t really speak and he is just walking. We got a bit of humor when he walks by the guy ranting from the overpass and just stares at him like he is crazy. The whole time it seems like Travis is trying to find something that is missing in himself and he finds it when he comes in contact with his lost wife.
Clip #4—The Wall
This movie confused me! It was all sorts of images tying together and changing into other ones. All the images were focused around or turned their focus to a wall that was dividing things. One image was where the wall was being made up of car parts and stereos and it looked to be closing people in and killing wildlife. There was also the scene where the kids looked to be in a rebellion in the private school. They were dragging the teacher towards the bonfire they had created. The kids were also following a straight line and doing the repeated action of throwing either a desk or chair into the fire. We also talked about all the hammer symbols in the film symbolizing communism.
Clip #5—Cabeza de Vaca
This film was all around interesting. There was a scene where a priest was walking through the battlefield holding out a cross and had multiple arrows in his back. The other scene where they were in the cage and the shaman pulled the cross off. Both showed that the cross had power and represented power. I found the rituals that the shaman was performing to be a little weird. And to top it off, the little guy that he had with him was rather creepy and had no arms.