Elissa Wilcox- Movie Clips

1. Bunny- Watching this film made me annoyed. I was annoyed that the moth wouldn't stop getting in the bunny's way, annoyed that everything was shaking, that the bunny's eye was twitching and that the cake batter was splashing over the side of the bowl. As the clip progressed the moth became the bunny's escort to the afterlife. The moth represented death and the fact that it was knocking at the bunny's door, and although she tried everything to rid herself of it, even baking it into a cake, it prevailed in the end.

2. Northfork- The scene depicted the young angel boy running free and carrying a suitcase which would imply that he was going on a journey. The stark contrast of the overlay of the shot of the bison that are pinned in was used to show that the boy was free while the bison were still unmoving. This was significant because it showed the difference between the boy's desire to go anywhere other than the place he was and the bison's inability to move because of the fence that caged them in. The boy was carrying the suitcase which was a burden, just as the father and son were carrying the burden of their dead wife/mother in the next scene. This was a powerful scene because they were finally able to be released from the burden of having to move the mother to higher ground as they headed toward the majestic mountains.

3. Paris, Tx- This was a very intriguing clip, and although I have not had the time to watch the full film yet, I plan to. The whole purpose of the film is to show the importance of communication. Travis is a troubled man who has lost his wife and seems to have no meaning to his life. As he walks through the opening scene he is following different lines of communication. For example, he follows the telephone lines, then the road, then the train tracks and finally he talks to his wife over a phone and through a mirror so that she can not actually see him. One of the most significant scenes was when he and his son are pulled off to the side of the road, eating some sandwiches and they are completely surrounded by traffic. This is significant because it is one of the first times they start to communicate and connect to one another.

4. Pink Floyd's The Wall- The part of the film that had the most impact was the clip of the children on the conveyor belt. In the clip Pink was communicating the hold that society has on people. Through his song and the clip he was stating the importance of individuality and not being part of the system. In the clip the children are on a conveyor belt that takes them through different parts of education and life and as they progress through they are given masks. This was symbolic of the way that society can mask the individual in order to make everyone be the same and act the same way. I think that it is a very valid point because so often we are sucked into believing that the only way to be successful is to make a lot of money, get married, have a family and retire. There has to be more and the conveyor belt is not the place to figure out what it is.

5. Cabeza de Vaca- This clip was interesting because it showed a very dramatic change in the life of Alvar. When he was first captured by the Shaman he did tried to escape and did not relate to them at all. When he tried to escape the shaman did a spell in order to bring him back and make him fall along the way. The significant change happened when Alvar was reciting a poem about how the Moores and Christians began living together in harmony and at the end of the poem he realized that he could do this with the shaman and from then on the shaman treated him better and he began to learn from the shaman. Later in the film he combines the practices that he learned from the shaman with Christian beliefs and raises a girl from the dead. I think that this clip showed the importance of trying to understand other people's cultures and not just tossing them aside because they are different.