Month: October 2017

         After seeing Charlie Chaplin’s silent movie, The Immigrant, I am able to find a lot of implications through the scenes and his body language. Chaplin uses a comical representation to demonstrate the struggles and difficulties that the immigrants have to live through on the boat. In the opening scene, a crowded group of people is shown lying on the boat. Two women are cuddling against each other, which implies that they are suffering. Then, Chaplin enters the screen by hanging on the edge of the boat.

The audience are probably thinking that Chaplin is throwing up or trying to escape from the boat, however, later it is evident that Chaplin is simply trying to catch a fish. This tells us that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, or judge people by its appearance. When we think of immigrants, we often come to the notion that they are ‘outlaws’ of a society, and that they are going bring negative things upon the country. In this short clip, Chaplin is intended to deliver the message that people should be more open-minded. Later in the movie, he shows the dreadful conditions facing the immigrants. Everyone is fighting for the food on the boat, they are rushing into the dining space when the crew signals them for dinner. The plate is swinging from side to side just like how the boat moves.

Picture cited

http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Chaplin,%20Charlie/Annex/NRFPT/Annex%20-%20Chaplin,%20Charlie%20%28Immigrant,%20The%29_NRFPT_02.jpg

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=the+immigrant+charlie+chaplin&view=detail&mid=2C0B36F0270EF3C3351D2C0B36F0270EF3C3351D&FORM=VIRE

In the article The Story of the Picture Frame, author W.H. Bailey illustrates how important the frame around the artwork is. In his article, I found out that different types of frames have different meanings. Bailey states that people always focus on the main part of the painting and the artwork. They won’t usually pay attention to the frame or the border. I agree with him because every time I look at an artwork or painting, I always like to have an overview rather than look into the details. The author demonstrates the frames never act as the protagonist, yet frames should never be in the shade since the value of the frames is indispensable. Our group chose the painting called Don Gaspar de Guzman, Count- Duke of Olivares, c.1635.

The painting shows Count-Duke of Olivares ride on a white horse, which seems like the painter formed a heroic image. As a viewer, it is hard to focus on the frames in this type of painting. The painting is more attractive than the frame around it, but Bailey expresses the equal values between the painting and the frame. Bailey explains that the satyr masks have screaming, gaping mouths as a protection for the painting. I agree with Bailey’s point about how these satyr faces are protecting the painting. When I look closer to the picture of the frame, I found out that this satyr face is often used as a protection symbol a lot in seventeenth-century. For example, people put satyr face statue in front of their house in order to keep evil spirits away. After reading through Bailey’s article, I learned to look at the painting and the surrounding as a whole to consider the message behind the work.

picture link

http://n7.alamy.com/zooms/2e9a4861e5004d049c7bc1d7b0b14ae9/don-gaspar-de-guzmn-15871645-count-duke-of-olivares-by-diego-rodrguez-bp559c.jpg

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/370045021292-0-1/s-l1000.jpg

In the third chapter of They Say, I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein shows “The Art of Quoting”. The authors not only introduce how important it is to use quotes in your writing, but also explains how to use quotes properly. The risk of using quotes is that we have to truly understand what it talks about. Some writers, especially high school and college writers,  would misunderstand what the quotes they quoted actually mean and they may go off track through their entire writings. The authors bring up the fact called “hit-and-run” quotations which means writers use certain quotes without analyzing them. Therefore, to write an efficient essay, we should keep in mind that we have to mix our thoughts with the actual context in order to deliver a better demonstration of the message. In the context, the author gives some common templates on how to introduce a quote. In my high school writings, I always use keywords to search quotes instead of fully understanding what the deeper message is. On the other hand, we should prevent over analyzing a  quote as well. Sometimes we spend too much words on explaining our thoughts and it usually results either cliche or twisty messages.

One example of over analyzing would be the whole presidential voting period. Social media during that period of times tend to over analyzing the actions of all the candidates as well as what people say about the presidential campaign. Even though it has to deal with presidential promotion and canvassing, it is still a practice of over understanding which results in the general bias before the final came out.

 

pictures URL

http://www.decalrocket.com/images/kanji/UNDERSTANDING.jpg

http://theduran.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/maxresdefault-11.jpg