Windows

“The eye is the window of the soul, the mouth the door. The intellect, the will, are seen in the eye; the emotions, sensibilities, and affections, in the mouth. The animals look for man's intentions right into his eyes. Even a rat, when you hunt him and bring him to bay, looks you in the eye.” Hiram Powers, American sculptor (1805 - 1873)

Eyes dictate everything that we know. From seeing the blush on a pretty girls face to seeing what the weather is like outside. In both the movie Doubt, and the play Molly Sweeney, Vision and eyes are large themes. The eyes are the windows to our souls.

In this shot, the priest, Father Brendan Flynn has just entered the chapel. As he walks in he looks up through banisters to where a piece of stained glass, showing an eye, shined down on him. He turns and gives a look of knowing and walks on. The way the eye is the only source of light in this scene highlights its importance and its omnipotent nature. The eye could also mean god. This would be interesting because the banisters create a barrier between the two. Is something coming between The Father and his god? The allocations that are being put on him would be enough to shake any mans faith.

            Through out the movie he is under a lot of scrutiny from the nuns at their school. The ever-present eyes on him is really exemplified that maybe an even higher power is watching him. The stereotype of the Father touching a boy has run rampant through our society, giving us an interesting viewpoint to judge what is happening. Although nothing is ever clearly stated whether he did what he said, there is lots of abstract evidence presented. He is accused again and again by sister James who has alternative motives for wanting him to leave. In the end he resigns and moves on. He is forced out of a job that he loves. 

            Molly, The lead character of the play, is blind and has been all her life. She was perfectly okay with that until her husband frank said she wasn’t and tried to fix her. Although she thinks she is okay she still has surgery done to try to “Fix” the “problem”. She gains vision for a while but then loses it, and in doing so she loses all that made her fine in here own eyes. Now she has lost hope in everything; “I think I see nothing at all now”. She used to have her own vision that was ruined by seeing what everyone else sees.

In both characters they have lost something they love. They both lose their true vision. The father loses his closeness with god, while molly loses here own version on sight. Even though people that have vision, sometimes cannot see what’s in front of them. Frank cannot see that molly is happy with her original vision. that sister James didn’t really know if father was having an inappropriate relationship with a boy.

Rushmore Class

Social Class

Social Class is one of the main underlying themes of Rushmore and everyday life. We spend everyday of our life wrapped up in social class. There is a large devision between the wealthy and the poor. In the movie Rushmore this social devision is examined by looking at what it takes to be in the wealthy groups, to go to the good school and to come from a well off background. Max Fisher, the lead character of the movie, comes from a relatively poor background but because of his own merit was granted access to the private school. The school or Rushmore is filled with rich people and Max pretends to be from a wealthy background to fit in. After being expelled from Rushmore for taking things too far, he starts attending the public school. The deference's between the two schools highlights the meaning of class to an individual. Everything from colors to general atmosphere shows how the public school is worse off. Even though Max was born into a poor family he escapes his social class for a while but he will always be different because of it. He makes good use of his opportunities working hard but not in the right places. In the end everyone is the same and has to work just as hard at a high school level but as you get older, the lower your social status the harder life is.

Shoes

Shoes, The Universal king of subtly showing your status. From Air Jordans to Kenneth Cole to rags, shoes are the ultimate uniform. The shoes you wear is particularly important in high school environments because of the role shoes play in identifying what “clique” you are in. The jocks wear air jordans and other high top sports shoes, the alternative kids or “Hipsters” wear converse or other non mainstream shoes. As well as the shoes you wear, their condition is also vital. Clean shoes put forth the idea that you care about how you look, while dirty ones gives a, “I don’t care what I look like” look. Because we all wear shoes its impossible to escape being uniform to some group or another. We as teenagers, we try to always think of our selfs as original, our own person and refuse to admit we wear a certain type of shoe because of the group we are in. I proffer wearing nice suit shoes. I am not ashamed of the group I am in, I strive for the smart business look and feel I hit it well with my shoes as a nice finishing touch. I am an oddity in this because I am happy with my uniform. Wether you wear sports shoes because you play sports or Uggs because you want to be comfortable, think about what your shoes say about you.

To What Extent is the World a Mirror of Who we are?

To what extent is the world a mirror of who we are? The world its self as a tangible thing is not a mirror image of what we are at all. I am a square peg being forced into a round hole, I have always been told I am, cheers mother. There is the very occasional time when I want to just fall into camouflage so i don't have to be the oddity but that feeling is less and less now. I now embellish my self to set me apart from my background. The only world that mirrors whats around me is the world I enter when I am day dreaming or when I am asleep and proper dreaming. But it is a good thing. Being so drastically different from the world around me, it gives me character and a sense of identity. I fully know my self because of this. I am not some mindless zombie following in the footsteps of the student before me, no I am a strong character, opinionated and don't settle for less than what I think is right. The world mirrors the complete opposite from me and in the end that will be my success because while different may not be the best thing to be in high school, later in life it will be what sets me above the masses. 

The setting of this shot creates a very father son relationship. if you just saw this shot you would think that the lighting of the cigarette is meaning less but because the way the rest of the movie is handled this turns out as a real corner stone. throughout this whole movie Walter Neff (left) has been lighting his boss, Keyes (right) cigars but now as the end of the movie draws near the roles are reversed signifying the final transition from business partners to farther son roles. The father son motif shows up throughout the movie and gives double indemnity a real twist. The fact that Neffs final surrender is in the presence of his father figure shows who the main characters of the movie really are. It is a tragedy story between Neff and Keyes. A father son disappointment story.

     Tom Cruise in this frame is portrayed as a focused and thoughtful figure. The was the shot is taken really draws your attention to the hands. With the very touch influenced idea of the futures technology the frame creates a feel of importance. The background is completely blank while the foreground is taken up with images of the murder than the pre-cogs have predicted. The shot makes me see Cruise as putting work ahead of everything as well as being focused on it. I think the mystery that the images on the screen create are the most important part of this shot.
     The lighting in this shot is very bright and almost clean looking. This makes a feeling of a clean, fast and knight in shining armor police force. He is dressed in all black maybe suggesting that he the black sheep of his force. This is a medium full lazy frame shot. It is a very in your face apparent shot. There is no denying it. A black sheep in a clean perfect system is a good way of pointing out that not everything is as it seems.