The central conflict of 1984 is the idea that one member of society can try to break the illusion of the social standards as set forth by the ruling power and the effects they have as interpreted by the individual.  The novel goes on to explore an in depth look at the effects an individual goes through when one believes that they have no choice but to fall into line.  The effects of the tremendous amount of oppression from the ruling power drills into a society member’s head that not only can freedom in terms of the law not be possessed but neither can the inner freedoms that only one’s mind possesses.  Any member of society has the ability to question injustice but the problem is that one must realize injustice is occurring in the first place and based on the meek society members in 1984, no change is in sight.  With the amount of people blindly walking in the world, some people may never realize and if they do, there is no saying that anything will change.  For Winston Smith, he tried and he failed.

Pay close attention and watch; you may notice something you did not.  In today’s modern age with rapid improvements in technology and the growth of technology being used specifically for areas of surveillance, it is easy to get caught doing the wrong thing.  With an array of devices and unknown tactics at the surveillors’ disposal, it is difficult not to get caught if you are the one being surveilled and are unsure what you’re up against.  Even before the rise of technology, surveillance could easily be achieved in catching someone doing the wrong thing just by the process of physically watching.  This process, while less advanced than technology driven surveillance, in some ways requires a higher skill set as the surveillor will actually be in range of the target while staying out of sight.  In recent texts viewed and read for class, surveillance has played very heavily into the stories.  Whether surveillance is being used for the characters or against them, a clear use of surveillance is present in the material.  In some cases the survaillor can actually become the survelled if the person whom they are investigating gets wise and realizes this person is sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong.  At a certain point, a person who is under a large amount of survellance will begin to get curious of their surveillors.  When this occurs, the line of the person being surveilled breaks and in response they begin to watch.  In texts such as the novel 1984 and the film, Brazil, high levels of technology are being used to surveil characters in futuristic settings.  In the film Chinatown on the other hand, the story is set in a time where advanced technology is not present.  Despite the lack of technology, a certain level of surveillance is still achieved in the process to untangle a mystery.  Through these various examples of film noir, an overshadowing mystery is always established in the plot.  As the characters within the story strive to discover the true means of the mystery a constant use/themes of surveillance are always present.  To solve a mystery one must watch.

Androids; they act, look, and seem real.  They are “living” but not alive.  Over the course of the film Blade Runner, a recurring theme exploring the idea of being alive and human can be observed.  Blade Runner is set in a time where technology has gotten to the point where realistic versions of machines aka replicants/androids are being produced to the point where it is impossible to visual distinguish them from real humans.  In the film, the main protagonist of Rick Deckard, as portrayed by Harrison Ford, holds a job title of blade runner/bounty hunter.  It was Deckard’s job to hunt down and “retire” fugitive replicates on Earth.  The character of Deckard and the job he holds is a great counter weight for the observation of the theme/ideas being presented.  This is a man who is hardened and knows he must get the job done.  At the start of the film, Deckard shows zero remorse for the replicants.  He has been doing this job for a long time and is set in his ways.  To explore the theme, a character like this is necessary because you need to see it presented through the view of someone so sure of the thoughts they hold.

                As Deckard is coming out of retirement and back to investigating one final mystery he encounters events, people, or not people that slowly change him.  One of the first moments that shows the start of Deckard’s metamorphose is when he meets Rachel for the first time.  Rachel is a replicant but does not know.  Deckard clues her in on the truth of her “existence” without hesitation.  Following the new found information that Rachel has just received, she becomes sad.  Rachel is putting across a genuine emotion but if she’s not human/alive then how is this considered a real emotion?  Deckard sees this emotion being put out and tries to comfort her.  He tells her he was just joking.  This is interesting because he knows she is not real but still feels bad.  Rachel’s non-real emotion triggers a real emotion for Deckard.  This is a human interaction but only for one of them.  (Note: This is talking prior to the ending revelation.) 

                Deckard now being back in the game and exposed to his old life style realizes he does not like what he does.  This can clearly be seen right after Deckard guns down the replicant prostitute.  Deckard knows he has four replicants to hunt down and after gunning one down as she was running for her “life”, he knows there are only three left.  After her “retirement” at the scene, an officer approaches Deckard and says he still has four more to find.  Deckard goes to great length to inform the officer that there are only three left.  Deckard is in shock after such an act and wants it to be over with.  The officer informs him that Rachel has gone missing.  This throws him through a loop of emotions because he feels as if it is his fault as he revealed to Rachel her true “existence”.

In many ways the film, Brazil, can be seen as a satire to the larger source material of 1984.  In both texts, they provide examples of futuristic societies that predominately feature the use of an overbearing ruling power.  While the novel of 1984 deals with real problems, such as the loss of basic human rights, the film Brazil also features such ideas but wanders around a character who is a hopeless romantic searching for the woman he dreams about.  1984 varies from this because it discusses the pain that Winston goes through while trying to find the Brotherhood and leaves his current life of oppression.  The most pain that Sam goes through is the inability to get his heating system fixed, dealing with an overbearing mother, and the long search for the woman he thinks he is in love with that he has never actually met.  Brazil is in its own way a great film.  Having someone like Terry Gilliam makes the film the direct reason why it’s so funny while having the ability to maintain a serious tone all at once.  It’s interesting to notice what he took away from 1984 while molding his own world.  If he were to have made the adaptation of 1984 that would have been interesting to see how he would have approached the material differently. 

The two societies while seeming similar in appearance are actually very different.  While both societies feature heavy uses of technology surroundings, the way in which the people operate is very different.  In 1984, the people keep to themselves for the most part and do not communicate with each other.  This feature has to do with the amount of laws and the type of laws that are being put forth in this world.  The people of the world in 1984 are stripped of their basic rights and due to this do not know how to properly act or interact.  The film, Brazil, on the other hand, features a world that is more peppy, in unison, and full of wacky, outgoing characters.  Like 1984, a large majority of society and including Sam merely just fall into place.  Sam essentially dissolves into his environment.  Even when Sam begins to take charge of situations, such as when he is trying to get to his love in the lobby of his office building and indirectly alarms the security guards, they just allow him to leave with no questions asked.  When Winston started to take charge of the situation, he got caught and was put in a cell and forced to endure his worst fear.  The film, Brazil, has a lot more of a happy-go lucky feel through the entirety of the film that could have easily become disastrous if occurring in the world of 1984.

For the most part I have never been a fan of papers having the statement “In this paper I will…”   If the paper starts off with that statement, I especially don’t like it.  The idea of a paper is to communicate what you’re trying to say well enough that people understand the ideas that you are putting forth.  Starting off a paper by saying exactly what you are arguing about and saying exactly what you’re about to argue for many pages , just doesn’t make sense to me.  It’s kind of like showing all your cards at once before the game has even begun.  Yes, a paper can still be effective with the inclusion of the statement but for me, it’s like giving away the big surprise and not having to search for the ideas.  I also don’t like the use of “I”, “me”, “my”, “myself”, or words that refer to your ideas.  The paper contains all of your ideas, you are the one who is writing it.  By writing, “In my opinion …”, this is redundant.  Of course, it’s your opinion.  Who else’s would it be?  If you are referring to someone else’s idea then that must clearly be indicated obviously.  “In this blog, I will complain about different features in papers that annoy me.”, I probably should have started with that.

Throughout Film History, there have been numerous sightings of the director who is making the film within the film.  In some cases the director’s role may be that of the leading role, a minor role, or in many cases just seen walking in the background.  A director does specific actions and features in a film on purpose.  There is a reasoning for everything.  Nothing is random.  In the film, Chinatown, a major scene disfiguring the main character of Jake occurs and the person doing it is none other than Director, Roman Polanski.  In the scene, Jack Nicholson’s character, Jake, is trespassing during his investigating of the water output.  Jake’s job as a private investigator is to not be seen or be noticeable.  During his investigation, he is cornered by Roman Polanski’s character and has a switchblade in his nose.  Jake’s character loses all his charisma and becomes feeble.  Polanski’s character begins to toy with Jake, intimidating him until the point where he slices Jake’s nose and tells him to get lost.  This form of inserting a director into their own film can be viewed in many different ways.  It may have to do with Polanski’s personality and showing his authority, or it may have to do with the fact that over time if the film gained a large amount of success, which it did, then the audience would be anticipating the moment.  Knowing that someone’s nose is about to be cut is a hard thing to watch because everyone knows that that would hurt so much.  After the moment Jake gets his nose cut, he wears a large bandage over his nose for the majority of the film.  Based on his job, this makes him stick out like a sore thumb and who did it? The guy who made the film.

            After seeing the film Murder, My Sweet in class one of the moments that really stood out to me was when Philip Marlowe gets drugged and knocked out.  This is a similar occurrence to Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon getting drugged and knocked out.  While both films have the characters getting drugged and knocked out, the experiences couldn’t be more different from one another.  In The Maltese Falcon it’s almost as if Sam Spade isn’t affected by it that much and just wakes up a little while later.  In Murder, My Sweet you get a full on experience of Philip Marlowe’s drugging presented in a “Twilight Zone-ish” way, which is very effective.  With this type of approach, an audience can fully gauge what Marlowe is going through.  When Philip Marlowe finally wakes up you can almost feel and sense how groggy he is.  By incorporating the effects properly and using the story at hand, it makes for a great example of how certain effects can really help aid a story.

                After watching the films Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon some notable differences can be seen between the two.  While they both are set within a genre some of the specific conventions within each vary.  The Maltese Falcon can be seen as a standard in the genre while Double Indemnity is fixed around the idea of the genre and twisted to use certain attributes of the genre.  While they are set in the genre some noticeable differences can be seen, one of which can specifically be seen in the characters of The Detective.  They both may be crafted around the idea of the characteristics of the standard Detective but the two are different for numerous reasons while still being conceived as similar.

                As discussed in class we started to speak of the ideas formed around a protagonist.  In The Maltese Falcon Sam Spade is that character and in Double Indemnity it is Walter Neff.  In The Maltese Falcon Sam Spade is a standard detective, which gives off a certain standard tone while in Double Indemnity Walter Neff is an insurance salesman which gives off a different perspective while applying the idea of The Detective to him.  In Double Indemnity since Walter Neff is not associated to the complete lifestyle of The Detective this then leads to different actions and outcomes.  Compared to Sam Spade Walter Neff does far worst things to achieve goals he has set in his agenda.  Sam Spade only did certain actions near the end of The Maltese Falcon so he could try to stay ahead of the game or even just stay in the game while Walter Neff can almost been seen as somewhat of an evil force to some extent.  They are both similar in being taken over by a Femme Fatale, though in the case of Neff it is much more extreme.  Some other similarities that can be seen between the two characters is that they both operate under a certain code and are seen as forces of unknown outcomes in the sense that the audience doesn’t know how far they will go to get what they are trying to achieve.  This is how the code they follow varies depending on the characteristics they instill.

                The two films in terms of narrative approach vary heavily, as in Double Indemnity is set to flashbacks while The Maltese Falcon is linear storytelling.  These two tactics influence a story in many different ways.  Even while we saw Walter Neff recording his statement we did not know he would die at the end.  If The Maltese Falcon was set to flashbacks the film would be much different. By having the flashbacks the audience gets a little extra insight into the character while seeing the events that happened unfold.

                As time passes in any given genre, the genre itself will get defined by certain plot points and character archetypes.  When this is occurring this is how very specific genre conventions are formed.  Genre conventions can sometimes be good while other times they can become inappropriately used or even misused.  After watching The Maltese Falcon, there were definitely a few genre conventions that could be seen.

                Genre conventions can be helpful when mapping out a plot.  One convention seen in the film is how the film starts off with a back story already in progress and the idea of trying to find an object.  This is then put into The Detective’s agenda as a case and he is caught between multiple forces trying to find the object.  The archetypal characters then use him as fit for their own agendas.  One character in particular that is a big genre convention is Brigid, the femme fatale archetype.  She is “playing” The Detective and has been the leading force of chaos from the start.  She is seen as a sweet and innocent woman but is merely just acting the whole time.  The genre convention of the femme fatale is then followed by how The Detective sees right through her and knows she is lying but then another genre convention of The Detective and The Femme Fatale characters having a connection; mostly sexual.  Another character that can be seen as a convention is Wilmer, the low level lackey gunman.  This character is undermined and has a hot uncontrollable temper.  In replay to that The Detective will specifically poke fun at him, outsmart him, and continuously push him on.

                The character of The Detective is always an important feature to get down.  To the audience The Detective is liked because he is doing the right thing (sort of) and winning.  Features that have generally stuck with the archetype of The Detective character is the idea that the character plays within the set of The Law but bends the rules to get results.  He is considered to be an untrustworthy force by both the policemen and the criminals.  In The Maltese Falcon, The Detective is not trusted by the police and they question him.  In response he puts up his tough exterior and mocks them and treats them with very little respect because they are on his back after he has done nothing wrong.

– Mike Lee