In this book we see a society ran by a hierarchy. The people are not allowed to think for themselves or they are thrown in jail. This is a sort of totalitarian society where the people are all under a higher government in which no one really knows who “big brother” really is. People are divided into two serparate categories of classes, the higher class and the low class. The government system ensures that there is no middle class because with a middle class there is always rebellion because they try to even themselves with the higher class.

The Set Up

“The Set Up” is a film noir dedicated to showing the life of a boxer at the end of his career. A man who has always been “one fight away from making it big”, a losing streak that had been affecting his personal life as well as his professional life. As the movie goes on you are shown a plethora of characters whom are at different stages of their careers. The young boxer who was able to punch his opponent out in two rounds, the old man that gets beaten senselessly and has to go to the hospital, and others whom are in between. This makes the protagonist; Stoker evaluate his career; has it been long enough? Is it time to give up the gloves and leave the ring forever? Or can I win, can I continue and become champion? Stokers girlfriend has had it with his career. She wants him to stop. It hurts her to see him beaten night after night and she wants to settle down. She had been given a ticket to go to the fight, but she chooses not to. There was a significant scene where there is no sound, and the camera is looking up at her as she emotionally rips the tickets up and lets the pieces flow in the wind. So in this movie a bookie expected him to lose a fight, like he had lost every other one. Stoker wants to win, since it was unknown to him he decided to fight his heart out and miraculously won. The bookie was angry and to teach Stoker a lesson they destroyed his hand and his ability to box. Although painful this was the best thing that could have happened to everyone. With Stoker out of boxing it allows him to be attentive to his woman. She in turn is also happy because although violent, her dream came true.

It’s a sort of evolution of the character. A man unable to come to terms with his end had it forced upon him. Now the only thing left is to see what happens after the hand is healed. To figure out what path is next.

Out of the past

Out of the Past is a movie that I think exemplifies the film noir genre. It’s a story of a man who had made the mistake of falling in love with a wrong woman. A clients wife, and running away with her. They lived a happy life for a brief period of time until she murdered someone that was after them, which caused them to separate indefinitely. Years later after the protagonist had made a life for himself he is approached by an enforcer of his previous client. They had found him by chance, a stroke of luck on their part. As it turns out the femme fatale post murder had returned to her husband.  He is given a job to do that unfortunately leads to his demise. The relationships he had formed in his new life were destroyed, and he left behind a protégé without any guidance. This movie can be considered the best warning out there against femme fatales. How they can lead to your eventual death if you do not tread properly, it also shows you how devious and conniving that they can be. It also teaches a very important lesson. Your past will always come to haunt you, no matter how long it takes.

Asphalt Jungle

The movie Asphalt Jungle decided to take a different approach to the film noir genre. As opposed to the other film noirs that we have seen, there were multiple protagonists throughout the movie. The movie concentrated on a single event; a heist. The object of desire within this movie was a stash of diamonds. The protagonists were able to lift the diamonds without any issues until it was time to enact the escape. During the escape one of their crew had been shot which starts the beginning of all their troubles. Shortly after the heist, they were double crossed by the fence and they get the police on their tail. They want to know who is in charge, and where one of the protagonists is. In the end, all of the protagonists had a negative outcome. Between facing life in jail, or dying right before making their dream come true. I enjoyed this movie because of the ending, not because it was dark but because you would have never expected the outcome considering how well the beginning went. I think the most significant scene for me was in the end, where the main protagonist was running to the farm. A dream almost realized, almost completed only to be stopped by a bullet in his abdomen.

Murder my sweet

Murder My Sweet is a Noir film which concentrated a lot on the evolution of the protagonist: Philip Marlowe. He starts off with a simple body guard job which evolves into a case of the missing jade necklace, similar to the story of the Maltese falcon. Both the significance of the items, (the Maltese falcon VS the jade necklace) and the characters attitudes had many similarities. They both had a charm to them that allowed them to gain access and information that was beneficial to their ultimate mission. Like Spade, Marlow had a particularly difficult femme fatale. A killer and a liar, that took him into the darkest parts of his mind. When exploring his inner dark thoughts he kept making a reference to a “black pool” which was a state of mind of him being knocked out, or drugged up that allowed him to reflect and think. In a film where the protagonist had been knocked out, drugged up, and immobilized for a period of time, the end result was positive. He for a lack of a better term “got the girl” there was a positive outcome in this film noir as compared to the other films which we have seen. Sure, the protagonist may have been temporarily blinded in the end, but it made the ending that much sweeter. A blind man surprised by the woman he loved, and thought he had lost made up for the terrible experience he had gone through.

The movie Brazil was a film inspired by George Orwell’s 1984. Its a film full of tall bland buildings where everything is controlled by the “Ministry of Information”. This ministry is obsessed with possessing information about everyone. Its a very difficult to grasp the concept of this film as it appears as weird scenes, odd technology, and piles of paper work. The main character in this film is Sam Lowry who is a man who works in Records, the lowest department in the ministry. He seems content with his job throughout the film and doesn’t seem to have any drive in improving his carer. He also disgregards the ways of his glamorous, over the top, wealthy, self consumed mother. Sam often escapes into his dreams where he is an angel or some type of super hero flying through the clouds and battling monsters to save a caged damsel in distress. Three events occur throughout this movie that disturb Sam’s lifestyle, 1)Seeing the woman of his dreams multiple times and chasing after her, 2) Returning a refund check to a Mr. Buttle who was wrongly captured by the ministry after a typo, and 3) the heating system in his home shuts down. The inconvenience of these three events cause Sam to be promoted to Information Retrieval, where he ultimately abuses his position to find the woman of his dreams and keep her safe.

1984 is a book written by George Orwell centered around a totalitarian government, which is a government were the state holds power over everything and everyone. Every minute of their time, who they associate with, how they spend their alone time, even what they’re aloud to say . The government in this book even tries to control what people say and what they believe. This book takes place in London, it is depressing place where there is never enough food to eat, not enough clothes or shoes to go around, the London in this book is very run down. Except for these huge building that tower over the city. Bombs frequently explode in the streets and blow people to bits.

The worst part is that the government is always watching what people are doing, there are posters of big brother that say, “Big Brother is watching you” and there is microphones and cameras literally everywhere so the government can watch you, even in your home through your tv screen and you’re not allowed to turn your tv off, ever. There is many things you cannot do in this society, and if you do them the police can throw you into forced labor camps, no close friends. no love, no dating, and no sexual relations with anyone. You’re expected to save all your energy for, “The Party” which is the government.

The main character of 1984, is Winston Smith. He is a middle aged man who works for the government who lives a sad depressing life. He has no friends or anyone. In the beginning of the book he starts writing a diary, even though owning a diary is illegal and he could be killed for having one if you’re caught. But his diary is his form of escape. In his diary he imagines a different life. Only two people matter to Winston, and he doesn’t even know them. One of them is Julia, Julia is a attractive female who works in the same building as him. Winston hates her because she’s pretty and he cant have her, but is also paranoid because he thinks she is the type to turn him into the thought police. The other person that matters to him is a man named Obrien, Obrien is in a higher position than Winston but Winston believes he is intelligent and thinks he would make a good friend. He thinks obrien would understand how he feels about life.

Conflicts in the book begin when Julia slips Winston a note that says, “I love you.”  the conflict is that Winston is very excited and obviously interested in Julia but it is difficult for them to even say two words to each other with cameras every where. They manage to get into the country and start a passionate love affair where they both get to express their love but its extremely dangerous because they can both be killed, or sent to labor camps if they were caught.

1. What is the central conflict of 1984?

2. Name three specific scenes in which we see that conflict play out (+ notes about how it plays out)

3. Compare the conflict you’ve identified to:
a) the film noir genre as you’ve come to know it;
b) Brazil

1.
“Winston’s struggle to retain control of his own thoughts ”
Winston’s struggle to retain control of his own thoughts in the face of the thought police and the presence of surveillance and the constant rewriting of the past by the Ministry of Information.

“Big Brother suppressed citizens so that they can’t think on their and so that they can’t write or do things they enjoy”
“Big Brother suppressed citizens of Oceana through a variety of means (Newspeak, rewriting history, …) so that they can’t think on their own and so that they can’t write or do things they enjoy”

1984 is a search for liberty from the government/ministry of information. finding the truth where both the truth and history have been rewitten by a regime of people who decide to control their underlings.

“the idea of breaking the illusions of the current social standards set forth by the current ruling power and the effects it has as seen by the ability of individuals not to be possessed and to retain control over their own minds and inner freedoms

topic things — first sentence of every paragraph — needs to:
— express main idea of the paragraph
— show progress towards the thesis
-=- link to the previous paragraph (transition)

2.
Winston buying the journal

The book 1984 is a novel by George Orwell written in 1944. It is a look into the future as Orwell saw it, a dystopian universe in which the “Party” had absolute power and used it mercilessly to dominate its people.  People were separated into three groups, the Inner Party, the Outer Party and proletariats; at the head of these groups was Big Brother who had everyone under constant surveillance and rigid rules of conduct. This was achieved by forcing them to live in austere conditions with only the basic necessities and the threat of torture and certain death for those who deviated from rules. Pleasure or personal feelings were forbidden and even your spouse and children could be your persecutor.

The protagonist Winston was a member of the outer party working in the records department. His job was to alter the record of events that displeased or opposed the vision and goals of the party. He lives in a world where major countries aligned themselves into three groups, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia; two of these three States were usually at war with each other, a strategy used to keep the people in fear and oppression, as well as, utilize any excess resources that were produced; Winston lived in Oceania. He hated the ideals of the Party and hoped that someday there would be an uprising; however Winston was not brave enough to proactively start one of his own. Julia, Winston’s love interest was also a member of the outer party, she was rebellious but she knew how to play the system. Her courage gave Winston the nerve to be more assertive and share his disdain for the Party with O’Brien a fellow co-worker who turned out to be his interrogator after he and Julia were captured.

The world of 1984 was a figment of Orwell’s imagination, however, in today’s society there are factors that are reminiscent of some of the events that took place in the book. Surveillance of citizens by its government has been steadily increasing, under the guise of protection. This has been especially true since the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001.Freedoms and liberties are gradually being taken away and the presence of police at every corner has become normal. While we are not quite at the extremes described in the book; such as open surveillance of individuals in their homes and prosecution for mere thought we are well underway to making this Orwellian novel a prophecy.

“The Maltese Falcon” is a noir masterpiece, from any perspectives not just about the story and protagonist, but also the scene, lighting and photographic composition is giving viewers that perplexing feeling and curiosity, force themselves fully invested in the story. Story looks an easy case but astonishing behind the scenes. Also I think Sam Spade is giving a perfect model of protagonist in film noir. This film is such cold, and his face looks even colder, no feelings, even more like a bad person, but full of wisdom. He never exposes his inner thoughts, does not believe anyone, nor pay any emotion, but only with a cold heart. His role matches to the story perfectly. Therefore I think each film noir must have a kind of protagonist who is wise and brave, and cool. Which make film noir become special because of the noir charm of protagonist.

We can see Sam Spade is wise and brave. He did not believe in the words of neither Mary Astor, nor anyone else, he acts with the brightest minds of his own, as well as sharp language, against to three gangsters and wrapped them around his little finger. Moreover, not only the three gangsters, but also police and prosecutors could not reach him either. The most incredible is that Sam Spade would escape from all kinds of danger, but never without empty-handed.