Romantic Communication Between A Girl And A Sea Elephant

This clip is about a sea elephant approaching a girl sitting on the beach. They were sitting next to each other, kissing each other and even cuddling. I believe that they were not just touch physically but also psychologically and emotionally. I have never seen things like that and you may want to say communication between humans and dogs and human and cats are like that, but I believe communicating with wild animals like sea elephant are just different, way different. At that moment, the relationship between the girl and the sea elephant are unique, strong and intimate. It shows that perhaps we can communicate with the nature. Another strong example that shows that we as human beings can communicate with nature is that a lion kisses and gives hug to a rescuer. Indeed, there is a lot of videos that show such amazing connection between humans and nature. These are romantic moment we don't want to ignore.

For sure that not everyone can have such experience with nature, but from my perspectives, as long as we show our appreciation of nature and do the best we can, there is love between us and the nature, and it's romantic.
http://vimeo.com/18479035
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_TGHeFDhhY

*sigh*

The Scene illustrated above was my favorite part of the whole movie, it even made me want to watch it again. A lot of things happened in the last scene prior to the picture above starting from the locker room to the game scene. This scene was very relatable to many people which is why I think it managed to get many audiences hooked. It was a scene that brought up feeling of courage, hurt, perseverance and love. All of which are very sensitive topics to many people when it comes to romance.

From the part when she walks into the locker room she uses words that make her seem like the bigger person, ‘I’m not here to fight with you Austin…I know the person who wrote me those emails is inside of you..’ So even though she was beat up and hurt she still showed sympathy which made me personally relate to how she could have been feeling. The final part when Austin ditches he’s sure path for success just to be who really wants to be and to be with was , in my opinion, a deal sealer,’… I’m sorry I waited for the rain’.

The feelings I described above were from a feminist point of view, watching the movie with my brother made me realize how our perspectives where totally different. To him the movie was so cliché and fake, unrealistic. In his opinion it was all a fairytale. I think this goes to show how in society women are more emotional, nurturing, and always fantasizing, and men more factual and realistic.

These characteristics are even portrayed in the movie and in some sense it is what makes the movie a good romantic. You have the hopeful poor girl, who falls for the guy she feels she can’t have and the rich boy who at first is unable to accept who he has fallen for but in the end ends up sacrificing everything…How sweet right?  The whole element of sacrifice is one that makes romance romantic.  Through sacrifice there is no reason, no logic, just intuition and love (an unexplained phenomenon).

The message in the movie: that love between two people conquers everything. Do I agree? No. But for some reason it seems like that is what this movie exerts. This is because after the scene with the above picture, Sam realized that she actually wasn’t poor. That her father had left her a whole lot of money she could use for her college and even for her new found love if she wanted to though this was not directly implied. So even though the two scenarios had no linkage whatsoever the movie made it seem as if they where direct consequences of each other in the way the scenes were set up. This victory of love is also illustrated during the homecoming, that is, because of this ‘spark’ the two generated they managed to be selected as the winners.

I agree with the fact that it is a fantasy movie. And to helpless romantics like me, it provides us with a window to re-live the same moments over and over again because we cannot experience the same feelings ourselves and so have to settle with the contentment  from the hope the movie gives us.

Mumuration (A Collection of Starlings)

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

This video illustrates and embodies the romantic in many different ways... and by doing so, it evokes emotions and feelings that can seem unexplained. It attempts to advance the ideology of the purity of nature and how humans are thought of as separate from nature. This Romantic conception is constructed by how the video highlights intuition over learning, feelings over reason, and nature over civilization.

The starling birds highlight intuition over learning due to their magnificent and beautiful formations; it's natural and intuitive, which makes it almost magical.
The people on the boat are in awe of it, and obviously their feelings and emotions overcome any logical thinking or reason. The music really adds a special effect that brings out the emotive qualities of the picture.
Nature dominates over civilization in this video; the isolated body of water surrounded by trees illustrates the lack of civilization and shows the purity of nature.

These things show how nature is considered separate from humans; we are the destroyers of nature, but also the admirers of nature, as seen in this video. Nature is seen as pure, isolated, and natural, while human civilization in comparison is constructed as being destructive, busy, and unnatural/constructed. This video shows this ideology and makes people think of nature and its positive connotations in comparison to civilization and its more negative connotations. Ultimately, nature evokes more feeling and romanticism than its counterpart.

Posting Assignment #7 (due Sunday 11/20, 11:59 P.M.): So how Romantic are we really--and so what?

We've been working around the concept of a 'structure of feeling' as a way of getting at why some things (like movies, pictures, poems, songs, even ideas) just move us to tears or happiness or pleasure while others are just, 'like, uh, whatever.'  The key (and scary) idea here is that what we feel is as much a 'cultural construction' as anything, and that this is how 'culture gets inside us.'  It forms our feelings.  And feelings are not 'natural facts.'  And feelings are—always—tied up with ideology; they're political because they guide our actions ('what we think changes how we act' (Gang of Four)).

[Double Rainbow--Oh Wow!]

The Romantic—a short list:

• feelings or emotions over reason or fact

• the individual self over anything collective or social

• nature over civilization

• intuition over learning or knowledge

• art (big sense) over science

• rural over urban

• child over adult

• innocence over experience

• poor over rich

• 'hands' (manual labor) over 'heads' (intellectual labor)

• maybe even 'feminine' over 'masculine' (because of how they've been constructed)

Reservations and Hedges: Got to remember that no 'structure of feeling' is ever universal (lots of us don't 'like the woods').  Or better: at any one historical moment, there may be several 'structures of feeling' operating (if you're part of 'Hip-Hop Nation,' you probably don't shop at REI or NorthFace).

Scavenger Hunt:

1)  Find an example of the ROMANTIC IN ACTION—ads, songs, movie scenes (Bella and Edward got married), public spaces (parks, golf courses), and so on.  Remember that you can do the 'anti-romantic,' too—if your idea of the perfect place is a mall or a club.   Try for the small, clear and  unexpected.  Post the image, quote the words, offer a link.

2)  Analyze the RHETORIC and POLITICS.  How is 'the romantic' constructed in the example you found?  And what political / ideological position is it advancing?

3)  Based on evidence from your analysis, make an ARGUMENT about the 'message' your example conveys.  Make sure you can DEFEND every point you make with specific, detailed evidence from your analysis. 

* 300 words or more – again, you'll need some space for this.
* No keywords required -- but you're welcome to use them if they'll help you make your points.  (And whether or not you end up using words like 'intertextuality,' and 'structures of feeling' in your post, you'll want to be thinking in those terms anyway. ) '
* No text-references required — but again, you're welcome to use them if they'll help you make your points.

Happy hunting.

Avatar Trailer

I haven't seen Avatar fully and I still get confused about it. I choose to have to have it that way because these types of film have never been my thing. Something about it just turned me away. Although the film-work and editing was genius I felt like I knew this story, even though I haven't seen it. I guess I should knock it until I see it. I’m torn because James Cameron is very talented at what he does- I just can’t decide if it’s corny or not!

I want to read the trailer. It says a a lot about movies and for Avatar is show what kind of scenes you will see (this goes for pretty much every other movie too). And it shows so of the more powerful things to suck you in. For this movie the music obviously effects how we feel about it- and this specific music for the trailer is building our curiosity and it feels like it is pushing us to the ending and then it kind of leaves us hanging.

It seems to show lots of the coolest shots visual parts of the movie- things like the floating mountains and when he sees his avatar- its very crisp and appealing. The trailer also sets up why he is going (for the rocks that are worth a lot of money) and it reveals that if he does something he will get the use of his legs back and the audience obviously want to know why! Pandora is set as a mystical place where this man goes and it hints at a love story. The trailer also showed the name of all of James Cameron’s previous successful films.

Trailers are all about the people who want you to buy the tickets to show you the goods so the film is successful.

Avatar

One of the main scenes in Avatar that stuck out to me was when Sigourney Weaver’s character (Grace) was dying and the Na’vi tribe came together to try to keep her alive. Even though she wasn’t one of the tribe, they still wanted to help her survive. The whole tribe was in a circle surrounding the tree of life and put Grace in front of it. Then the tree was saying how it was up to the spirits whether she would die in her human body or be an Avatar. When she did end up dying, the entire tribe felt the pain along with Jake.
I liked the idea of the tree with all of its magic and the people always coming to it for advice. I feel like the tree was shown as a sort of god to the Na’vi tribe, and it always helped them make the best decisions and gave guidance. It even helped Jake earlier. The fact that the tree and the tribe came together for Grace represented the Na’vi people as being really pure and accepting of others even if they are different. The tribe always wants to help for the greater good and doesn’t try to take advantage of things for themselves and be greedy. This again goes back to showing how the natives are good people versus the other the bad, aggressive white people.
Even though in the beginning the tribe was against Jake because he was different they liked him more when he tried to accept their ways and become more like him. This is basically the same thing as the “white people” not liking the Na’vi tribe because they are different and wanting them to conform. So this was sending some mix signals for me in terms of showing the Na’vi as being good ones when it’s pretty much true that many cultures aren’t as tolerant of others at first. Ultimately, though, I think the message being sent was that we should all accept one another because we’re all living creatures.

Pandora: A Place That Represents Possibility

Although the story was not that attractive, I was struck by the CGI works and I want to say that Avatar is probably one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Colors, tones and shapes that they picked in this film are just spectacular and are beautifully presented. It is a truly visual pleasure for people, like me, who watched the film in 3D in theater. Now I wonder how Avatar 2 will be presented.  

Frankly, a lot of shots and scenes do appeal to me because I am a big fan of action and CGI works. But the scene I will be talking about for this blog post has nothing to do with action and CGI, however, it is more about how the idea of Pandora is presented. It is the scene where Jake Sully was first transformed into his Avatar body in laboratory. He became so excited and he ran out of the lab without permission with his new legs. Because of Pandora and the Avatar body, Jake does not need to wait to get his real legs back until he gathers information and intelligence for his own kind, human beings. He got his new legs in Pandora. Sure he was excited and quickly adjusted to his new body, sooner than everyone expected. Pandora is a place where Jake can walk and run again, and to feel what it is like to stand and to feel what he is standing on. It seems that everything is so new and different as Jake has his first bite on a fruit. Pandora represents possibility because a person who was disable to walk can walk again; Pandora represents possibility because one single tiny special element is worth 20 million and it can do a lot of goods; Pandora represents possibility because it suggested that if you have determination, nothing is impossible as Jake can successfully ride on the Great Leonopteryx. 

What is being signified in this scene are of course Jake's new legs which represent that Jake again gets his power back. He can do what he does because he gets his legs back. In the meanwhile, it can also represented as determination and confident. Throughout this film, Jake shows his determination and confident in Pandora in a lot of different ways. It is not hard to notice that there is always medium shot of his new legs. Furthermore, when he runs outside and stops and stands on the soil, medium shot of his legs appear again in order to emphasize two things: first, Jake gets his power back and also freedom, second, Pandora is a presentation of nothing is impossible.