1) I feel like, as I writer, my strong suits lie in presenting information and argument. I feel that I can effectively argue a given position and provide evidence for that position in a compelling way. However, my weakness tends to be in finding the right place to put this information, if that makes sense. I find myself having trouble with dialectic, moving from point A to point B in a natural way that does not sound awkward. To put it more simply, I believe I am good at presenting information, the issue lies in connecting each piece of information together in a natural way. In the end, it boils down to structure, be it the structure of the paper itself or just the structure of the transitions.

2) I feel like in my papers thus far, my strengths have manifested largely in the quality of information given. I feel like I have good ideas with my papers, and those really help me when formulating an argument. I feel like my weakness manifests in slightly more obscure ways, however. Although my ideas are all there, without the connective tissue, they tend to lack the “so what” factor, which hurts my thesis and overall makes it relatively difficult to move forward with papers. In that sense, my difficulties with structure manifest in my having to put more work into the “so what?”

3) In my current paper, I feel like my ideas are all there. It’s just a matter of tying them together with more evidence and better dialectic. I feel like a strategy that would help this is really nailing my thesis before I go into it. I have a tendency to have a bunch of pieces of information with loose connections serving as the thesis, but if I work on my unifying thesis first I think I’ll have a much better time.

Overall, I would say I have improved as a writer over the course of this year and I am feeling reasonably confident about my final assignment. I feel like I’ve been slowly letting go of my bad habit of starting out with somewhat half-baked theses, and because of this my papers are getting better.

To Mr. Mundt,

Using the Messianic approach to market Truman Show is a good financial decision because the people LOVE Messiahs. The idea of a Messiah– a hero to save us from our own vices– is one that’s inherently appealing. You’re a devout Christian, Mr. Mundt, so I don’t need to tell you this. Truman’s transformation from Everyman to Messianiac figure is rather inspiring, telling people how they take control of their own lives and save themselves from whatever destiny they have.

If we take this inspiration and move it to marketing, imagine the profits we can attain! Many people likely missed the Christ imagery in Truman Show on their first watch, giving them incentive to rewatch. New viewers will be drawn in the Messiah narrative that has become so ingrained in our culture– just look at the beloved Hero’s Journey, which has many aspects reflective of a savior narrative. They’ll see Truman and they’ll think, “Now this is a movie that’s got something to say.”

Plus, there’s a cool little meta aspect to it as well. After all, in the movie proper, viewers of the Truman Show saw Truman as a form of comfort. In-universe, he was a Messiah figure himself, despite his commodification. Now, if we sell this movie as a Messiah story, we’d be commodifying a story about the commodification of a Messiah. Now you may see this as cynical, Mr. Mundt, but I see this as a perfect way to show how layered the film is. It’s an exploration of the relationship between viewer and television star, of reality and perception, and of man and savior. I think that, if we pull this off, we can get a damn good marketing campaign.

Anyway, Mr. Mundt, I hope you’ll consider approaching the Truman Show advertising from a Messianic perspective. I feel like it’ll be a take that a lot of people will appreciate, plus we can do some neat metatextual stuff.

Best,

Leif Mollo

Here are my three goals for the paper:

1: Better dialectic.

I feel like I have a lot of ideas, but currently I’m struggling to connect them in a natural way. I feel like my paper, as a whole, is rather disjointed and is more of a mash of ideas than one cohesive whole. It’s like in TV where you see the guy use string and thumbtacks to find connections and uncover a conspiracy, and stuff is circled in red and there are arrows and stuff. When you step back you get the idea, but it looks like the ravings of a madman. I don’t want to be a madman. I want my ideas to make sense, to be clear, and to be concise. And I feel like something that will help this is…

2: Less summary, more analysis

I feel like a lot of my paper right now is stating what happens and essentially talking about how it can be interpreted. But I feel like I’m largely missing that “so what?” For example, I talk about the ways in which both Neo and Truman are commodified by greater forces, and I kind of talk about how break out of it, but I feel like I can go deeper into explaining the significance of this commodification. And that’s just one of my many points I need to improve. I feel like once I improve my analysis, the point-to-point transitions will be greatly strengthened. But I feel like a major part of this analysis involves…

3: Better use of outside sources

I’m having a little bit of trouble determining how to implement my sources. There are a lot of good ideas I’ve found from outside sources, but I’m not sure how often I should cite my ideas in relation to theirs. Obviously I feel like the primary purpose of these should be to support my point, but some of the ideas are so strong that I want to explore those and I’m worried that my analysis of their analysis will overtake my own analysis, if that makes sense. So I need to find a good balance there.

In conclusion: I intend to work on tying my essay together tightly through the use of more analysis and the implementation of outside sources in those analyses.

Dear Great Aunt Helga,

I hope you are doing well in Orlando. I’m really sorry to hear about what happened to Great Uncle Harvey. I hope he gets better soon, and I hope the gator that chomped on his achilles tendon is brought to justice.

As for myself, I’m afraid I have my own proverbial alligator at my feet. You see, I’m taking a mythology class, and for an upcoming paper I have to analyze the mythic properties of a given film and compare them with another. The films I have chosen to compare are Truman Show and The Matrix– yes, The Matrix! I know how much you love that movie.

Now, I know you don’t know much about film theory, as the only film you own is The Matrix, and given your incredibly strict atheist ideology I understand that you do not know much about mythology. However, I nonetheless would like to tell you about my concerns, since you’re a really good listener.

Right now, I think I’ve got the theme of the movies down. Both movies are about how characters must stop accepting the reality with which they are presented and how powers greater than themselves often oppress them not directly, but indirectly. The powers that be in these films oppress our heroes, Truman and Neo respectively, by defining the bounds of the society in which they live. Thus, conformity is the biggest thing limiting their freedom.

There are some other things that are interesting, as well. As you know, in The Matrix humanity as a whole is imprisoned so they can be used as a power source by machines. In Truman Show, the titular Truman is similarly commodified. He is essentially made into a good, with The Truman Show in universe having a near-obscene amount of product placement in it. I think it would be interesting to compare the two.

Of course, there’s also the mythic element I have to consider. Themes can only get me so far. One potential route I can go down is comparing how each film portrays the idea of Utopia. You know about utopias, Great Aunt Helga, as many would consider Orlando a utopia. The idea is that the mythology behind the Utopia is fundamentally flawed. I don’t want to go too in detail here, as I value your time, but I thought it could be worth looking into.

Furthermore, I could also look at the two characters in how they compare to Christ. Now, I know Great Uncle Harvey is a devout Christian, so don’t think I’m trying to call the Bible a “myth.” What I mean is that Jesus is representative of the idea of the Messiah, or the savior. I know you don’t know much about Jesus, Aunt Helga, so I’ll explain it: It’s basically a specific kind of culture hero, a singular person who so greatly embodies the ideals of that one culture that they alone are able to save them from some form of destruction from either within or without.

Of course, Neo is obviously a Christ figure: He’s The One, after all, and the associations are pretty obvious there. However, Truman is an interesting case. He is greatly beloved by his culture, but it’s AGAINST his own will. His journey isn’t about helping others, it’s about finding personal freedom. However, the Kristoff, who plays sort of a “god” role in the story, considers Truman to be a son to him. Plus, Truman has to go through a metaphorical death and resurrection in overcoming his fear of the water in order to escape. So I feel like there’s some interesting stuff there.

Anyway, sorry to ramble, Great Aunt Helga. Just had to get that stuff off my chest. Hopefully I’ll find a way to figure all of this stuff.

Hope you’re doing well in Orlando!

Love,

Leif.

There’s a lot to like about Terminator. I dig its aesthetic and the action is solid. And I dig stable time loops in movies.

However, I would hesitate to call it a particularly *deep* movie. There’s a lot to be said about its predictions regarding machines, but it doesn’t go particularly in depth on the questions it raises. It’s thematically rather shallow. I suppose the closest thing that comes to a theme is during scenes where Sarah doubts herself and Reese assures her that she’s a capable person who will one day raise a great man. You can see a sort of theme about even ordinary people can lead to great change, but again, this doesn’t really leave a lot to chew on. I would have liked to see a more in-depth look on what led to the apocalypse, on what made the robots decide that human beings were a detriment, and on what aspects of John Connor brought hope to humanity. It could very easily have been a commentary on the value of the human spirit and lead to a far more interesting discussion of man vs machine. Again, we get a little bit of this at the end, but at that point the movie is more interesting in developing Sarah and Reese’s romance than looking into the actual dynamics of the world. My personal favorite parts of the movie were the parts that were in the future. It would have been fascinating to take a deeper dive into that world and the psyche of those who inhabit it.

I intend to write about The Truman Show (1998) for my paper. I intend to do a critical analysis of the film, using The Secret Cinema (1966) as comparison, as both films deal with themes of voyeurism, paranoia, and the protagonist’s questioning of their reality. I feel like both films are very much archetypical in their themes, but to different extents.

The Secret Cinema plays to the idea of a person’s actions being held to high scrutiny and judgement by those close to them. The main protagonist, Jane, constantly finds herself faced with off-putting if not downright disturbing behavior by her peers, and her reactions are filmed and screened to a private audience which she is unable to access. Meanwhile, The Truman Show plays more to the universal idea of control. While Truman is always being watched, he is not put into situations that would force a reaction like Jane is. Rather, the world around him is manufactured to influence his behavior towards that of complacency. Truman Show is also greater in scope than Secret Cinema, with the former being a tale of overcoming fear and societal expectations and the latter being a story of questioning those you trust.

I feel that, through the comparison of these two stories, we can find a more thorough examination of how human beings come to question their reality and understand their place in it.

Some of my concerns are:

Is a purely thematic approach a satisfactory way to write the paper? The instructions for the critical analysis were a little less clear than the expository analysis. Should I supplement the thematic exploration with the production history for good measure?

Should I be doing an archetypal approach for both of the films? I feel like archetypical fit them both, but I’m not sure if the critical analysis would prefer I do one critical and one nationalistic.

Are there any other ways I can approach the analysis aside from the thematic?

The Secret Cinema is a short film. I imagine this will not be an issue, but I’d like to bring it up anyway just in case.

From the perspective of an archetypical tradition, The Graduate is evidently an archetypical coming of age story. It is the story of a young man, Benjamin Braddock who is immature and  uncertain about his future. Throughout the beginning of the story he shows a constant desire, if not need, to be given directions as to the course he needs to take. He retreats into the embrace of Mrs. Robinson, serving as symbolism for an almost Oedipal urge for Benjamin to look towards a matronly figure who will give him direction, or at the very least, pleasure. The conflict arises when Benjamin makes the decision to move away from this maternal influence when he meets Elaine, who he is able to connect with on a more equal level. Where Mrs. Robinson is a figure representing comfort in control, Elaine represents freedom in risk. In order to win her over, Benjamin must take embrace the uncertain nature of the future, representing a departure from childhood immaturity and a transition into a life wherein he must make decisions for himself, without older figures telling him what he can and cannot do.

From a nationalistic perspective, The Graduate can be seen as a reaction against the societal pressure towards tradition. Benjamin’s sense of ennui results from his all too comfortable middle-class life. He has great expectations thrust upon him, but he has no idea as to how he will meet those expectations. Those who surround him are more than eager to dispense advice on how to achieve success, but very few are able to tell him how to achieve happiness. Mrs. Robinson, for example, represents comfort and empty pleasure– but ultimately interactions with her leave him unfulfilled, no matter how much he may try. His pursuit of Elaine– despite others prohibiting him from doing so– represents an American individualistic ideal. To pursue Elaine is to take a risk. But it is in going against the grain that Benjamin has a chance of finding true joy. In order to achieve true fulfillment, Benjamin must embrace the American ideal of taking risks over accepting empty comforts based upon what others want of him.

As it stands, the two scenes are similar in that both involve one family member trying to kill another. In the case of Sunrise, it’s a husband trying to kill his wife. In Red River it’s a father trying to kill his adopted son. Aside from that, however, the scenes are almost completely different, both in their execution and their themes.

In Sunrise, the husband’s attempted murder was in service of the greater physical pleasure he received from the woman in the city and the potential pleasures he would receive in the city proper. Conversely, John Wayne was motivated more by pride and the sense of betrayal he felt. While both of these motivations are fundamentally selfish, it’s clear that the husband’s motivations are physical, while John Wayne’s are ideological. This is an important distinction, as it establishes the thematic stakes for each of the characters.

Because the motivations are physical in Sunrise, there is a one-sidedness to the confrontation. The wife is ignorant to her husband’s plot up until the moment he moves to throw her off the boat. As such, the scene itself is very tense and labored. Much time is spent showing how afraid she is of her husband, and much time is spent showing how conflicted and tortured the husband is at his decision. The wife has no power in the situation, and the husband is aware of this. He is aware of the evil nature of his confrontation. As a result, there are several things at stake: The wife’s life, the husband’s sanity, and the state of their marriage, should the wife survive.

Contrast to Red River. Because the confrontation is ideological, there is more of an even dynamic at play. Montgomery Clift is well aware that John Wayne wants to kill him. There is no ignorance on his part as to the capabilities and intentions of the aggressor. As a result, the confrontation scene, while tense, is rather fast paced. The characters are both strong willed, as opposed to the more conflicted characters in Sunrise. In the case of Red River, either characters’ life is at stake. On a more personal level, however, their trust is also at stake, similar to Sunrise.

In the end, both sets of characters repair their relationships. Interestingly, however, in Sunrise the confrontation was prevented by the aggressor, while in Red River the conflict was prevented from escalating by the aggressed due to his refusal to act. This shows how the dynamic in Red River is much more equal than in Sunrise. Montgomery Clift was very much an agent in his refusal to shoot John Wayne. The wife, on the other hand, did not have much choice as to whether or not her husband went through with the murder.
As a result, I believe that the theme of broken trust is better resolved in Red River. Both characters were aware of the fracture in between them, and they both had greater awareness of the stakes. While in Sunrise both characters knew of the divide, only the husband had a real influence on the stakes and outcome of this divide. Given that the themes both deal with trust relationships, I feel like the resolution where both characters decide to lay down their guns is more effective than one where just one character does.

When Leif was a freshman in high school, he took a theater class. This was partially due to needing a fine art credit for graduation, but it was also because he was very interested in theater. The classes ended up being mainly just watching TV and movies and occasionally writing about it, and that was completely fine by him. However, among all the subjects covered in the class, one stood out the most to him: Existentialism.

For a little bit of reference, Leif was a fragile lad, even more fragile back then than he is now. So of course, movies and plays about existentialism were sure fill him with dread about who he was, who he wanted to be, his place in the world, and other such questions that kids inevitably have.

One of the movies he had to watch was the Truman Show. It’s a movie about a man whose entire life was, unbeknownst to him, filmed and put on the air as a television show. Ostensibly, the show was simply about following Truman Burbank as he lived an idyllic life in a seaside town. However, just below the surface, it’s clear that Truman is held prisoner by this town. He wants to leave, but every time he tries an obstacle gets in his way, whether it be physical like a road blockade or mental like his fear of water, instilled in him at a young age by the show runners. Slowly but surely he grows to realize the fake nature of his town and grows more desperate to escape.

When Leif saw this, he was surprised to see how much Truman was prisoner to his own fears. Just as much as any other obstacle, Truman’s phobia prevented him from living the life he wanted to live. The specific moment where Leif realized that this movie was special was when Truman decided to go off script. Truman was used to following routine up until that point in the film: he had a very specific daily regiment. However, when he decides to mix things up, he really starts to see the world around him for what it is. He watches as the people around him go about their day as usual, actors playing their parts. Seeing Truman take his life into his own hands and go against the flow of society reminded Leif of how easy it is to become a slave to routine. It showed him the importance of stepping outside one’s comfort zone, even if it means doing things others wouldn’t.

Since watching that scene, Leif remembers it from time to time, and wonders what it would be like to act with spontaneity rather than just strictly follow his routine.