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Kyle Henson
Professor Julie Hicks
LBST 1102
2 December 2014
Final Reflection
Art and Entertainment are ways that we can connect to each other as individuals despite
our background or where we come from. Film started out as a novel idea and became a form of
media that can express emotions and critiques in an interesting and unique way. I have always
appreciated and enjoyed film, but having this class this semester has really helped me to step
back and actually see the reasons behind film. I have already noticed that I view films
differently now. So much goes into making them stand out and mean something, and it is
fascinating that am now able to see what the director is going for, even if the director does not
quite meet his goal. The films that we viewed this semester have helped me broaden my
entertainment horizons. The films that we watched in class have made me think, have made me
feel and have made me smile, occasionally at the same time.
One of the abilities that film has is the ability to impact the viewer in a way that he or she
did not think possible. It is amazing that the makers of a film can connect us to the story and the
characters in the short two hour period. The three films that made the greatest impact on me this
semester are Central Station, Beasts of the Southern Wild, and Bicycle Thieves.
Central Stations story always stuck out to me because of how it followed the heros
journey. We see Dora as an awful person, and right off the back I disliked the character. Josue

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on the other hand was charming and happy. I remember being infuriated when Dora sold Josue
to the people that could have done a number of unthinkable things to him. As the story went
along though, we started to see the bond strengthening between the two with some difficult times
that made it hard. While their bond was growing stronger on screen, I was getting more and
more connected to the characters. This movie showed many scenes that had me feeling
uncomfortable because of what it showed about the problems with Brazil at the time; for
example, selling kids organs on a black market. The connection between me and the characters
in addition to this social critique added together to make me more susceptible to how it ended. It
ended so well with Dora letting go, leaving Josue to a better life. I did not want the story to end
this way, but I am glad it did because it has stayed with me throughout the semester. That is why
the story was so meaningful and left such a great impact on me.
Beasts of the Southern Wild may have been the most charming and enduring film that we
watched this semester. Hushpuppy was acted at a level far beyond the years of Quvenzhan
Wallis. Unlike Central Station, I immediately connected to the characters because of this acting.
The movie showed a side of the United States that is rarely shown in media, which is why I
thought it was a mystical world at first. That made me feel bad for the characters at first, but
then I realized that is the way they wanted to live. I still do not fully understand their way of
living, but that is part of the point. The relationship between Hushpuppy and her father is far
different that the parent-child relationship seen in any of the other films. Hushpuppy does not
live with her father, and she is more a child of the community than she is a child of him. That
does not stop them from loving each other all the way up to the very end. I thought that the
death of Wink was going to hit me a lot harder than it did, because I knew that Hushpuppy could
fend for herself and that she had the community behind her the whole time. This film left me

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with that feeling largely because of the acting and music choice. I cannot think of another film
that left me feeling happy even though it ended with a tragedy.
Bicycle Thieves was the oldest movie that we watched, and probably my least favorite,
but the story was still able to leave an impact on me. The main reason that it had such a large
impact was the relationship between Antonio and Bruno. I cannot remember a one-on-one
relationship that stayed with me as much as theirs did. Antonio cared about Bruno so much and
tried to set the best example for him that he could all the way up until the last scene when he
became desperate. Bruno did not care though; he knew that he loved his father no matter what,
and nothing that Antonio did in throughout the movie ruined that. The movies impact on me
also extended to the critique on post-World War II Italy. I have never heard about how bad Italy
got after the war, but the Neorealists of the time were determined to take film from propaganda
and light humor and transform it into a social critique. The impact came from the fact that this
film was ahead of its time in terms of storytelling with the purpose of commenting on society
with the addition of a relationship that kept me interested.
I was able to write quite a few film responses throughout the semester. With this came
some that I am quite proud of. The three film responses that I consider to be my best are Crash,
Singin in the Rain, and Traffic.
Luckily, I had seen Crash before, so that when I watched it a second time I was able to
catch things specifically for the purpose of exploring in my writing about them. There was so
much to talk about because of the harsh reality of racism that was highlighted in this film. That
is why I was able to write a paper that I was proud of in the end. I went into a pretty deep
discussion on why the movie was named Crash with a few examples, as well as giving some
examples on the characters moments of grace. I found myself getting lost in the discussion that

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a film like this brings up with the racism controversy that I am incredibly interested in. I was
also able to explain why I liked it as much as I did in the conclusion. This sentence from the
conclusion basically summarizes why I like it so much, It bounced around making me
uncomfortable, making me smile, making me angry, and bringing me to the verge of tears with
such ease that I cant think of any other film like it. Overall, I think that this might have been
the best response that I wrote all semester because of how interested I was in the film.
I was able to go from one of the happiest films that I have ever watched, Singin in the
Rain, and was able to write a serious response. I talked about the Clockwork Orange rape scene
in my first body paragraph, and was able to describe how the pure joy of the original scene was
completely reversed to an inappropriate scene. I was able to separate myself from the overall
happiness and write about something disturbing. In the next paragraph though, I was able to talk
in 2014 about a film made in the 1950s that was set in the 1920s. It was amazing seeing how
people in the 1950s viewed the 1920s as compared with how we view the 1920s, and it led me to
write quite a bit about it. It was also the first film that I had a major negative comment on with
the Broadway Melody scene that was not interesting to me. I still liked the movie overall, but I
was able to speak on a part that did not quite fit in. That is something that I might have not even
caught if I would have watched it before I took this class.
The response that I wrote to Traffic really had me think about if what we are doing with
the War on Drugs is helping anything. This response was one of the few that I actually talked
about the visual aspect of film with the shaky camera and the different looks to the different
places. That is one of the reasons that I like this paper so much. I also liked it because I got
deep into the storytelling with the discussion on the borders of the film, both physical and
imaginary. I had fun writing this part, and I think that it shows with how far I take this

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commentary. It is also the only paper that I looked into outside sources to help with the paper. I
found out the true numbers behind the North American drug trade, and some of the people
involved. I like how I was able to connect this movie to the real world. Overall I thought I did a
great deal of unique work, which is special considering it was our first sizable paper.
Art encompasses many different types of media, and film is one of those. Film is unique
because it can actually show you stories from a beginning to an ending, and that is why I like it
so much. Over the course of this semester, we have watched films that have tackled many
different aspects of culture by being a part of art. Three films from the semester that reflect the
culture of the time are American Beauty, Traffic, and Crash.
American Beauty was the most unexpected critique that we have watched this year.
While others dealt with race, drugs, and poverty, American Beauty decided to comment on
middle-class America and this concept of the American Dream. It was unique from beginning to
end. In suburbs, people tend to forget who they really are and forge this life around them that
they show to the outside world. The best example that I can think of this is when he
accompanies his wife to a party. He puts on a mask to act like they are the perfect couple, but
his sarcasm shines through and makes it unbelievable to the audience. It also tackles the idea of
beauty that we have in the United States. Jane wants to have a breast augmentation and Angela
is talking about how she likes when guys think about her sexually, but Ricky views people in
terms of their inner beauty. There was also an interesting side critique on homophobia. Jim and
Jim had the only healthy relationship in the whole film. Everyone around was crazy and losing
their touch with reality besides them. They werent stuck in living a lie like the rest of the
characters. This film took a concept that I was not as familiar with, even though I have lived
through it, and brought it to light to show the real dangers.

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Traffic takes everything that the government tells us about the War on Drugs and
shows the real truth. Mexico is so full of corruption that the good cops seem so much different
from all of the other cops and are targeted because of it. The cartels around Mexico also make it
a much more dangerous to live there. The drug czar, Robert Wakefields own daughter is
affected by drugs to a point that she is selling herself to get another hit. The Ayalas have so
much power that Robert is caught, but he is still able to go free because his wife had the main
witness killed. So the War on Drugs has accomplished way too many preventable deaths in
Mexico, rich kids having easy access to it in America, and the people at the helm being above the
law. It is safe to say that the War on Drugs has caused more pain that relief, and it seems that
the more money put into it, the worse it becomes. The sad thing is that more money has been
pumped into this war since this movie came out, and the violence surrounding it has become
worse since then too.
Crash is the most obvious social critique because race has always been a discussion in
our lives. Crash is different in that it shows the little things that we do that accentuate racism
and we do not even know it. It creates a separation in the races even though it may be
involuntary. This includes one of the first scenes of the movie when Jean gets a little closer to
her husband when she sees Anthony and Peter walking down the street. It also shows that an
event like the carjacking can bring out the racist in people, like when Jean does not trust Daniel
doing the locks. In most films that deal with racism, they make us absolutely despise the
characters because they are extreme, but this film deals with things that we do that we do not
even know are racist, and that sets this film apart. It does this by connecting us to the characters
and giving almost everyone a moment when they show that they can be good people. Most of
the characters in this film are seen as some pretty awful people. It may not be their individual

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fault, but either way their actions highlight racism in Los Angeles, and in all of the United
States. Crash makes it so we understand where people are coming from and is more of a
critique on the way we view race than of racists in general.
It is amazing how far I have come in terms of being a film critic. I now view films in a
different light and learn to forgive certain flaws as well as learning not to forgive others. Three
ways that my inner film critic has evolved this semester are picking up on the reason behind
visuals, reading into social critiques, and identifying character/relationship development.
I have always liked a scene that looks beautiful and unconsciously enjoyed visuals that
matched the story, but I was not able to pick up on why film does these sorts of things until now.
In Traffic I was able to pick up on the shaky camera that made us feel a part of the action and
why the colors were vastly different in each of the three different storylines to set apart the
different feel. American Beauty had a scene that stuck with me was Carolyns scene after failing
to sell the house, The emotions of the audience were changed drastically though when the scene
changes to Carolyn standing in front of the window crying her eyes out. It was one of the few
times that I actually felt sorry for what was happening to her. In Rear Window I had a whole
body paragraph dedicated to why Alfred Hitchcock decided to shoot every scene up to the last
one from the apartment. One of the many things I talked about was when Jeff falls asleep.
Whole chunks of story from the night of the murder were missing which created that doubt in
all of the characters involved as well as the audience. These are all examples of instances that I
would not have thought twice about if I had not looked at these films from a critical point-ofview.
I have known that social critiques are shown in all sorts of art, including film, but I never
really watched films that it was a big part of. This is why I had to learn how to point out what

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the directors are trying to comment on over the course of this semester. Luckily I got a lot of
practice because of the amount of films that we watched that had some aspect of social
commentary in them. In Central Station I was able to connect the film to the art by Erik Ravelo
and discuss some of what it was talking about. The most prominent example was selling the
organs of poor and innocent kids on the black market. Erik Ravelo had a piece about it and
Central Station came right out and said that it could happen to Josue after Dora sold him. Even
though I did not write a response on it, I recognized the critiques of Beasts of the Southern Wild.
We never really hear about the extreme rural areas of the United States because they live a
different life than we do. One of these places is southern Louisiana. I remember never hearing
about the people there until Hurricane Katrina rolled through and they refused to leave behind
their small and unclean houses. It was hard for me to understand why all of these people did not
want to live a better life. This film does a great job at showing us that they choose to live the
way they do and they love it. Help from the outside may indeed help them, but sometimes it is
better to let people live the way they want to live instead of forcing them to be normal United
States citizens, because as seen in American Beauty, that too is far from normal.
The last way that I recognized my growth in watching film is how I viewed character and
relationship development. I wrote about how much the relationship between Bruno and Antonio
added to Bicycle Thieves and how much it changed across the story. Bruno may not have been
needed for the backbone of the story, but he adds so much to the film, that it is hard to imagine it
without him. Another example is when I took a look at the different moments of grace
presented in Crash like how John Ryan started out as an extreme racist and became somewhat of
a hero, how Jean started out putting her race above all others but soon realized that her cleaning
lady was always there for her, and how Anthony started out doing anything for cash as long as it

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didnt hurt his race and ended up setting the illegal Asians free when presented with a lofty
reward. All of these moments made up who each character was on the inside despite the pretty
awful outside. These examples and many more show how I was able to determine what all
added to the characterization in films.
I came into this semester looking forward to the newer movies that we were going to
watch and hoping that the older movies were bearable. Even though Bicycle Thieves was
probably my least favorite film all semester, Singin in the Rain and Rear Window were among
my favorites despite the old age. Regardless of whether I liked them or not, I can recognize the
importance of studying them in a film class. A big part of what we were learning had to do with
how film has changed over the years. The best way to do that is to watch scenes that
transformed cutting like the staircase scene in Battleship Potemkin, and seeing the beginnings of
social commentary in a film like Bicycle Thieves. Film changes as the time changes, and it is
important that we can point that out. It is humorous now seeing how a director from the 1950s
viewed the 1920s film industry in Singin in the Rain. Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most
influential directors in how modern suspense films work, and it was shown by watching Rear
Window in class. We do not always get to see the big picture in film, but by taking the class we
see how everything fits together in the long run.
I signed up for a film class this semester because I always knew I enjoyed movies and I
wanted to be able to watch a movie every week and call it a class. I didnt realize how my view
on movies would totally change over the course of a semester. I have been impacted by film in
new ways, I have learned how to respond to film, recognize film as art in our culture, and reflect
on how I have grown every step of the way. Film has opened up new discussions to be made,
and will always affect how I consume this type of media from this point on.