epiphany

Made It

My throat hurt like mad last night, but I made it though the last day of teaching for the week and was able to give my movie lecture. I actually talked longer than I expected, but I think it went well. The students seemed fairly interested, and I got a great response during my example clip.

In talking about movie aesthetics, I told the students how important music is in a film and how a movie is often more powerful and memorable when it doesn't show you all the gory details. I used the scene of Pippin singing ("Faramir's Sacrifice") in The Return of the King as a current example. I was able to do some talking over it, so I as the soldiers were riding from Minas Tirith out to battle, I asked the students whether they thought the soldiers were going to win. They said "no," and I asked what they thought would happen. "They're all going to die!" I asked how they knew, and they said that the music was telling them.

After the massacre of the soldiers, I paused the movie and asked what happened. Again, someone said, "They're all dead!" I asked how they knew, and they said, "We just saw it!" But they hadn't seen it. We know the soldiers are dead, but the director didn't show us anything other than arrows flying. What we do see is red juice running down another man's chin as he eats. It's an amazing scene and proved my point brilliantly.