Journal 3 Stagecoach

Christopher Garcia

Stagecoach Journal 3

Before going over the PowerPoint’s or reading the text I watched the stagecoach without knowledge beforehand. I found this to allow me to take my own point of view of what the movie stood for as well as the characteristics of each character in the movie. I was able to realize many key characteristics in john Wayne’s character specifically. I was able to realize that though he was portrayed as a villain or bad guy he had many hypocritical values/morals. For example, He held family, home, decency, democracy as well as put a lot of his faith into others. These are all good or Christian like values that unlike villains who only believe in themselves or what they can gain from others. Similarly Clair Trevor gave me the impression that she felt she was not a good person and held onto a lot of shame. Which I came to find in the PowerPoint shame was a theme along with prostitution which I came to realize was included very subtly in the movie. I found these characteristic traits from the notes and PowerPoint to really help me better understand the characters and ultimately the movie as a whole.

            In the article that I found on the Stagecoach I have come to find many interesting facts about the stars of the movie as well as the movies effect on society. I did not realize that this movie did not only revitalize the idea that western movie could not only be an art form like many other movies as well as being entertaining to watch. Furthermore, the Stagecoach also renewed John Wayne who before this was an extra, stuntman and then B actor. This was John Wayne’s first time being the leading/starring role in any movie that he was in, though he was in a lot of movie before finally getting his lead role in Stagecoach. Alongside John Wayne John Ford returned to the movie industry with the stagecoach after some years. John Ford as I understand it took the break in order to allow his idea of this specific genre which he continued to make movies with after the Stagecoach. The article also goes into more detail about other movies that both John Ford directed and John Wayne stared in. I found this article to give a deeper understanding of both John Wayne and John Ford as individuals.

            Comparing the article to the film in terms of how it changed the way I viewed the film made me ponder. I feel that before I read the article I saw John Wayne as a born star rather than one that worked very hard to get to where he did. I also did not realize that John Ford had much previous success as well as the fact that this film was his return to the industry. When I looked over the film again I thought, “For someone of that time to make a film like this it had to be someone looking outside the box”. Simply said I feel that someone who was not in the immediate industry I feel could not make the genre that John Ford did. Moreover, when looking at what an Ark Movie entails it allowed me to understand what the film was truly portraying. I did not even know what an Ark movie was until I read the article and it made a difference. It also allowed me to look at different movies both in past, present, and future movies to come out and I found it shocking that I did not understand that theme until recently. Ultimately the article successfully did change my view on the Stagecoach in terms of what it stands for as a movie.

            To conclude, I feel that this movie was one of survival that allowed many different characters to come together where normally they would not. This also allowed for many different morals, views, as well as actions to be shown that also normally would not take place. The idea to survive was entangled in the idea of death throughout the movie. Though normally life and death comes hand in hand I have not seen a movie in this class that I felt that was truly taken heavily. I felt that the Stagecoach had many intense themes and some comedic relief that really allowed this movie to shine. All in all I understand why this movie was viewed as a metaphor for society. Ultimately this movie makes me feel that all people regardless of stature carry a law that they see as just within themselves.

Journal Article:http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-stagecoach-1939

CHECKLIST  FOR  PLAGIARISM 

1)  (    )  I 

have  not  handed  in  this  assignme

nt  for  any  other  class. 

2)  (    )  If  I  reused  any  information  from  other  papers  I  have  written  for  other  classes,  I 

clearly  exp

lain  that  in  the  paper. 

3)  (    )  If  I  used  any  passages  word  for  word,  I  put  quotations  around  t

hose  words,  or 

used  indentation  and  citation  within  the  text. 

4)  (    )  I  have  not  padded  the  bibliography.  I  have  used  all  sources  cited  in  the 

bibliography  in

the  text  of  the  paper. 

5)  (    )  I  have  cited  in  the  bibliography  only  the  p

ages  I  personally  r

ead. 

6)  (    )  I  have  used  direct  quotations  only  in  cases  where  it  could  not  be  stated  in  another 

way.  I  cited  the  source  within  the  paper  a

nd  in  the  bibliography. 

7)  (    )  I  did  not  so  over

-­‐

use  direct  quotations  that  the  paper  lacks  interpr

etation  or 

or

iginality. 

8)  (    )  I  checked  yes  on  steps  1‐7  and  therefore  have  been  fully  transparent  about  the 

research  and  ideas  used  in 

my  paper. 

Name:  _________________________________Date:  ____________________________

Note: If the PDF version will not copy/pa

ste for you, an extra Word version is

supplied on BlackBoard > Content adjacent to this document.

Journal 2 "It happened one night"

Christopher Garcia

Journal 2

1)      It happened one night was one of the earlier films that were in complete sound. With the gold rush and other movies that Charlie Chaplin did only had tiny bits of text dialogue. When this aspect of sound was introduced to society many actors where cut or could not keep up with the change. However, this did allow the recruit of many actors from New York and many stars that we know today to be discovered. With sound also came the availability of not having to speak into a specific microphone as we saw with dancing in the rain. The availability to have sound picked up in an area rather than a specific spot allowed for movies such as “it happened one night” to be developed. This specific point is one of the larger points that I felt effected movies in a big way specifically in “it happened one night”.

2)      I found an article online at TCM.com that really allowed me to understand “It happened one night”. It did not only summarize the movie and allowed me to understand the true drama that was portrayed. But gave specific details about the actors that made the company what it was. As said by TCM “The bad boy was Clark Gable, who was becoming an important star, and flexing his muscles. He told Mayer he wouldn't play any more gigolo roles, and he wanted a raise. Mayer would punish him by exiling him to Siberia on Poverty Row. Gable arrived for his first meeting with Capra drunk, rude, and angry.” However though such a movie was able to come out in the article I was surprised to find that the studio that made such a movie was not considered being one of the greats of the time. As stated by TCM, “In the early 1930s, Columbia Pictures was considered a "Poverty Row" studio, making cheap B-movies. This forced me to believe that this movie had a great effect on Columbia pictures studios and allowed it to become the great company it is today.

3)      Before reading the article I expected for the actors and the studio to be already famous and rich. Yet I come to find that the actors and directors where not only B actors and had continuing conflicts. But the studio Columbia pictures at the time were called a poor B studio as well. This allowed me to believe that the changes in time really affected the actors as well as the studios that hired such individuals. I feel that America’s belief in the poor can become the rich with effort and time really shown greatly. Furthermore, I did not realize that the film came from a magazine story called “night bus”. Most great films in my experience always come from books and although surprised I was not shocked that such a film came from a text. I have concluded that this film from the article was greatly underestimated and as the film was watched through word of mouth more and more people came to see it. Once this occurred the film blew up and it was realized as one of the great films of that era by people that were not truly discovered.

4)      The film “It happened one night” truly represents a drama that contains many twists and turns. In the beginning it seems that they both do not enjoy one another’s company and constantly do things that upset each other. However, there are always times when Clark Gable the male actors acts sweet towards Claudette Colbert the female actress and continues to do so throughout the film. The turn that surprised me was the morning when both actors woke up in the hotel. From then on Claudette acted very sweet and loving almost enduring toward Clark and though at times she got upset the love that was portrayed did not change until they were married. From the start to the end of the film there was witty comedy and really turned into a screwball of a comedy with a dramatic twist. There are many movies knower days that does the same and there hit after hit. This movie really surprised me with the quick jokes, clever antiques, as well as romantic yet manly feel of the movie. I see why it was a great hit and enjoyed watching and analyzing the film from start to finish.

Journal Article:

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/12648/It-Happened-One-Night/articles.html

CHECKLIST  FOR  PLAGIARISM 

1)  (    )  I 

have  not  handed  in  this  assignme

nt  for  any  other  class. 

2)  (    )  If  I  reused  any  information  from  other  papers  I  have  written  for  other  classes,  I 

clearly  exp

lain  that  in  the  paper. 

3)  (    )  If  I  used  any  passages  word  for  word,  I  put  quotations  around  t

hose  words,  or 

used  indentation  and  citation  within  the  text. 

4)  (    )  I  have  not  padded  the  bibliography.  I  have  used  all  sources  cited  in  the 

bibliography  in

the  text  of  the  paper. 

5)  (    )  I  have  cited  in  the  bibliography  only  the  p

ages  I  personally  r

ead. 

6)  (    )  I  have  used  direct  quotations  only  in  cases  where  it  could  not  be  stated  in  another 

way.  I  cited  the  source  within  the  paper  a

nd  in  the  bibliography. 

7)  (    )  I  did  not  so  over

-­‐

use  direct  quotations  that  the  paper  lacks  interpr

etation  or 

or

iginality. 

8)  (    )  I  checked  yes  on  steps  1‐7  and  therefore  have  been  fully  transparent  about  the 

research  and  ideas  used  in 

my  paper. 

Name:  _________________________________Date:  ____________________________

Note: If the PDF version will not copy/pa

ste for you, an extra Word version is

supplied on BlackBoard > Content adjacent to this document.

Journal 1 Film History The Gold Rush

Christopher Garcia

1) Relate what was discussed in class or the text to the screening.

-In class we talked about how the idea of a silent comedy could come about and the details that went into making a silent comedy at the time. I was interested to see before the movie started how in depth the purely visual gags would truly be on the eyes and not on the ears. To my surprise I found it quite enjoyable and it appeared that there was sound due to my understanding of the entire film simply through the visual gags that had meaning behind it. However, though it is mostly only visual the sounds that were introduced in the film I found was very necessary in order to be able to understand the scenes correctly in terms of sadness, happiness, surprise, and chaos. Without that limited sound I feel as if it would be less of a comedy and more of a drama and a lot less entertaining. Furthermore, though the shots were being rolled at 8-10 fps and were rolled at 16-20 it did not feel as slow as I thought it was going to feel. In fact it felt quite fast paced, although I would definitely give the credit to that to the great actors of that time that were in the movie.

2) Find a related article and summarize the content. (on the film, director, studio, actor/actress, artistic content, etc.) You can use the library or the internet.

Article: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/5779/The-Gold-Rush/articles.html

               -After reading the article I found out a couple of interesting things that I did not know necessarily took place in order for this film to work as it did. A quick example would be that I did not know that The Gold Rush, “was altered by Chaplin in 1941 during the sound era to include a new orchestral score composed by Chaplin, and the deadpan wit of Chaplin's voice-over narration adds another element of comedy to this revised version.”(5th Paragraph the Gold Rush). I also found out that back in 1941 the Gold Rush, cost nine hundred thousand dollars. Which back in that time was really more like nine million dollars in present time. The thought of the expense for what we saw back then in comparison to the visual effects we have in our present time boggled my mind. Such questions as what does are visual effects cost now and what was the great difference between there visual effects and ours? This article that I came across also talks about Chaplin’s earlier life and the films he tried out for. With that said I feel I have gained a different view on the movie then I once did and found the results of reading the article most fascinating.

3) Apply the article to the film screened in class. How did the article support or change the way you thought about the film, director, content, etc.

               -I talked about how the article I found made me somewhat in the second question but I will go into a bit more detail in this response. The article ultimately made me more aware of what it truly was to create a great film as this. There was a lot of collaboration for the stars and co-stars in the play. The movie in itself back then cost nine hundred thousand dollars that speaks volumes in a sense of the matter. There was also the obvious fact that the director Charlie Chaplin was a generous in comedy and without him such a great success would have never happened in the film industry. These in turn made me really try to understand Charlie, his goals and ambitions for the Gold Rush. To conclude, I enjoyed reading the article and ultimately the background of the Gold Rush was more interesting than I thought it would be.

4) Write a critical analysis of the film, including your personal opinion, as a result of 4 things: the screening, class discussions, text material and the article.

               -In my point of view I feel this movie to be a great success in the comedy as well as dramatic genre. There were many ups and many downs as well as many funny, chaotic, and hilarious scenes. This all being done in nineteen forty one was surprising considering that the technology was very minimal in the public back then. I pondered if those comedians and stars were in present time and made the movie now how it would look. The differences between the two as well as similarities would be an interesting find and is something that I find to be very curious. Furthermore, the visual effects and the sound to follow it up were pleasant to my pallet considering the entire dialog in the movies nowadays. The only small dialog was in text in certain parts of the movie but aside from that it was all visual, very clear set tone (Mostly due to the music played), and ultimately a great movie. It had all the right elements with the right amount of pizazz when it needed it at the right time. Alongside that the actors were the geniuses from that time in comedy and drama and definitely made the movie what it turned out to be. I was very content and enjoyed watching and learning about the Gold Rush.