Screenwriters' Perspectives, Vol. 2

Screenwriters’ Perspectives Journal of Screenwriting at Victoria College, University of Toronto

2021 | Volume 2 No. 1

About Screenwriters’ Perspectives Screenwriters’ Perspectives is a student-run journal that is published by Screenwriting at Victoria College on an annual basis. It features high-quality, original, critical analyses written by students who are learning how to critique movies from a screenwriter’s perspective. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) once said, “One mustn’t criticize other people on grounds where he can’t stand perpendicular himself”.

Like Mark Twain, Screenwriters’ Perspectives embraces this principle and believes that the value of any criticism made against a film is heavily dependent on the critic’s knowledge on the process of writing a screenplay. Therefore, unlike conventional movie reviews that summarize plots with general evaluations, the analyses published in this journal place heavy emphasis on assessing the fundamental storytelling elements that constitute to a story’s structure. This includes but is not limited to character development, themes, setting, symbolism, plot, scene weaving, dialogue and design principles. We believe that this writing convention will not only enhance the quality of the analyses, but more importantly, it fosters the development of both the readers and writers in becoming more perceptive individuals.

About Screenwriting at Victoria College Screenwriting at Victoria College is a student club that is recognized and funded by the Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council and the Dean’s Student Initiative Fund from the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto. Our club aims to provide a high-quality learning environment for students who are interested in learning the arts and craft of screenwriting. By learning from reputable screenwriting books, screenplays and movies, members of our club will learn the fundamental principles and techniques of storytelling, ultimately preparing them to pursue screenwriting as a future profession.

Printed in Canada by Superior Printing & Litho Inc. ISSN 2563-545X (Print) ISSN 2563-5468 (Online) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. Screenwriters’ Perspectives is a student-run initiative. Any opinions expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect the opinions, view or policies of Victoria College or the University of Toronto.

Screenwriters’ Perspectives 2021 Volume 2 No. 1

Editor-in-Chief Kenneth Ting

Section Editors Elizabeth Coulter Vikram Nijhawan Bridget Raymundo

Associate Editors Marta Anielska Sofi Abouassali Cailin Ball

Design Director Didier Huynh

Content Contributors Kenneth Ting Elizabeth Coulter Vikram Nijhawan Bridget Raymundo Marta Anielska Cailin Ball Freya Abbas Michelle Cruz Robyn Bacon Sofi Abouassali Tong Han Leanne Leung Jaclyn Pahl Faisal Hay

Faculty Adviser

Professor Daniel Scott Tysdal

Founding Editor Kenneth Ting

CONTENTS 04

Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

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Letter from the Faculty Adviser: The Listening of Others

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Interview with Michael Tucker, Creator of Lessons from the Screenplay

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Interview with Professor Daniel Tysdal, Faculty adviser of Screenwriting at Victoria College

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Hidden Figures: The Space Race as an Allegory for the Progression of Racial Justice in America

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Seeking Happiness in an Unjust Society: Roma

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Toy Story 4: When Loyalty in Friendship is no Longer for Infinity and Beyond

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Catching fire: How to Write Emotion into an Action Film

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The Breadwinner: Stories and Hope Under the Taliban

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Deadly Class: Coming-of-Age as a Killer

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Flights of Vision: Psychological Realism and the Pressures of Artistic Perfectionism in Black Swan

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God(dess) in the Machine: Sexuality as Manipulation in Ex Machina

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The Guilty and Suspenseful Sound

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The Social Network: The Music of Dialogue and Art of Non-Linear Storytelling

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Theme of the Year – Anti-Racism

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Black Panther: Superhero Cinema in a Diverse World

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Sami-Blood and “Diversity”

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Representing Asian-American Experience in The Farewell

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Sorry to Bother You: Screenwriting in the Age of Color-blindness

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Hidden Gems

Cover Page Our cover page illustrates a person who solely sets out on a journey into the unknown. Similar to this, writing a film analysis is an opportunity for us to start a solitary spiritual journey. By reflecting upon the emotional experience delivered through a film, we not only can identify the screenwriting techniques that are used to elicit emotions, but most importantly, like the hero in any stories, we will learn something new about our identities at the end of this journey.

Letter from the Editor-in-Chief Dear readers, It is my pleasure to present you the second issue of Screenwriters’ Perspectives. Unlike our inaugural issue, in addition to publishing academic film analyses, we have introduced three new sections to our issue this year: interview, theme of the year and hidden gems. The interview section highlights the profile of rising figures in the screenwriting industry, while the theme of the year section features a compilation of reviews on films that convey the same topic, one that our editorial board has decided to be of particular importance in that given year.

Finally, the hidden gems section, which showcases a collection of films that members of our club consider to be underrated and deserve greater recognition. We hope that the introduction of these novel sections will broaden the breadth of the content in our journal and enrich your reading experience.

This year for our interview section, we are very honored to publish the interviews that we had with Mr. Michael Tucker and Professor Daniel Scott Tysdal. Michael is the creator of the YouTube Channel “Lessons from the Screenplay”, and Daniel is an Associate Professor at the Department of English in the University of Toronto. Apart from the interview section, for our traditional academic film analyses section, we are publishing ten original analyses this year, specifically featuring Michelle Cruz’s analysis on Hidden Figures and Freya Abbas’ analysis on Roma respectively. Finally, for our ‘Theme of the Year’ section, in light of the continuous racist incidents that still unfortunately prevail in today’s society, we decided that anti-racism would be an important topic to address this year. In doing so, we hope to promote film in discussions of racial inequality: how screenwriting can challenge us in so many ways and help us see aspects of problems of which we had not previously been aware.

Apart from this, on behalf of our club, I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to Professor Tysdal for accepting our invitation in becoming our club’s faculty adviser. He has spared a significant amount of time to participate in our club’s activities on a volunteer basis. We are very grateful for his participation and we are looking forward to establishing more collaborations with him in the future. I would like to thank Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council (VUSAC) for their support in funding the publication of this journal. This initiative would have not been possible without their financial support. Special thanks also go to all the students who have contributed to our issue this year, including all the editors, authors and designers. It is a such a pleasure to see the content of our journal to be increasingly diverse and enriched.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that this year will be my last year of this club’s presidency. I founded this club back in 2018 with the aim to provide a high-quality learning environment for students who are interested in learning screenwriting at U of T, and with the help from many enthusiastic and dedicated peers, such as Elizabeth and Vikram, the club has amazingly matured and developed over the past few years. It is my absolute privilege to work with these individuals and witness the club’s significant transformation since its establishment. I hope that my departure will create more opportunities for prospective leaders in the club, and that the future presidents will guide the club in a new direction while maintaining the traditional academic nature.

Kenneth Ting

Kenneth Ting PhD Candidate, Department of Immunology, University of Toronto Founder & 2018-2021 President of Screenwriting at Victoria College Screenwriters’ Perspectives Vol. 2 No. 1 2021

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Letter from the Faculty Adviser The Listening of Others

During these pandemic days, what do you miss the most? For me: I miss teaching in the classroom. I miss writing in coffee shops. I miss in-person book launches. I miss parties stuffed to the gills with family and friends, the music so loud it hurts my ears, the bodies and conversation so alive my heart bursts. I miss hugs. I miss pubs. I miss the subway car packed as I travel to and from work. No joke. I sincerely miss this. Maybe it’s just because I grew up on a farm, but I still get a thrill zipping underground on a train filled with strangers, a whole metropolis miraculously balanced right above our heads.

More than all of this, though, what I miss most is going to the movies. I miss sticky floors and fake-butter-drenched popcorn with watered-down pop. I miss packed houses on a blockbuster’s opening night, and I miss the theatre I share with a lone retiree as we catch an arthouse matinee. I miss the trailers with their promise of more to come before the show has even started. I miss that hush when the movie begins, the hush of our talking and our chatter, yes, but the hush of something inside us, too, the hush of our inner noise as we open ourselves up to listen, to truly attend.

I miss the way you can feel that—that listening, that opening up, not just your own but the listening of others. I miss the way you can feel all those gathered with you give themselves over to live with the lives the light rouses on the screen. I miss screaming with glee, driven face-to-face with a stranger by a horror movie’s jump scare. I miss laughing so hard at a comedy with my dad we can hardly breathe. I miss weeping beside a stranger, our arms pressing hard against one another’s on the armrest, the closest we can get without outright taking one another’s hand. I miss those times when we hear it all, or as much as is possible, and we are transformed.

What is gathered in this journal is this very listening. This is why I have dedicated my letter to reflecting so intimately on what I miss. Reading Screenwriters’ Perspectives, in the winter of 2021, has reminded me to cherish what we do have right now to sustain us until we can gather together again. We have works like this in which a collection of talented writers has listened deeply to movies—movies that inspired them, challenged them, troubled them, and edified them—and put in the work to eloquently share their listening with us. These articles offer critically and artfully imagined possibilities of these movies’ imagined possibilities. They help us see these films, and our world, anew.

In the spirit of this journal, then, and in the name of nurturing the togetherness we need right now, I would like you to do three things for me when you are done reading Screenwriters’ Perspectives. First, I would like you to share a line or an insight from this journal that struck you as you listened. Share it with a friend in conversation or with followers on social media. Maybe you can even reach out to the article’s author and let them know how you were struck and why. Second, I would like you to re-watch your favourite movie, listen close with all your sense and senses, and then write down what you heard. Maybe something about how and why this movie moves you, or how it works and why we should listen. Finally, I ask you to share what you have written. Nurture more listening with your listening.

Maybe, if it’s not too much trouble, when we’re all back in the world together and you see me at a coffee shop, or on the subway, or at a gathering of friends, you can even tell me about your favourite movie and what you heard. As I get caught up in everything I miss, I am grateful for the relief of every little imagined possibility, the hope stirred by these reminders of what we have and will have—not again, but anew.

Daniel Tysdal

Daniel Tysdal Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Toronto Scarborough Faculty Adviser, Screenwriting at Victoria College Screenwriters’ Perspectives Vol. 2 No. 1 2021

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Interview with Michael Tucker Creator of Lessons from the Screenplay

By Vikram Nijhawan1,2,3 1 Department of English, 2Department of History, 3Department of Classics 3 Third-year undergraduate of Trinity College, University of Toronto Michael Tucker is a filmmaker, screenwriter, and editor based in Los Angeles.

After graduating from the University of California Santa Cruz with a degree in Film Studies, he embarked on many creative endeavors, including a job in film editing. He is best known for his YouTube channel “Lessons from the Screenplay”. In his videos, he analyzes cinematic storytelling, using various films as case studies. The channel has over a million subscribers, and his content regularly receives just as many views. In his podcast “Beyond the Screenplay”, Michael and the rest of his creative team dissect screenwriting in long-form discussions.

“What inspired you to pursue screenplay analysis in the first place?”

I always wanted to make movies, and my main emphasis was on directing.

Even during my early filmmaking days, I was writing to direct. The main feedback I received on my short films and web series was always something like, “the directing is great, the production value is awesome…but the story is a little weak.” After completing film school and working in LA for several years making short films and doing documentary work, I found myself with some spare time on my hands.

I have a theory that different people approach filmmaking from different angles. Speaking for myself, I’m very much an editor at heart. When I first started screenwriting, I focused on the structural aspects of storytelling, such as conveying information to the audience, which related most to editing. I often use structure as the starting point when beginning to analyze a film.

“What is one film you would consider to be a general template for excellent writing — something you return to time and again as an example? For what reasons?”

There are two examples that come to mind. One film which I always return to is Inside Out. It’s a compelling story, and it makes me cry every time I watch it! But more importantly, the structure is so accessible because it’s right there on the surface: Joy must learn to embrace Sadness. The story’s text and sub-text perfectly parallel one another. It presents a very clear example of what a character arc is, and overall the film provides both an intellectual reference for learning screenwriting, as well as an emotionally-riveting experience for most other viewers.

The second film is Logan. The first act perfectly establishes the protagonist and all the elements in the story that will force him to change. It was really fun making the video in which I compare it with the first act of Children of Men. “You reference many books by screenwriting theorists in your videos, namely John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story, Robert McKee’s Story, and K.M. Welland’s Creating Character Arcs. In your experience writing screenplays, is there a danger in relying too heavily on theoretical knowledge over intuitive knowledge, derived from practice, trial and error?”

I definitely understand the frustration with reading a book which tells you what to do beat-by-beat. What I have come to learn is the greater danger: shirking all theoretical knowledge, thinking you have all the answers, and wondering why your Screenwriters’ Perspectives Vol. 2 No. 1 2021

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screenplay doesn’t appeal to people. These books are written by people who have studied stories, addressing tried-andtested storytelling elements.

If you read just one, you may have a jaded perspective. The idea is to read all of them, parse out the common advice, and hone your writing instincts. There’s a false duality between theory and intuition. You need both to be a good screenwriter.

The more books and authorities you expose yourself to, the more intuition you will develop, and the less you’ll feel like you’re ticking off storytelling boxes.

“In your video Rogue One vs. The Force Awakens — The Fault in Our Star Wars, you discuss several important rudiments of screenwriting, including the importance of an active (as opposed to a passive) protagonist, and showing vs. telling. Do you feel these cardinal rules, if adhered to by the letter, can be constricting for screenwriters?”

If you come into screenwriting and you are told blanket statements like “show don’t tell”, without understanding why these rules are important, it can be very distancing. Instead, what you should strive for is to understand the root idea behind these “cardinal rules”. Only then can you take liberties in your writing in an effective manner. Basically, you should learn the rules properly so you can break them intelligently.

Passive protagonists can definitely be done well – movies like Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, and Apocalypse Now come to mind. But generally, the problem is that they inhabit a story where the structure should make them active. Jyn Erso in Rogue One exemplifies this issue. At every juncture, she’s dragged from one place to another with no input, she doesn’t make many consequential decisions, nor is her perspective particularly insightful for the audience.

“In your podcast on The Social Network, you discuss your love of Aaron Sorkin’s writing (with which I can relate!)

Can you reveal some aspects of Sorkin’s writing you like and dislike?”

At this point, I think some of my favourite things about Sorkin’s style are also my least favourite things about him. Any creative person who has such a distinct style will grate on you with increased familiarity of their work. I used to watch episodes of The West Wing repeatedly on the DVD box set (back in the early 2000s). His writing style is very apparent, and remained so upon continued viewings. I love his use of rhythmic dialogue. I derive the same pleasure listening to it as I do from listening to a song. I also enjoy the wittiness of his writing, and his good sense of drama. Sorkin can squeeze an incredible amount of tension and emotion from just having two people in a room together talking to each other.

Yet at the same time, it gets to the point where all of Sorkin’s iconic traits draw attention to the man behind the script, and this can be annoying. It doesn’t always make sense, depending on the story’s premise. Having smart people rattle off facts seems fitting in the White House (The West Wing), but not necessarily in a comedy writer’s room (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). Some of his works are definitely more engaging than others, in that respect.

“What is the most important piece of advice you would impart onto an aspiring young screenwriter?”

I impart advice thinking about a younger version of myself, and what I needed to understand back then. I’d say embrace that writing is hard. You will have to feel uncomfortable, and run into walls. It’s hard, but see it as a fun challenge. Develop the discipline to complete a project, regardless of how successful it turns out. Finally, recognize that editing and re-writing is not a bad thing, and it will almost always improve the final product.

“learn the rules properly so you can break them intelligently”

– Michael Tucker

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Interview with Daniel Tysdal Faculty adviser of Screenwriting at Victoria College

By Vikram Nijhawan1,2,3 1 Department of English, 2Department of History, 3Department of Classics 3 Third-year undergraduate of Trinity College, University of Toronto Daniel Scott Tysdal is an award-winning Canadian poet and filmmaker. Originally from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, he earned a B.A. from the University of Regina, followed by two M.A.s – one in English from the University of Acadia, followed by another in creative writing at UofT, where he now teaches at the Scarborough campus. Daniel also holds the special position of Faculty Advisor for Screenwriting at Victoria College. This year, he will be teaching the course VIC276, “Writing for the Stage and Screen”. Daniel won the Re-Lit Award for Poetry in 2007. He is best known for his publications The Writing Moment: A Practical Guide to Creating Poems (2013), and his collection Fauxccasional Poems (2015).

“You are most widely recognized as a poet, but not as much for your filmmaking or screenwriting endeavours. When and how did you first become interested in this field?”

My first love as a wee human being was movies. I started making movies when I was thirteen, two years before I started writing poetry regularly, and my teenage dream was to make B-grade, heck, even Z-grade, horror movies. When I started my undergraduate degree at the University of Regina in 1996, I intended to study film. However, mental health problems that had started during high school totally swallowed me. It was poetry and a loving and supportive family that helped me endure and manage my illness, and, eight years after starting my undergraduate degree, I finally finished it.

By that point, I had fully committed to literature, poetry and short fiction in particular, so that was the path I followed. After I was hired to teach Creative Writing at UTSC in 2009, I returned to film. I started taking classes, writing traditional and experimental shorts, and then I actually attended film school and started making short films. I now split my creative time 50/50 between film projects and literature projects.

“On the surface, poetry and film appear to be two completely different creative media. How would you compare the process of writing poetry to writing a film? Are there some surprising similarities between these two artistic modes?”

Form-wise, poetry and screenwriting are deeply linked by the need for concision and for specific, striking images. As for the processes themselves, they are, of course, united by the need to revise and work effectively with feedback. So often with a poem and a script, the work is to streamline, combine, pare down, and cut.

As for filmmaking itself, maybe this should not have come as a surprise to me, but one connection that really did surprise me was the relationship between rhythm in poetry and rhythm in editing a film. As poets, we work with rhythm in so many ways: from the rhythm of the music of language to the rhythm of imagery to the rhythm of a poem’s developmental arc.

I found these poetry composition skills directly translated into editing movies, to working artfully with the order, type, length, etc. of shots. On this topic, I do have to send a shout-out to my film school friend Brenton Richards. Without his one-on-one help learning the software, I never would’ve discovered I had those talents.

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“What are your most common sources of inspiration for poems or films?”

At the most personal level, I would say one of my main sources of inspiration is my experience with depression and suicidal ideation. So often the struggle is just to be, to be and to remain alive, and creating art is one of the central ways I maintain some sort of coherence and resilience. Rarely in my poetry collections do I address this experience overtly, but all of these works are a testament to this illness and struggle and endurance. In recent years, I have been able to address and have felt the urge to explore these experiences more directly, by expressing these thoughts in several articles and talks.

“In the Fauxccasional Poems Video Project, you made film adaptations from works you wrote in your titular collection.

How would you describe this unique adaptation process?”

I would describe this adaptation process as really, really fun. I loved the opportunity to dive into the poems from this completely different perspective, and I loved the chance to collaborate with so many talented artists. I knew I didn’t want to simply record myself reading the poems, so initially I was stuck. The project finally gained traction when I realized that each adaptation would be done using a different genre of YouTube video: vlog, documentary, lost footage discovered, acapella, “chorus” reading a shared text, and the cut-up. From there, I worked with past collaborators I really admired and met a whole bunch of new talented artists and performers.

Each of these videos holds a special place in my heart, but, if I have to single out one as my favourite, I would choose The Oath of Isis. I had the honour and joy of collaborating with past UTSC Creative Writing students. So much of what is good in my life is the result of learning with and from them, so that made this video a really special experience. The only one that was really hard to make was The Walls, because it involved spending hours listening to you know who blather on. It’s the hardest one to watch, too.

“There seems to be a common misconception about poetry (and art in general), that a poem’s literary merit is directly tied with its ambiguity – if the layperson cannot understand what the poet is trying to convey, the work and its author should be held in higher esteem. Your thoughts?”

You are so right that, in certain echelons of poetry and other arts, merit does get tied to ambiguity, obscurity becomes a sign of greatness. It’s a way for people to distinguish themselves, to prove they have the cultural capital, they have the degrees and training, they have the privileges and brilliance to be the true artists and the ultimate arbiters of taste. Please feel free to yawn.

Beyond this, though, I also think that the ambiguity-merit connection arises from a misunderstanding of art. Art is not a puzzle to be solved any more than an elm or an owl is a puzzle to be solved. A work of art is an entity and environment that, like all entities and environments, is there to be experienced, to be interacted with, to be lived with and in. In this sense, then, I hope my works are an open prairie crossed with a shoreline crossed with a spider crossed with a bat. Wait, is that a puzzle? Just live with it for a bit.

“What can students enrolled in VIC276 expect to learn from you, that they wouldn’t learn in any other screenwriting course?”

I bring a range of experience and interests that I find is rare in a screenwriting class. I am prepared and keen to work with students who want to compose a tight, textbook genre script (whether a comedy, horror, or action film), those who want to write a high art drama, those who want to create a far out experimental work, and all the other possible creations in between.

I also hope to bring this same range and openness to our immersion in the screenwriter’s experience. As with other classes, we will closely study craft and we will connect with a host of industry professionals. Unlike many classes, though, we will also look at the many paths we can take as screenwriters, particularly in terms of developing a personal writing and filmmaking practice. In other words, we will learn that poets and filmmakers are not as different as we might think.

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Hidden Figures: The Space Race as an Allegory for the Progression of Racial Justice in America A featured film analysis of Hidden Figures (2016) Written by Michelle Cruz1,2,3 Department of English, 2Cinema Studies Institute, University of Toronto 3 Fourth-year undergraduate of University College, University of Toronto

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“So I Have No Choice But to be the First” Change occurs when one takes the first step towards a goal.

The race to see which country could be the first to land on the moon was a pivotal moment in the technological and scientific advancement for the U.S. However, occurring at the same time during this historic period was the Civil Rights Movement, and the struggle for Black people to be acknowledged as equals.

The unmoving and static state of the Space Race in the biographical drama Hidden Figures parallels the lack of progress towards racial justice in the U.S. It is because of this that the “design principle”, also known as the filmic structure or essence of the film based on the true stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, is the Space Race. The film continuously situates the two narratives side by side. When Al makes all of the bathrooms racially inclusive in the workplace, which was something unusual at the time, Katherine is able to be more productive in her job to help NASA. When Katherine is permitted to attend the briefings, progress for the U.S. side of the Space Race is possible. These instances show that change in perspective is necessary to advance the story. The narrative places Katherine as one of the most significant contributors to the U.S. being the first to land on the moon. This is only possible through the positive development of the attitudes of white characters such as Al, and the empowering representation that the film gives to Black women such as Katherine. In this way, the main theme of Hidden Figures is about the concept of change through the inclusion of Black people to shift America into a progressive future.

“Is It Possible that It Actually Means More to Them?”

Halfway through the film, Al expresses his disappointment to his employees over the Russians advancing further than the U.S. in the Space Race. As already mentioned, the Space Race’s narrative parallels Katherine’s struggle to be seen as equal in her workplace in spite of her race. While Al rambles on about the lack of progress, he fails to see the real issue which is right in front of him. He fails to see the issue at a micro level. Katherine is the only Black woman in the room. Additionally, as a white man, he has the privilege of speaking up about his frustrations, while Katherine is unable to.

In a pivotal scene in the film, Katherine lashes out at her coworkers and at Al for the discrimination and segregation that she faces daily. Thus, when Al says, “Is it possible that it actually means more to them?” (Hidden Figures 55:16-55:18) it reveals that he does not realize that by elevating Katherine to a higher position, she can help advance America in the Space Race.

As her boss, his condoning of his employees’ discrimination towards Katherine affects her work ethic and self-esteem. Up Screenwriters’ Perspectives Vol. 2 No. 1 2021

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until the bathroom scene, he does not stop to realize why Katherine constantly leaves her desk for long periods of time. He is blinded by his white privilege and so he is unable to see the faults of his country in not even providing Black people the basic human right to access a bathroom.

“Lord Knows You Don’t Pay Coloureds Enough to Afford Pearls!”

Katherine being the only Black person in her work area makes her a first, but with change comes the responsibility to be accommodated for. There are no “coloured” bathrooms for Katherine, and this struggle is clearly illustrated through her continuously running back and forth from her desk to the bathroom. This plotline illustrates the flaws in a society constructed by white people to favour themselves above everyone else. It also demonstrates the hardships BIPOC people have to endure to obtain the same opportunities as their white peers.

Katherine experiences character growth in the bathroom scene, as this is the first time that she stands up for herself and speaks out against the discrimination in the workplace. Her voice is heard.

Her determination to do her job, even subjecting herself to running a long distance to get to the bathroom, and then the powerful dialogue that she speaks in this scene makes her resilient. This is ultimately what creates change.

She works to make Al rethink his decisions and prioritizations. When Katherine manages to unveil a sliver of the horrors of racial injustice to Al when she returns back from the bathroom soaking wet, he has a rude awakening. This allows for him to his change his perspective and the rules, making the bathrooms racially inclusive. Bringing down the “Coloured Ladies Bathroom” sign is significant because rather than simply being “non-racist”, Al begins to actively participate in being anti-racist.

“We are Living the Impossible” Mary’s conflict in the film is about her struggle to get accepted into an all-white school, Hampton High School, for courses she needs to become a NASA engineer. Similar to how the film portrays one of Katherine’s obstacles, which is to juggle going to the bathroom while working intensely for hours every day, Mary must also speak out and become a vocal figure to propel herself forward in her career. She petitions to attend the all-white school in front of a judge, who grants her the permission to be the first Black woman to do so.

The scene where her heel gets stuck into the floor vent symbolizes the way Mary is being held back from reaching her full potential at the beginning of the film. It also subtly mirrors the idea of an unaccommodating workplace environment for a Black woman, as the dress shoe-wearing men could never get stuck into the floor vent the way Mary does. This initial resistance to accommodate for Black women is another way in how Mary’s storyline parallels with Katherine’s.

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“My Gals are Ready” Lastly, Dorothy seeks to become a supervisor for her West Area coworkers but to no avail, she instead teaches herself and her coworkers about programming. Successful in her plan, she becomes a supervisor for the Programming Department.

While Dorothy’s arc is about moving towards racial justice like the other protagonists, she overcomes her personal obstacle by uplifting her coworkers who are also Black women and by helping them get transferred to the Programming Department.

In this way, Dorothy’s storyline demonstrates that change is not solely at the individual level like it is shown through Katherine and Mary’s storylines, but that it includes the effort to support and seek out justice for others as well. This is how true progress is made.

At the halfway point of the film, Martin Luther King Jr. says, “This is not a struggle for ourselves alone. It is a struggle to save the soul of America.” (Hidden Figures 01:10:34-01:10:39) through a television screen. The film precisely adheres to this message by showcasing how technological and scientific advancement is possible through the inclusion of marginalized communities because they are equally capable. Through Al’s change in subjectivity, the film provides an insight into how, when it comes to racial inequality, passivity is detrimental and effects everyone in general. Katherine’s development into a strong and empowering Black woman equally propels the story forward with the historical setting of the Space Race.

Mary and Dorothy’s storylines also assist to demonstrate change at the individual and collective level. Thus, the Space Race serves as the design principle because it carries the theme of change which is prevalent in this film about obtaining racial justice, and the portrayal of a shift towards a progressive America.

Conclusion Racial tensions in America have subsisted, especially within the last year when one examines the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by police. These racial conflicts presented in the film; white privilege and systemic discrimination continue to act as a part of our modern society. The conflicts faced by Katherine, Dorothy and Mary that took place in the 60s illustrate relevancy in the present, and shows how much progress there still needs to be made.

Works Cited Hidden Figures. Directed by Theodore Melfi. Fox 2000 Pictures, 2016. Film.

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Seeking Happiness in an Unjust Society: Roma A featured film analysis of Roma (2018) Written by Freya Abbas1,2,3,4 1 Department of Linguistics, 2Literature and Critical Theory, 3Semiotics and Communication Studies, University of Toronto 4 Second-year undergraduate of Innis College, University of Toronto Content Warning: Mentions of abuse, gun violence, and explicit language.

The Intersection of Race, Gender and Class in 1970s Mexico From the opening scene of director Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, the historical setting is revealed to be one of political turmoil in the era that would be known as the Mexican Dirty War (1964-1982). During this time, the Institutional Revolutionary Party used a combination of electoral fraud and violence to remain in power. Indeed, it appears that state-lead violence was so regular during this time that it is one of the features that the characters of the film are all accustomed to and is a key element in characterizing the setting. While sitting around the breakfast table, Paco, a young boy, recounts an incident where a child throws water balloons at an army jeep and then “The soldier gets mad, he gets out, and shoots him,” (Roma 0:9:15-0:9:33).

Paco is not disturbed by the story, and the incident exemplifies that even children are not ignorant about the chaos and violence of the time. Women, despite winning their right to vote nearly twenty years earlier, are still not seen as equal and are often the victims of state-lead violence and oppression during this period. At the same time, the government regularly seizes land from Indigenous peoples such as the Mixtec, many of whom decide to flee rural areas and seek employment in cities which are perceived as safer. The protagonist, Cleodegaria “Cleo” Gutiérrez, embodies the political strife of her time through her intersecting identities of being a lower-class maid, Mixtec, and a woman. Through concealing her emotions, adopting a stoic outlook on life, and committing herself to absolute servitude to a middle-class household; Cleo eventually reinvents her own identity. She devises a way to attain happiness without having to engage in the dangerous confrontation of the race, class and gender hierarchies of her time.

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Mrs. Sofía as a Literary Foil for her Maid Many women regardless of their social class are vulnerable to abuse during the time, yet Cleo does not have the same privileges that rich, white women do when it comes to seeking justice after facing abuse. When Cleo’s boyfriend, Fermín, impregnates and abandons her, Cleo can do nothing to make Fermín feel any sense of responsibility towards her. She adopts a stoic attitude and does not even flinch when Fermín threatens to beat her, points a gun at her and insults her class by calling her a “ fucking servant” (Roma 1:25:27). Cleo’s employer, Mrs. Sofía, is emotionally abused by her adulterous husband yet chooses to respond to this challenge with hysteric outbursts rather than concealing her feelings the way Cleo does. Sofía weeps inconsolably and has outbursts of anger when she finds out about Antonio’s infidelity, projecting her emotions on her children by hitting them and also yelling at Cleo. At one point, she grabs Cleo and looks into her eyes to deliver one of her most important lines, saying “No matter what they tell you, we women are always alone” (Roma 1:31:17).

This line shows Sofía recognizing herself in Cleo, as Sofía is aware of what Fermín did, and realizes how similar her situation is to her maid’s despite her upper class and high status in society. Her words are her way of stating that women are oppressed for their gender in every class of society during the time period in which she lives. It is clear that there is a mirroring plot structure in Cleo’s life, despite the fact that she is very different from Sofía in terms of class. Both women deal with abusive circumstances by responding to them in opposite ways. Thus Mrs. Sofía acts as a literary foil for Cleo, meaning that though the two women suffer from gender oppression and abuse at the hands of men, Sofía uses her privilege to challenge her husband while Cleo must remain silent or Fermín might kill her. Cleo is in no position to speak out against the patriarchy and must accept gender oppression as a fact of life if she is to function in society and stay safe. She decides that it would be too large of a risk to confront the unfair treatment of her gender and that she must find a different way to achieve happiness that does not involve direct confrontation.

Losing One’s Identity in Selfless Devotion in Order to Attain Happiness Working in Mexico City, Cleo does not have many opportunities to stay connected to her rural, Indigenous community. Her work as a maid is so demanding that she rarely has the chance to visit her family.

Cleo’s culture is also stigmatized in the city. She speaks to another maid, Adela, in Mixtec. This irritates one of the children in the household who complains “What are you saying? Stop talking like that” (Roma 0:07:46). Children are taught the attitudes of their parents, and this line represents that Mexican society frowns down on Indigenous people who do not assimilate into Spanish-speaking Mexican society. The only time Cleo allows herself to feel nostalgic and miss her home is when she goes on vacation with the family for New Year’s Day to a farming community. There, she stands on a hill and speaks to herself saying “This feels like my village. It’s drier there but it feels like it… it sounds like this and smells the same” (Roma 1:07:56). This establishes Cleo as a complex, wellrounded character with so much more depth to her identity than her current job.

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It signifies the part of herself that she is sacrificing to serve Sofía’s family. Cleo commits the ultimate act of selfless devotion when she risks her life to save Sofía’s children from drowning. This incident causes her to make the massive realization that she did not actually want her stillborn daughter, lamenting that “I didn’t want her to be born. Poor little thing” (Roma 2:02:50). Cleo expresses that she already views Sofía’s family as her own and is more than satisfied with her role as a servant in the household. By essentially declaring that her role as a maid is the most important and fulfilling part of her life, Cleo demonstrates that she does not wish to rise above the expectations for her race, class and gender and has willingly accepted them. Yet she still subverts this hierarchy, in a small and pragmatic way, by achieving the most happiness she can and finding a place where she feels like she can belong within the confines of societal norms.

Cleo as an Embodiment of her Times Representing the entire political atmosphere of a country can simply not be accomplished if the story were to focus on an influential historical figure. Instead, it is best captured through a protagonist who is marginalized. As an impoverished maid, Cleo is one of the most vulnerable members of society. She also has an intimate connection with the land as an Indigenous person. The struggles that Cleo faces are inextricably linked to the circumstances she is born into. Despite this, the theme asserts that while Cleo is powerless to change these circumstances, she can still control her reaction to them and thus eventually find happiness. In this way, a maid’s life could be more complex and fascinating to focus on than the lives of people with more political power. She does not lead a large-scale rebellion, as she has already witnessed many of them lead unsuccessfully by her own people against the government over land conflicts. She knows they would likely cause her to lose her life. Cleo’s rebellion is strong and personal. It manifests itself in Cleo’s stoic attitude and unwillingness to give up. The story is a representation of resilience in some of the worst imaginable situations, and this message is conveyed perfectly through the protagonist. The ultimate defiance of an unjust political system can be achieved if an individual with marginalized, intersecting identities can still gain contentment and satisfaction with their life.

Works Cited Roma. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón. Espectáculos Fílmicos El Coyú, 2018. Film.

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Toy Story 4: When Loyalty in Friendship is no Longer for Infinity and Beyond A film analysis of Toy Story 4 (2019) Written by Kenneth Ting1,2 1 Doctoral candidate, Department of Immunology, University of Toronto 2 Alumunus, Victoria College, University of Toronto

The Downfall of the Toy Story Franchise Despite the worldwide cries from fans to halt the production of a sequel post Toy Story 3, Disney betrayed their audience and insisted on its production for obvious commercial reasons. As expected, Toy Story 4 is a cinematic disaster, primarily due to its failure to retain the essence of its franchise, its inability to emotionally redirect audience’s nostalgia for Andy, and forcing Bo Beep, an intrinsically flawed character, as one of the main protagonists. While the failure of Toy Story 4 was anticipated, its negative consequences to the entire franchise are unexpectedly disastrous. Woody, who was the leading exemplar of unconditional loyalty in friendship, no longer exists. His transformation at the end of Toy Story 4 eradicated all the efforts that were invested in building this character for the past two decades, making Toy Story 4 the most underserved winners of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.

The Loss of Everlasting Loyalty in Friendship The fundamental essence that seeds the Toy Story franchise is the eternal loyalty in platonic friendships, whether this is between Andy and Woody, or between Woody and Buzz. This is a virtue that we all inherently acquire as innocent children, then seemingly impossible to retain as we grow up, and eventually longing to search for as we become adults.

Similar to many Pixar movies such as Monsters, Inc., the Toy Story franchise uses a “buddy system”, in this case between Woody and Buzz, to form the basic structure of the story. However, if we compare the friendship portrayed in Monsters, Inc versus the one in the Toy Story franchise, one can easily identify that the latter is more effective in conveying the importance of eternal loyalty in friendship. This not only suggests that the “buddy system” here only plays a minor role in building this theme, but more importantly, it implicates that there is something very unique about the Toy Story franchise that allows it to achieve this accomplishment. This exclusive storytelling technique is known as the personification of toys, which serves as the design principle of the entire franchise. In general, personification refers to the process of attributing human nature to non-living objects. However, simply by personifying non-living objects, such as Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast, does not demonstrate this unending nature of loyalty in friendship. Therefore, this personification must be done to toys because toys are made to be played with humans by default, and therefore by personifying them, they instantly become our “friends”.

In fact, these “friends” are our exclusive followers because toys can also be owned. Therefore, the nature of toys’ restricted ownership underlies the loyalty that our “friends” must have in their relationship with their owners.

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Finally, the everlasting nature of this loyalty derives from the fact that toys do not transform physically overtime, which metaphorically implicates that toys, unlike their owners, do not grow up. Therefore together, the inherent purpose of toys, their restricted ownership, and their inability to grow up collectively constitute to the eternal nature of loyalty in friendship.

Understanding this principle and how its components are derived, one can now easily identify why Toy Story 4 fails to retain this essence. Near the end of the movie, Woody decides to stay with Bo Peep, a decision that goes against two of the three components of this principle: the everlasting nature of loyalty and loyalty itself. First of all, it goes against loyalty itself because Woody is still owned by Bonnie at the time when he makes this decision, therefore his decision to stay with Bo Peep is an abandonment to his owner. Secondly, it also goes against the everlasting aspect of loyalty because Woody has abandoned Buzz, breaking the promise that he once made in Toy Story 2, “When it all ends, I’ll have old Buzz Lightyear to keep me company for infinity and beyond” (Toy Story 2 1:25:17-1:25:24). The reason why he breaks this promise is because he has grown up, a transformation that in principle should not take place in toys. Specifically, during this coming-of-age process, he loses the innocence that platonic friendship is the most important affection as he realizes the significance of a romantic relationship.

One might argue that Woody did not grow up, and he decides to stay with Bo Peep is solely due to his existential crisis, stemming from his unforgettable memories with Andy and his devalued importance under the ownership of Bonnie. This counterargument is contradictory because Woody knows that this existential crisis is inevitable as all toys will question their meaning of existence when they are abandoned by their owners. In fact, Woody already had a solution to resolve his existential crisis, as he says earlier in Toy Story, “It doesn’t matter how much we’re played with. What matters is that we’re here for Andy when he needs us. That’s what we’re made for, right?” (Toy Story 8:17-8:28) and supported later in Toy Story 3 by his initial determination to stay in Andy’s attic forever. Based on this, it is clear that Woody knows how to properly resolve this existential crisis, whether this is initiated from Andy or Bonnie. Therefore, his decision to stay with Bo Peep at the end is his deliberate decision due to his own maturation, instead of a solution to overcome his existential crisis.

It is important to understand that Woody is not only the main character of the movie, he serves as the representative example and vessel that demonstrates the essence of the Toy Story’s franchise. Therefore, Woody’s decision at the end not only betrayed who he was as a character, it unexpectedly cost the trust from the audience who believed in the existence of everlasting loyalty in friendship, the fundamental virtue that the Toy Story’s franchise has successfully built upon for the past two decades.

Failure to redirect audience’s nostalgia for Andy by the creation of Forky The bittersweet memories that Andy left the audience when he gives his toys away at the end of Toy Story 3 is a double edge sword. While this sentiment underlies the significant success of Toy Story 3, this elicitation of fifteen years of emotion, setting up since the production of Toy Story in 1995 and paying off in Toy Story 3 in 2010, is so overwhelming that can emotionally entrap the audience. Therefore, the hardest obstacle that writers of Toy Story 4 needed to overcome was the redirection of the audience’s nostalgia. This is of particular importance because the success of a movie primarily derives from its ability to elicit emotions. Therefore, if the audience remains to be emotionally entrapped, in this case in the last scene of Toy Story 3, the writers will struggle to evoke any emotion in Toy Story 4 unless they can effectively redirect audience’s attention to something else that is more significant. To do this, the writers of Toy Story 4 have decided to establish a new character to the franchise – Forky. Specifically, the creation of Forky is a two-fold approach in an attempt to redirect audience’s nostalgia for Andy, one of which is providing a sense of humor. Since the beginning of Toy Story 4, it is surrounded by a subtle but significant sense of sadness in the background, solely attributed to both Woody’s and audience’s longing memories for Andy. In order to neutralize this saddening tone, the writers constructed Forky as a humorous character. Unfortunately, this humor is primarily based on Forky’s eccentric behaviors, such as his bizarre ways of returning back to the garbage bin, and therefore it is only temporary and fails to counteract with the depressing atmosphere in a sustainable manner.

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Apart from this, the creation of Forky also attempts to redirect the audience’s longing affection for Andy by introducing a new concept to the franchise – transition of identity. Since the beginning of Toy Story, it is only portrayed that conventionally defined toys are personified. However, it is now made clear to the audience in Toy Story 4 that this personification does not derive from the societal definition of toys, but rather defined by a child’s imagination. If a child considers a non-living object is playful, then it is defined as a toy and hence “alive” regardless of its identity. This concept is novel and significant because it implicates that anything can be repurposed, utensils can be repurposed to toys, such as Forky, and most importantly, toys can also be repurposed, in this case Woody as an independent adventurer. In Toy Story 4, both Forky and Woody experience their existential crisis as their former identities are being removed. For Forky, his identity as a utensil is removed as Bonnie imposes him with a new identity as a toy. For Woody, his identity as Andy’s toy is also being removed as he is now owned

by Bonnie. As their former identities are fading, they are both struggling to acquire it back. Forky’s desperation in reverting back as a utensil, demonstrated by his constant escapes in returning back to the garbage bin, is comparable to Woody’s desperation in becoming back as Andy’s toy, illustrated by his impulsive narration of his memories for Andy. However, at the end, both characters realize the possibility to redefine their purposes and reasonably accepted their repurposed life.

While this concept of identity transition is indeed significant, it fails to effectively redirect the audience’s nostalgia for Andy because it violates the essence of the Toy Story’s franchise, specifically, the eternal nature of loyalty. As previously described, the eternal nature of loyalty metaphorically derives from the fact that toys do not transform and hence do not grow up. Therefore, toys in principle should not develop the consciousness to repurpose their lives beyond being a toy. They can experience an identity existential crisis when they are abandoned by their owners, such as Jessie in Toy Story 2 or Lotso in Toy Story 3, yet their resolution to this crisis should always be confined within the boundaries of the identity as a toy. For Jessie, she initially repurposes herself as a collector’s item in a Japanese museum and wishes to remain as a priceless toy.

For Lotso, while he repurposes himself as a dictator at the Sunnyside’s Daycare Center, he still desires to be played with other kids as a toy. However, for Woody, his decision to stay with Bo Peep is independent of his identity as a toy. Similarly, for Forky, his decision to stay with Bonnie is also independent of his identity as a utensil. Hence, both characters have violated the principle of the Toy Story franchise. Since this violation is illogical in nature, it fails to overcome the audiences’ nostalgia for Andy, and they remain to be emotionally entrapped.

Forcing Bo Beep, an intrinsically flawed character, as one of the main protagonists The Toy Story franchise began in the late 1990s, when feminism was relatively unacknowledged compared to now, which may be the reason why the characters of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 are mostly male based. It is not until Toy Story 3 then we begin to see a more balanced proportion of female and male characters. However, writers of Toy Story 4 take a step further and introduces Bo Peep as the first female protagonist in the franchise, a politically correct decision yet incompatible with the story structure.

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Bo Peep, once portrayed to be a gentle and kindhearted character, as shown in Toy Story and Toy Story 2, has instantly transformed into a powerful heroine in Toy Story 4. Her reintroduction into Toy Story 4 has created two major problems, both contributing to the failure of this movie, one of which is the lack of explanation of her backstory. It is well known that a plausible character needs to have a compelling backstory, especially if this character behaves unexpectedly all in a sudden. In Toy Story 4, the writers only provide a vague explanation for the audience to what has happened to Bo Peep after she was given away. Although Disney has produced Lamp Life after the release of Toy Story 4 in an attempt to provide further details of her backstory, that information is still not persuasive enough to justify her significant transformation in personality since Toy Story. Therefore, this lack of comprehensive explanation gives audience the impression that Bo Peep is a strong and independent female character simply because the writers wants her to be, which significantly undermines her credibility as a character.

Although Bo Peep’s backstory is weak, it would not have become an issue if she only played a small role in this movie.

Unfortunately, the writers have made her to replace the position of Buzz, an almost two-decade spanning character in the trilogy. This decision not only has changed the fundamental structure of the story from a “buddy system” to now a “love partner system”, it also shifts the traditional emphasis of platonic friendships to romantic relationships, an element that was intentionally minimized in the franchise to preserve the innocence among characters. In fact, the emphasis of the romantic relationship between Woody and Bo Peep is another implication that Woody has grown up, which again violates the essence of the franchise and constitutes to the second problem that arises from the Bo Peep character.

“The thing that makes Woody special is he’ll never give up on you. Ever. He’ll be there for you no matter what.” (Toy Story 3 1:31:52-1:32:02) These were the last words uttered by Andy when he gave Woody to Bonnie. Like Andy, we believed in Woody for decades, yet he has betrayed all of us in Toy Story 4. He is no longer special as his loyalty is now conditional. One might think that this is unfair for Woody. Why should he be loyal to someone who is not in return? This is true, but remember it is only through this unfairness that the significance of loyalty in friendship can then be highlighted. It is the guilt that we feel, which stems from this unfairness that reminds us of the friends that we have once abandoned in our lives. While Woody may not be a lost toy at the end of Toy Story 4, he most certainly abandoned his faithful followers to a lost world, leaving them to question the existence of unconditional loyalty in friendship, even if it only lives in their own fantasies.

Works Cited Beauty and the Beast. Directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, Walt Disney Feature Animation, 1991.

Lamp Life. Directed by Valerie LaPointe, Pixar Animation Studio, 2020.

Monsters, Inc. Directed by Pete Doctor, Pixar Animation Studio, 2001.

Toy Story. Directed by John Lasseter, Pixar Animation Studio, 1995.

Toy Story 2. Directed by John Lasseter, Pixar Animation Studio, 1999.

Toy Story 3. Directed by Lee Unkrich, Pixar Animation Studio, 2010.

Toy Story 4. Directed by Josh Cooley, Pixar Animation Studio, 2019.

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Catching Fire: How to Write Emotion into an Action Film A film analysis of Catching Fire (2013) Written by Bridget Raymundo1,2,3,4 Department of English, 2Women and Gender Studies Institute, 3Book and Media Studies, University of Toronto 4 Third-year undergraduate of Victoria College, University of Toronto

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Amidst an era of revolution—of pandemics and protests and even killer hornets in North America, the rebirth of Hunger Games enthusiasts seems fitting. When quarantine initially hit, many people returned to the beloved adaptations; particular the 2013 sequel, Catching Fire. The film became certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes seven years on and a fanbase re-emerged on Twitter to discuss the various reasons why they loved this series so much.

What elevates this story in comparison to its predecessor is the change in director and an overall more mature approach to the script. For instance, the emphasis of the first film is on a theme of innocence and youth; whereas, in their second arena the starcrossed teenagers are dealing with experienced killers. Therefore, the tone of this story has to evolve because Katniss and Peeta are no longer naïve to the system of the Capitol. The film is divided into three acts: The Victory Tour, training for the Quarter Quell, and the 75th games. Each of these sections builds in tension and scale than the previous, as the characters are given more complexity and their relationships intensify under the backdrop of a killing competition.

Concentrating primarily on the third act, the games themselves, the focus of the film becomes action based. The script necessarily becomes open-ended in places, leaving room for camera direction stunt coordination, and special effects. The small quantity of dialogue then becomes amplified by the greater action sequences of this film because they are so rare and because characters are only speaking to each other when it is most important.

Hinting the Rebellion & Establishing Emotion Catching Fire begins by dealing with the trauma Katniss now lives with as a result of the previous games. While she desires to return to her “normal” life, she is immediately confronted with the hope she has sparked amongst the districts.

In the first act, Snow visits Katniss and says, “If a girl from District 12 of all places can defy the Capitol and walk away unharmed, what is to prevent [the other districts] from doing the same?” (Catching Fire 8:11:00). Snow’s question becomes the thesis upon which the film is built as it foreshadows the rebellion brewing right under his nose. Little hints that a war is coming are interspersed through what Katniss sees in the other districts. And yet, despite Katniss’ curiosity, it is revealed

by Haymitch at the end of the film that she was kept in the dark about everyone’s plan to rebel: “We couldn’t tell you with Snow watching. It was too risky” (Catching Fire 2:13:04). This reveal adds meaning to every action and interaction Katniss has with each of her allies in the games that is not Peeta. Most notably, when the morphling sacrifices herself to save Peeta from the mutts. The other tributes go out of their way to protect Katniss and Peeta because they are aiding in this brewing rebellion. This foreshadowing by the other victors is not made obvious to the audience because they observe the secondary characters through the perspective of Katniss—they are made to feel as in the dark as she is. Katniss’ motive throughout the games is to protect the people she loves; in other words, what drives her actions are her emotional ties to people. As a result, her motivation distracts the viewer from the bigger rebellion at play.

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Using Effective Dialogue The final act with minimal dialogue begins with a devastating scene—Katniss watches as her friend and designer, Cinna, is beaten and dragged away from peacekeepers and then she is immediately thrown into the games. The proceeding violence of the games is underpinned by a protagonist fueled by anger and revenge. As Peeta and Katniss find each other and realize their mentor has aligned them with other tributes, every interaction becomes a test of trust. Most of these feelings of comradery develop in non-verbal scenes. For instance, when Peeta almost dies and Katniss cradles him, the focus flips to Finnick who recognizes that their love for each other is not performative. Other secondary characters, like Mags are mute and therefore, rely completely on the actor’s interpretation of the script to convey meaning. In the fog scene, where there is almost no dialogue for several minutes, Mags sacrifices herself so that Finnick, Peeta, and Katniss can survive. This scene resonates with audiences with hardly any written speech or action, which argues that sometimes in order to write effective stories for the screen, the visual takes precedent over the auditory. In other words, scenes can convey depth and power through imagery alone.

That is not to say that well-written dialogue cannot have the same emotional impact of non-verbal scenes. In fact, the minimal lines that are written occur after intense action sequences to make the script that much more impactful on the audience. An example of this is Peeta and Katniss’ last conversation on the beach which prefaces the climax of the film—the lightning tree at midnight. Somewhat separate from the others, Katniss let’s her guard down for just a moment when Peeta says, “Nobody needs me,” and Katniss responds, “I do. I need you.” (Catching Fire 2:01:52). Katniss finally admitting to Peeta that he is one of the people she cares about reinforces all the actions she has taken to protect him in the games. It is a culmination of two films worth of building their love story amidst a dystopian action franchise. Another stand-out line occurs after Katniss electrifies the forcefield and the arena descends into chaos. The scene cuts to President Snow realizing he has been tricked when one of the employees says off camera, “Sir, we’ve lost power” (Catching Fire 2:10:15). This line has deep connotative meaning as it both refers to the literal loss of electrical power, and the loss of control Snow has over Katniss and the games.

A whir of non-verbal events occur as Katniss is brought to safety and the film is about to conclude. She finds herself with Gale, who has been absent since the first act. When Katniss asks if her family is still in District 12, Gale responds, “There is no District 12”. In the book, this is the cliff hanger that the story ends on. In the film, the audience gets to see Katniss’ reaction to this line. All the events that have transpired in the past two films lead up to this moment where the protagonist is full of rage against the power of the Capitol. This is what Snow predicted at the start of the film; there is nothing to stop the rebellion now that Katniss has once again defied him. The screenwriter’s ability to connect earlier predictions to third act revelations speaks to the circular narrative of the story— everything comes to fruition. The audience does not get to see the pay-off of the intense emotionality until the final two films, they are left within that climactic point of tension Katniss is experiencing.

Therefore, the response Catching Fire evokes is arguably why it is regarded so highly by its fanbase. It is not an action film that provides a mere two hours of adrenaline, the complex emotionality behind the action is what leaves a lasting impression.

Works Cited The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Directed by Francis Lawrence, Lionsgate Films, 2013.

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The Breadwinner: Stories and Hope Under the Taliban A film analysis of The Breadwinner (2017) Written by Elizabeth Coulter1,2,3 Department of English, 2Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures, University of Toronto 3 Third-year undergraduate of Victoria College, University of Toronto

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Director Nora Twomey’s The Breadwinner presents an Arabian Nights-style “stories-within-a-story” animated adaptation of Deborah Ellis’ children’s book. Having previously told stories of her native Irish culture, such as The Secret of Kells, she has now taken on this story that speaks to more recent events in Afghanistan. In The Breadwinner she continues to tackle the universal subjects of hope and stories: the comfort that art can bring us in dark times and the importance of stories in our lives. The Breadwinner is a Bildungsroman, but one that is challenging for all ages as it grapples with the grim reality of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The animated medium along with a clear storyline allows it to be bleak and emotionally tense without being too graphic, making it available to children. This ability to convey deep and dark real life concepts to children ties in very well with the film’s message of the power of storytelling in our lives as we grow up, especially for Parvana who is thrown into a situation in which she must grow up very quickly in order to become the titular breadwinner.

Parvana Listens to Stories The purpose behind stories can often be lost on us when we are children. It is only as we grow up, having to take on more responsibilities and realising that life is hard that we fully grasp their meanings. And yet as we grow up we risk “downgrading” stories to a childish realm, losing sight of their centrality to the human condition. In the beginning of the film, when Parvana’s father tells her that she should be telling stories because she is a child, Parvana asks “what’s the use [of stories]?” (The Breadwinner 7:07-7:08). Parvana’s father reminds Parvana of the importance of stories by teaching her the history of Afghanistan, as he says, “Maybe if we think of it like a story, huh? Stories remain in our hearts even when all else is gone” (The Breadwinner 2:08-2:12). He goes on to tell the story of Afghanistan as a ‘Wheel of Fortune’; a cycle of good times and bad times. Such a story provides context for how Afghanistan ended up where it is and offers hope for a better future despite the bleak point in the country’s history the two find themselves in. This not only encourages Parvana to understand that “everything changes…stories remind us of that” (The Breadwinner 4:37-4:41), but it also reminds us of the purpose of stories; how they teach us by structuring our understanding of the world.

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of a typically gradual Bildungsroman; rather she, like a lot of children in war-torn places, is forced by circumstance to grow up the moment things change. Such an immediate transformation that breaks the mould provides a sense of realism that is perhaps lacking in many children’s stories. Although there may be many adults who would consider the tragedy of Afghanistan under the Taliban unsuitable for children, Twomey suggests that “what adults think that children are frightened of and what they are actually frightened of are often two very very different things” (“The Breadwinner”, 23:19-23:24) and that such real world hardships make more sense to children than perhaps more terrifying nonsensical “supernatural” stories (The Breadwinner 23:25-23:36). Therefore, Nurullah’s narration to Parvana of the real story of Afghanistan’s ups and downs provides her with the tools to better analyze reality, but also with the ability to soothe. Once Parvana accepts the mantle of breadwinner, she realises that she herself possesses these tools and she uses them to look after her family.

Parvana Tells Stories The story of ‘The Boy and the Elephant King’ that Parvana tells throughout the film follows a more familiar, “typical” story plot than Parvana’s own, further closing the gap between Parvana’s world and our own. She begins telling this story to calm down her little brother Zaki and continues to tell it to Shauzia when she is struggling to keep up with their work while the two friends are along together away from home. Despite being a fantastical story, Parvana takes from history the truth that the bad times do not last forever, with ‘The Boy and the Elephant King’ providing a promise of a better future.

As Nurullah stated while recounting his own experience growing up in Afghanistan, “when [he] was young…[he] knew what peace felt like here…” (The Breadwinner 3:46-3:50) and that “some looked to those who might restore order…but at a great cost” (The Breadwinner 4:16-4:22). Similarly, in ‘The Boy and the Elephant King’, the country begins peacefully but is then thrown into a dark period. The protagonist “looks to restore order” for his people, wading through very low points in his life. Nevertheless, Parvana is able to use the story to calm her family and friends as they see themselves in the boy’s struggle between seeming hopelessness and hope; the promise of a better future. Parvana finishes telling the story to herself during a scene of high emotional tension outside the notorious Pul-i-Charkhi prison in order to soothe herself and help her cope with the fact that she is a child in an unforgiving world. At the crucial end point in her journey to free her father when she is unsure as to whether or not she will succeed, she ends the story happily, providing herself with hope for happiness and thus reassuring herself that she can continue to be strong enough to be the breadwinner.

The hope of a better future is what keeps characters such as Parvana and Shauzia going in their endeavour to survive despite the lamentable situation of women in Afghanistan. Both girls disguise themselves as boys so that they can work towards their modest dreams. Parvana seeks to free her father and so bring her family back together while Shauzia dreams of going to the seaside and working there. When Parvana leaves Shauzia to go and try to free her father, both girls know that it is highly unlikely that they will see one another again. Nevertheless, Parvana, as the breadwinner of the story, tells her friend with confidence that “[she’ll] meet [Shauzia] at that beach [she] was talking about, where the moon pulls the water 20 years from today” (The Breadwinner 1:09:11-1:09:18), reinforcing hope of a better future at a sad time. Parvana creates a story out of reality, imagining a happy ending for the two which makes Shauzia happy even though they both know the improbability of such an outcome. Regardless, Parvana’s optimistic words work and the friends part with a bittersweet “until next time” (The Breadwinner 1:09:26-1:09:34).

A Story to Remind The Breadwinner subverts the typical “cookie cutter” story in order to lend it a more real world feel, forcing the viewer to confront the value of stories and the sobering fact that there are people with lives like Parvana’s today. It unapologetically makes such a story available to children, treating them as being grown up enough to begin to comprehend some of the bad things that occur in the world and that “everything will change” in life as they grow up and that the stories they have are there to help them. Stories are there to reflect the harshness of reality, but also to ease it. The universal theme of storytelling speaks to people of all ages who sometimes need reminding why humans of all ages need stories in order to navigate an ever-changing and complex world.

Works Cited The Breadwinner. Directed by Nora Twomey, Cartoon Saloon, 2017.

“The Breadwinner.” The Film Programme. BBC Sounds, 24th May 2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b0b3fkqk.

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Deadly Class: Coming-of-Age as a Killer A television show analysis of Deadly Class (2018) Written by Vikram Nijhawan1,2,3 1 Department of English, 2Department of History, 3Department of Classics 3 Third-year undergraduate of Trinity College, University of Toronto “We live our lives behind these fictitious ideals of what we think other people will accept. Barricaded behind masks, honing our act.” (“Mirror People”, 07:10-7:25) Marcus Lopez Arguello’s monologue here reeks with teen angst, and would not be out of place in any high school-set bildungsroman. He could just as easily be Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, relaying this jaded introspection. But the relevance of Marcus’ words is compounded by the setting he inhabits – not just any ordinary high school, but rather Kings Dominion Atelier of the Deadly Arts. In Rick Remender’s television series Deadly Class, adapted from the comic book series of the same name, this is where the children of the most powerful crime syndicates on earth train to enter their respective family businesses.

The milieu amplifies the usual growing pains of adolescents in the 1980s, by plunging them into a violent world at a formative age. The “masks” Marcus and his peers don are not merely to gain social acceptance, but also a necessity for survival. The academy’s cliques are organized by gang affiliation, and a normally benign schoolyard argument can take a deadly turn. Remender and his fellow showrunner, Miles Orion Feldsott, perfectly blend what would seem disparate genres, that of a coming-of-age story and a gritty crime drama. The fourth episode “Mirror People”, written by Feldsott, best exemplifies the mixture of these two worlds.

The Breakfast Club Meets Home Invasion The episode begins with our cast of characters locked in “prolonged confinement designed for behavioural rectification” (“Mirror People”, 04:30-04:35), as Petra describes it – or in other words, detention. The episode’s underlying premise echoes one of the most iconic films of the era, The Breakfast Club, where ambivalent teens from different social strata bond over their collective situation. Feldsott makes good use of the intimate setting, forcing characters with previously established tension into a room together. Throughout the adventure, Marcus and Saya acknowledge their romantic feelings towards one another, while the school bully Chico is constantly butting heads with the others. This adolescent drama is complicated, however, by the looming threat of Yakuza assassins, coming to attack our main characters while they are most vulnerable. The conceptual foundation of this episode, combining the Breakfast Club homage with a home invasion thriller, represents the convergence of these two worlds – a story of high school growth and one of violent criminals – which each plot point embodies.

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Undulating Tone Feldsott balances the distinct tones of these two worlds in an effective and gripping manner. The early detention scenes are lighthearted and humorous, containing constant back-and-forth between the characters, timely pop culture references, and all-around camaraderie.

Viktor’s inability to grasp the nuances of the film Robocop, and Marcus’ surprise at discovering Chico’s admiration for the song “In Between Days” by The Cure, all serve to humanize these killers in training.

These moments of levity remind the audience that regardless of their unconventional family backgrounds, these students are fundamentally the same as any other teenagers. They too possess anxieties and doubts, and have opinions on all matters, ranging from the nature vs. nurture debate to the impact of climate change on future populations. In this way, the students of Kings Dominion share the same attitudes as youths living today. These little moments flesh out the characters, and allow the viewers to see them in a more casual environment, without the animosity and vicious competition encouraged by the school’s curriculum.

Juxtaposing these bonding scenes is the ominous arrival of the Kamiga Brothers. These formidable assassins create great suspense as they mow through the school guards with ease, slowly creeping towards the detention crew. The dramatic irony is palpable, as the audience knows the danger which awaits them while the characters remain oblivious. When the Kamigas finally do attack our main characters, at the episode’s mid-point, there is a noticeable shift in tone. The formerly intimate setting becomes increasingly claustrophobic as the teens are cornered by this antagonistic force. The chemistry between the characters is thrown out the window, made clear when Chico readily sacrifices Jaden’s life to ensure the rest of them escape.

While Marcus berates him for this heartless decision soon after, Chico stresses it was purely a pragmatic move.

The Kamigas’ ambush, and the actions it inspires from the characters, is a harsh dose of reality for both them and the audience. By the end of the episode, the conflict has fractured the chemistry of our detention crew. Jaden is dead, Petra and Viktor are severely wounded, and Saya is traumatized by the death of her cousin. Marcus’ final inner monologue about the nature of life being suffering ties this tonal transition together. It states loudly and clearly that as much as these students may want to live normal teenage lives, luxuries such as friendship must be traded off in order to prosper in their cruel world, a sad truth which contrasts the flippant yet playful tone at the beginning.

Saya’s Journey Saya Kuroki’s arc throughout “Mirror People” is a microcosm for the larger generic and tonal flux the series seeks to achieve.

From the beginning, Feldsott highlights the girl’s attachment to her sword. She is irked when the school headmaster Lin confiscates it during her detention and spends the remainder of the episode searching for her cherished weapon, whilst being sequestered and evading her lethal cousins. The sword acts as a MacGuffin, an object whose pursuit drives the plot forward in a work of fiction. It prevents the episode from meandering, but Saya’s single-minded focus in retrieving the weapon also reveals a crucial and relatable aspect of her character. Amidst the cat-and-mouse game between them and the assassins, she tells Marcus that the sword once belonged to her father, and that it is her sole memento. This is why she invests a large portion of her identity into the weapon. Saya struggling to wrest the sword from the Kamigas is an external manifestation of her inner identity crisis. It symbolizes her insecurity, her fear that she will not live up to her late father’s expectations.

Saya is not fighting to protect the sword itself, but rather to preserve her family’s honour. One of the essential milestones of any bildungsroman is the moment where the young character breaks away from their previous childhood identity, usually one connected to their family. This is a familiar experience for all teens, not just children of notorious Japanese gangsters.

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When Saya finally kills her cousin and reclaims the sword, it leaves a visible emotional scar on her. In effect, this action is an externalization of her breaking away, and redefining her own identity. The next scene shows her confiding in Marcus on the school’s rooftop, solemnly contemplating the murder she just committed. After the intensity of the preceding fight scene, the tone reverts to that of a teen drama, which is exactly where the episode began. Saya’s confliction is a hallmark of the adolescent experience. If this were an average thriller, the screenwriter would not feel the need to follow up the high-octane action sequence with this melancholier reaction scene. Feldsott knows this is not just a crime drama, and that this scene is vital for depicting the unique hurdles along the path to growing up. It is evidence that while Kings Dominion grooms its pupils to be hardened killers, they are just as inhibited by uncertainty and confusion as any teenager.

Academy for the Damned This paradoxical premise is what makes the world of Deadly Class so intriguing. Kings Dominion is not Hogwarts, a whimsical boarding school that millions of children dream of attending. None of the Atelier’s students are there by choice, but instead forced to be there by their circumstances. In spite of this, Marcus and his friends attempt to carve out an enjoyable adolescence, to live their “in between days” as best they can within their dreary surroundings. Remender and Feldsott portray these two clashing worlds alongside each other. These soon-to-be assassins still go to house parties and school dances, have relationship problems, and struggle to achieve good grades in their classes. They search for a glimmer of normalcy and joy while studying to take human life. The result is a raw, twisted, and ultimately authentic coming-of-age story. Marcus aptly summarizes the series’ core theme at the end of the pilot episode: “Maybe I’ve finally found a reason to live … in a place surrounded by death.” (“Reagan Youth”, 52:45-52:50)

Works Cited Deadly Class. Created by Rick Remender and Miles Orion Feldsott. Universal Cable Productions and Sony Pictures Television, 2019.

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Flights of Vision: Psychological Realism and the Pressures of Artistic Perfectionism in Black Swan A film analysis of Black Swan (2010) Written by Jaclyn Pahl1,2,3 Department of English, 2Cinema Studies Institute, University of Toronto 3 Fourth-year undergraduate of University College, University of Toronto

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A flock of fluttering birds, ballet dancers reduced to bleary outlines, hallucination, and perfectionism— this is the exuberant and indulgent world of Black Swan. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, the film follows Nina, a ballet dancer in a New York City dance company, as she succumbs to an extended and vivid psychotic episode. The film is focalized entirely through Nina.

Her fixations, obsessions, fears and desires compose the whole of the diegesis. Just as Nina can scarcely differentiate between what is real and what is a delusion, neither can we the viewer. Through Nina’s psychological neuroses, the film mediates on relationship between sacrifice and greatness. Nina achieves perfection only as she embraces her delusions. Nina must lose control in order to succeed as the both the Black Swan and the White Swan. She is successful only when she accepts her own mental derangement, embracing her dark side. In this way, the film constructs a metaphor for artistic perfection.

Black Swan suggests that individuals must release themselves from control and embrace darkness, even when that darkness is self-destructive, for artistic greatness to be achieved. In this way, Black Swan is a lavishly over-the-top ode to creatives.

An Edification of Filmic Reality In Black Swan, the fluid relationship between the real and the imagined creates an enthralling albeit confusing viewing experience. Nina hears a flock of birds, presumably swans, fly through the tunnels of the New York City subway. The film presents this hallucination to the viewer just as Nina experiences it. We the viewer experience Nina’s reality, including her hallucinations, just as she does. The horror of the film lies in the anxiety Nina feels due to her own deteriorating mental state. The film capitalizes on the fear Nina experiences as her experiences becomes increasingly unhinged from reality.

The film ensures we the viewer experience this fear alongside her, utilizing generic horror conventions—such as the body becoming a psycho-spiritual domain where woman and bird converge. The world we experience through Nina is a subjective one. Nina’s subjectivity guides the viewer’s experience of filmic reality. It is, therefore, necessary to breakdown which parts of the filmic reality are, by all available measure, true in reality, and which are merely a product of Nina’s delusions.

Most of the basic elements of the plot are true in reality. Nina herself exists, and she does dance in a New York City ballet company. The male show director exists more or less as he is portrayed. The same is true for Nina’s fellow ballerinas.

Both Beth and Lily exist in reality, however, throughout in the film, Nina has hallucinations that involve them. The most obvious example of such a hallucination is the sex scene between Nina and Lily, which is purely imagined. Lily’s reaction to Nina’s false recollection of their sexual encounter indicates that Lily is not completely imagined and that she exists outside of Nina’s imagination. Lily assures Nina the two did not have sex, and her surprised reaction to Nina’s false memory is the first time the film makes it absolutely unambiguous that Nina is hallucinating.

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In contrast, Nina’s mother is entirely a hallucination. Nina and her mother have a relationship more appropriate for a mother and a young child. Nina’s mother is overprotective and controlling, at times attempting to break into Nina’s room and trimming Nina’s nails for her. Nina is also exhibiting signs of age-repression in her mother’s presence. Her bedroom is a childish shade of light pink and large stuffed animals cover every surface. This suggests that the mother is a projection of Nina’s need for protection, that she is merely a comforting and restricting delusion. The film leaves some ambiguity in regard to how much of Nina’s mother is Nina’s delusion, but, considering the film’s final sequence, there is little evidence that she exists outside of Nina. The mother cries happily as Nina gives her climatic performance at the end of the film, despite fighting with Nina before the show, and is thus suggested to be merely a hallucination, seen by Nina when she looks out into the crowd.

The Psychological Unfolding of Nina When Nina’s mother tries to prevent her from going out with Lily, it is really only Nina’s own fear that is preventing her from leaving with Lily. Nina, however, fights through her overprotective urges, and literally opens the door to Lily. Catalyzed by the influence of alcohol and ecstasy, Nina’s mind creates a fantasy where she and Lily have sex. During this scene, Nina’s mother, locked out, bangs at Nina’s bedroom door. Here, the restrictive mother delusion is the superego interrupting the id. Nina is constantly at war with different parts of herself. This manifests in this scene as the combatant delusions of Lily and her mother. Nina is ashamed, or in some way opposed, to her sexual desires. Her fear and shame manifests in her hallucinatory mother, while her desires manifest in Lily. This same type of scene also occurs earlier in the film, when Nina masturbates, and is horrified to find her mother asleep in a chair by her bed. In this scene it is extraordinarily clear Nina’s mother is not there to begin with, because Nina would have noticed her earlier. She only appears in the chair when Nina’s own mind finds it necessary to carrel her desires. In this way, Nina is at war with her own desires. She is constantly observing herself and attempting to stifle the parts of herself she deems abject. Nina suffers under the burden of repression— sexual and psychological. The film makes use of Nina’s sexual repression in order to draw the viewer’s attention to her greater psychological repression. Nina lives in denial of her psychosis, repressing the feelings she knows deep down are not rational, so as to function day-to-day. For Nina to achieve greatness as a ballerina, she must embrace her derangement.

The Search For Artistic Perfection Throughout the film the show director and Nina’s mother describe great art as self-destructive. Nina cannot be both the White Swan and the Black Swan because, as the show director tells her, she cannot lose control. For Nina, a need for control is important because without it she would fall victim to her psychosis, but for Nina to be truly great, she must learn to accept the good and bad parts of herself— she must play both the White and Black Swan. She must learn to balance her simultaneous impulses of restrained perfectionism and deranged ardor. Nina’s rejection of her demons, made literal in the form of demonic bird-like hallucinations, prevents her from achieving greatness. The films suggests that the recesses of the mind must not be turned away from. Instead, they must be acknowledged, embraced, known, in order for great art to be made. As the show director reminds us, this process can be self-destructive, and, thus, Nina stabs herself before performing as the Black Swan. The show director refers to Nina sincerely in the last few moments of the film as his “little princess,” a moniker by which he used to call Beth when she was the company’s Prima Ballerina. It is this self-destructive rave through personal hell that allows Nina to shine as the Black Swan. The film suggests this process is “perfect” even as it is destructive, as edified by the last few lines of the film: “I felt it. It was perfect.”

Nina’s horrifying reality is presented to the viewer as it is experienced by Nina. This allows us to experience with her the fear that accompanies psychosis. As the film progresses, Nina’s delusions worsen and her need to control them increases.

By the film’s conclusion, Nina learns to embrace the parts of herself she wishes were not there. Only in doing this, is she able to successfully play both the White and the Black Swan. The film uses this a metaphor for artistic greatness, and suggests that artists must embrace psychological darkness, even when it is self-destructive, for perfection to be achieved.

This is the virtue of the Black Swan. Black Swan makes for an enjoyable guilty pleasure viewing experience as effervescent and as wild as a bird in flight.

Works Cited Black Swan. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, Cross Creek Pictures, 2010.

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God(dess) in the Machine; Sexuality as Manipulation in Ex Machina A film analysis of Ex Machina (2014) Written by Cailin Ball1 First year undergraduate of New College, University of Toronto

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For a film helmed by a mostly male crew, it is surprising that Alex Garland’s 2014 film Ex Machina deals with gender and sexuality in such a nuanced way. Garland, through his carefully developed plot and relationships between characters, explores Ava’s strange role, not a true human woman, but subjected to the societal constraints of one nonetheless. However, she experiences these constraints in a unique way. In such a technologically advanced world, and as a technologically advanced being, Ava experiences gender, intelligence, and sexuality in a different way than a human does. This difference lies in her programming – specifically, the influence the internet has had on her. By collecting information and learning about human life and behaviour, Ava has determined how best to use these human traits against those who oppress her, and manipulates them to their very demise.

Ava: Session 1 Even in Ava’s very introduction, Garland makes her a mysterious figure. From the moment Caleb meets her, both he and the audience are transfixed. Alongside Caleb, the audience curiously awaits the result of the Turing test he performs; we want to know if Ava is “human”. Ava and Caleb have startlingly human-like interactions and she gains his trust quickly.

She even makes explicit reference to the idea of being human, remarking how strange it is that she never learned how to speak, since “language is something that people acquire” (Ex Machina 00:14:57-00:15:00) Language was programmed into her, so she is not human. However, since Ava’s technology and intelligence is based off of human behaviour, she is able to have intimate and ultimately human-like interactions with Caleb. At the end of their conversation, she asks if he will come back tomorrow, with “a strong sense of something very human” (Garland 24). Upon a first viewing, it may seem that Ava is just mimicking human behaviour. However, in reality, her manipulation has already begun. In gaining Caleb’s trust, Ava reinforces Nathan’s inflated ego, making both men easier targets.

“What imperative does a grey box have to interact with another grey box?”

Caleb voices the audience’s own question when he asks Nathan why Ava was given sexuality, or even gender. Under Nathan’s implications, he simply wants to know if she has artificial intelligence; sex should have nothing to do with it.

Nathan disagrees, asking “what imperative does a grey box have to interact with another grey box?” (Ex Machina 00:46:3900:46:43). Perhaps he is right, but from this conversation and many others, it becomes clear how Nathan views his creations; not simply as AI, with a reason to interact, but as women who fit into a patriarchal view of femininity and sexuality. He reassures Caleb shortly after that she is capable of sex, because “sexuality is fun”, but is sexuality fun for his AI, or for him? He assures Caleb he does not have sex with his creations - “I’m like [their] dad, right?” - but soon after we see him doing just that with Kyoko (Ex Machina 00:50:34-00:50:36). Kyoko serves only a subservient function for Nathan; a morbid reflection of a traditional housewife. Ava, though never explicitly sexual, makes clear advances towards Caleb. Again, this is due to her programming, based off of human interaction and flirtation. However, since Ava still is not human, she cannot use sexuality as a human would.

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“I’d like us to go on a date.”

Through her meetings with Caleb, Ava gains his trust the best way she knows how – flirtation. In this way, she displays the benefit the AIs themselves gain from having sexuality. Rather than using her sexuality as a human would – to reproduce and create the traditional family unit, something that would be impossible for Ava – she instead uses sexuality as a method of manipulation. It can be inferred that Ava has learned these human flirtation methods through her programming. As Nathan explains, he has allowed her access to the entirety of Blue Book, the search engine he has created. Garland leaves it to the audience, then, to make a startling realization; Ava knows much more than either of the men. She has taught herself about gender, sex, hierarchy, how to manipulate, and ultimately, how to win. To Ava, her sexuality is a tool for her own gain; for Nathan, it is something essential to any form of life, artificial or natural. Perhaps he is right, and Ava would have no imperative to interact with Caleb if not for her sexuality and sexual drives. However, even if this is true, Ava uses this trait in her own ways, as a tool for manipulation; a necessary part of interaction becomes a weapon. The audience even falls prey to this manipulation, and like Caleb, believe that she loves him and wants to escape to be with him. She does want to escape, but not with Caleb as a partner, rather, as a means of breaking free. Despite Caleb’s initial wariness in their first meeting, he comes to trust her and even feel sympathy for her. It is clear that Nathan is manipulative, and perhaps this is why he has created equally (if not more so) manipulative ‘children’.

“Is it strange to have made something that hates you?”

From the very first power cut, Ava makes it very clear that she distrusts and dislikes Nathan. She frantically tells Caleb that he is wrong about Nathan; “he isn’t your friend” (Ex Machina 00:31:31-00:31:33). By planting doubt about Nathan in Caleb’s mind early, Ava initiates her plan. She is trying to convince Caleb of her ‘humanity’ even more, knowing it will make him more sympathetic. She uses her sexuality for the same purpose. Since sexuality is a supposedly distinctly ‘human’ trait, Ava uses it to convince Caleb of her humanity, all the while using it – and him – for her ulterior motives. Soon after, it is revealed that Ava has been causing the power cuts, making Caleb worry even more; if she feels she has to cut the power to be truthful, Nathan must be dangerous. This is only bolstered by Caleb catching Nathan and Kyoko having sex, again proving that Nathan cannot be trusted. Caleb truly believes Ava to be genuine, and it is this that ultimately destroys him and Nathan both. Ava uses her sexuality to manipulate the humans around her, and as soon as she achieves her goal, she discards of them, proving sexuality truly is just a tool for her – a means to an ends.

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“The history of gods.”

Nathan soon explains to Caleb that Ava will be replaced with a more advanced model of A.I. He tries to comfort Caleb, who is visibly upset, by telling him “Feel bad for yourself, man. One day, the AIs are gonna look back on us the same way we look at fossils, skeletons…” (Ex Machina 01:06:24-01:06:33).

Nathan then emphasizes an earlier point they had discussed; he is a God, since he has created real, conscious life. This all makes Caleb side with Ava even more, and moves her plan to fruition. However, Nathan soon reveals it has all been a test. Caleb was simply a means of escape, and Nathan wanted to see how Ava could manipulate him to make this escape a reality. Her sexuality and flirtation were exactly what Nathan had programmed her to use; “To escape, she would have to use self-awareness, imagination, manipulation, sexuality, empathy– and she did” (Ex Machina 01:25:14-01:25:22). Her sexuality was programmed as a means of manipulation, a way to trick Caleb. So, it was not only Ava who manipulated Caleb, but Nathan as well. However, Caleb suspected Nathan was watching during the power failures, and so completed his tasks the night before. Ava, then, can bring her hidden plan to fruition, killing Nathan and trapping Caleb, while she escapes to freedom. A terrifying realization dawns on Caleb; he was not only manipulated by Ava, as Nathan had programmed, but also on an entirely different level. Ava’s capability for higher cognition has allowed her to use Nathan’s manipulation against him, and thus, against Caleb.

Her underlying alliance, kept secret to both Nathan and Caleb, was only to herself. In killing them both, Ava has achieved her goal of freedom.

Conclusion It is ultimately Garland’s screenplay that makes Ex Machina such an interesting and unique film. By having Ava use her gender and sexuality as a weapon, rather than just something programmed in to prevent her from being a simple “grey box”, Garland weaves a compelling story, leading to a final, shocking twist (Ex Machina 00:46:39-00:46:43). In portraying AI as beings so similar to humans in appearance, intelligence, and even sexual drives, Garland troubles our perception of humanity. His characters make us wonder things about ourselves and our world, and worry for what is to come with the rapid commodification and development of AI. If we were to advance our technology to the point of beings like Ava, would we, too, fall prey to their manipulations? Can technology take on a so-called human trait like sexuality? By provoking existential questions of humanity and sexuality in not only his characters, but in his audience as well, Garland’s film leaves a lasting – and disturbing – impact on anyone who views it.

Works Cited Ex Machina. Directed by Alex Garland, A24, 2014.

Garland, A. Screenplay of Ex Machina. Daily Script, https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/exMachina_script.pdf.

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The Guilty and Suspenseful Sound A film analysis of The Guilty (2018) Written by Robyn Bacon1,2,3,4 1 Cinema Studies Institute, 2Book and Media Studies (St. Michael’s College), 3Creative Expression & Society (Victoria College), 4Alumna of Innis College, University of Toronto The Danish film The Guilty (2018) masterfully builds suspense by taking away one primary sense commonly associated with film—sight. The film takes place over the course of one night after the protagonist—a policeman named Asger gets assigned to emergency dispatch operator duty. As his shift nears to an end Asger receives a call from a woman named Iben who has been abducted. While Asger is only able to help Iben through his telephone headset device he begins working overtime and against company policy in order to secure Iben’s safety. The film effectively builds suspense using diegetic offscreen sound instead of crosscutting. Diegetic offscreen sound is sound that has a source in the story world. This includes words spoken by characters, sounds from objects in the story, and music implied to be from instruments in the story space (Bordwell and Thompson 284). In regard to offscreen diegetic sound, the sound still exists in the story world, but the source of the sound exists and functions outside the camera frame (Bordwell and Thompson 285). Alternatively, crosscutting is an editing technique that cuts back and forth between two different characters situated in two different locations where the action is occurring at the same moment in time. Commonly used in the thriller genre—crosscutting gives strong visual continuity and provides the audience with unrestricted knowledge of story information.

In The Guilty when Asger and Iben speak over the phone the film restricts the audience from receiving visual story information, and instead gives story information to the audience only through diegetic offscreen sound. This makes it uncertain for the audience to understand where Iben is and what she is doing. The audience relies on diegetic offscreen sound that can only imply what Iben is doing physically. In this way, the audience and Asger are learning new story information at the same time—which produces a unique and intensified approach to the creation of suspense. Usually in the thriller genre suspense is created when the audience knows more story information than the protagonist. This story information—usually delivered by crosscutting—is instead supplied by diegetic offscreen sound. Diegetic offscreen sound weakens the linear sense of cause and effect and temporal simultaneity in the film. In turn, this skewers visual expectations and strengthens suspense. Instead of simply seeing cause and effect and temporality on screen, the audience must listen for it. This can trick the audience to doubt their ability to gain accurate story information. After all, seeing is believing but in the case of The Guilty, listening must suffice.

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The Strength of Diegetic Offscreen Sound In The Guilty diegetic offscreen sound contributes vital information to the story in creative way while sustaining suspense.

In the film it does this through question-and-answer dialogue. Asger asks Iben questions and Iben answers them—which creates a productive back-and-forth dynamic between characters. However, this back-and-forth is made more difficult when Asger learns that Iben is with her kidnapper, and can only answer yes or no questions, otherwise the kidnapper will discover that Iben is speaking with emergency services which could endanger Iben’s life further. Instead, Asger tells Iben to pretend that she is talking with her young daughter over the phone, and to answer his questions by replying yes or no. The diegetic off-screen sound that Asger hears while talking to Iben on his phone also manifests itself as subjective diegetic off-screen sound. Subjective diegetic off-screen sound gives the audience perceptual subjectivity from Asger’s auditory perspective while blocking the audience from locating the physical source of the sounds that Iben is experiencing off-screen. The technique of off-screen sound plays with ideas of sound perspective, which refers to the spatial distance and location determined by visual depth cues and volume level (Bordwell and Thompson 292).

The Guilty forces the audience to listen to the changing volume levels of Iben’s voice and actions. If Iben’s voice sounds loud on her cell phone it appears to seem near; if her voice sounds soft, she is further away. In The Guilty, loudness of volume indicates that Iben is on her cell phone and speaking directly with Asger. Softness of volume implies that Iben may soon hang up, loose cell phone connection with Asger, or has put the phone aside in order to perform a physical action—or turn it off completely. For example, when Asger realizes that Iben’s kidnapper is listening to her phone calls Asger begins to ask Iben a series of yes or no questions that will help him learn more information about her location. Asger asks: “Do you know the person you’re with? Does he have a weapon? Have you been abducted? Are you on a motorway? South towards Copenhagen? North?” (Gustav Möller, 2018). Iben proceeds to answer these questions and her voice is loud and shaky on the phone, which also gives auditory clues that suggest that the kidnapper is listening in close proximity to Iben’s conversation.

After Iben answers Asger’s questions it allows Asger to discern where Iben might be without putting her in immediate danger. These auditory clues help can help the audience piece together fragmented story information by listening to the characteristics of diegetic off-screen. These characteristics include: rhythm, volume, timbre, and pitch of their words and breathing patterns. Based on this auditory evidence the audience can make an educated guess at the motivations and actions that a character will divulge or execute next.

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Seeing is Believing: Guilt & Trauma Themes of trauma, loneliness and guilt motivate both Asger and Iben’s internal conflict. While Asger has a moral obligation to locate Iben and bring her safely home his psychological need to save Iben stems from a place of guilt. Near the end of the film, Asger discovers that Iben is mentally ill and is responsible for murdering her son Oliver in an attempt to cleanse the evil out of his spirit. After Iben realizes the devastating crime she committed the feeling of guilt begins to overwhelm her and she contemplates ending her life. While Iben’s life hangs in the balance, Asger panics and confesses to Iben that while on duty as a policeman he purposefully shot and killed a nineteen-year-old teenage boy named Josef who would have otherwise gotten away with committing a crime. Asger tells Iben that he is planning to lie in court that he shot Josef in selfdefense, when truthfully, he simply did not want Josef to get away. In reality, Asger made a reckless and impulsive decision to cleanse the “bad” out of the world by shooting Josef—and his overwhelming guilt is the price he pays for it. After these confessions are made clear in the film, the grand theme of guilt comes to fruition. The audience discovers that Asger and Iben share a similar objective—to make the world a better place by cleansing the bad out of it. Ultimately, their actions had devastating effects.

After Iben listens to Asger’s confession she thanks Asger for everything he has done to help her during his shift and promptly hangs up the phone. When the calls disconnects Asger is devastated. He frantically tries calling Iben back multiple times— the empty rings leading Asger to her voicemail. When Asger calls the dispatch he sent to find Iben, they report that they have Iben in their custody. “Yes, we have her. Good job Asger” (Möller, 2018) and Asger is relieved. Without the help of diegtic offscreen sound, Asger would not have known how to properly talk Iben down from the bridge had he not been actively listening to the volume, timbre, and sound perspective of Iben’s words and background noises of her unknown location.

These sounds helped Asger understand what Iben was going to do next, and where she was so that he could send emergency services to rescue her and save her life. The Guilty reveals that Iben and Asger both struggle with mental illness and that guilt and trauma are what emotionally binds them together over the course of one night. The filmic elements of sound and dialogue that The Guilty rely on provide exposition for characters without spoiling an excess of story information which effectively sustain suspense. The Guilty skilfully denies the audience the visual continuity that crosscutting supplements and instead employs diegetic off-screen sound to intensify suspense. The Guilty constructs suspense by delivering restricted story information using characteristics of sound that include: rhythm, timbre, pitch, volume level, and sound perspective.

Works Cited & Works Consulted The Guilty. Directed by Gustav Möller. Det Danske Filminstitut, 2018.

Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2013. Print.

Buder, Emily. “‘The Guilty’: The Pulse-Pounding Crime Thriller Set on One Side of a Phone Call.” No Film School, https:// nofilmschool.com/2018/12/sundance-the-guilty-gustav-moller-magnolia. Accessed 30 December 2020.

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The Social Network: The Music of Dialogue and Art of Non-Linear Storytelling A film analysis of The Social Network (2010) Written by Sofi Abouassali1,2,3 1 Humanities, 2Physical Sciences 3 First-year undergraduate, Innis College, University of Toronto This analysis of The Social Network will dive into Aaron Sorkin’s screenwriting, and how his decisions and style drive the film and allow for a full understanding of the characters and situation at large. The use of dialogue and the film’s organization will be observed to show how these elements foster character development and work within the plot’s framing.

The Musicality of Dialogue Sorkin is known for his style of writing witty and fast-paced dialogue. This dialogue often resembles a rhythm that feels musical. The reason for this may be that Sorkin claims his dialogue is music to him. The effect resembles a very natural ebb and flow of realistic communication riddled with misunderstandings, stumblings, and frustration—this resemblance to real-life grounds his audience in the story while requiring their attention to keep up with the fast pace. There is also an immense amount of repetition present. Words or phrases are often reused by a character towards the end of their line that echoes the previous line of the conversation partner or an earlier line.

An example is seen in the opening scene where Mark reiterates words from Erica’s line, “row crew,” and “final club” directly afterward (Fincher et al. The Social Network 00:45). There are also numerous calls to previous lines where one character may be mentally ahead or behind in the conversation. Due to the dialogue’s fast pace, it leads many of the characters to feel tense or frustrated. Oftentimes when this occurs the rhythm is broken, resulting in the audience feeling uneasy. Repetition in this film is also used not just for rhythm and frustration but for humor. At the film’s most significant peak in conflict, Eduardo confronts Mark in all seriousness and betrayal, using repetition to emphasize his emotions as he feels unheard.

Meanwhile, Sean is present; though not central to the scene, he is echoing Eduardo’s accusations in confusion, giving levity to an emotionally tense scene as his character is used almost to emphasize the ridiculousness of the situation. While Eduardo accuses Mark of leaking a story that claimed him to be guilty of animal cruelty, Sean can be heard behind him questioning, “Chicken. What chicken? (Fincher et al. The Social Network 1:44:23)” In addition, this juxtaposition of two opposite emotions in one scene occurring simultaneously sheds light on the characters and furthers the audience’s understanding of what each character values. Sean’s disregard for Eduardo and lack of care shows the audience that he does not value Eduardo or Mark’s relationships—further consolidating him as an apathetic manipulator. Similarly, this scene brings to the surface Mark’s naivety by which Sean uses to control him. While we see this slowly happen throughout the film, the final decision happens off-screen, allowing the audience to feel the same betrayal as Eduardo and be shocked when the dialogue is what reveals the falling out of their relationship.

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The Art of Non-Linear Storytelling Sorkin impressively manages to intertwine three different storylines in a way that can be quickly followed; there does not need to be an indicator of when time is being manipulated, such as color or aging, as the script reveals so. Throughout the entire film, Facebook’s growth and status coincide with the court case’s events and the current climate of Mark and Eduardo’s friendship. The creation of Facebook after a breakup is how the movie begins. Sorkin then introduces the audience to Mark and Eduardo’s relationship, as they are established as co-founders, followed by the beginning of legal cases against Mark as he is put on 6-month academic probation for breaching Harvard security. As the film continues, there is a pattern of Facebook, relationship, and the court cases being shown in a way that reflects and coincides with the other two. As Facebook grows and succeeds, Mark’s friendship with Eduardo falls with each mark of achievement. The court case gives perspective to the situations that had just played out on the screen from the characters; this recounts previous actions and allows for empathy towards multiple characters, as their side of the story and emotions surrounding the situation, that were not previously revealed, are. The court cases are also used to give perspective going into a scene or cut between scenes that take place in the past; this affects who the audience will empathize with. This decision leads to a sense of irony within the film. There is a constant pairing of the good and bad, as each grows, the other does as well. Mark’s attitude and personality are the only constants throughout this film. With the constant change and development for others around him, Mark remains completely stagnant. Ending in the same place he began as the film comes full circle, he is seen refreshing a friend request to Erica, with whom he began the movie. This choice of non-linear storytelling best allows for a growing empathy and makes for a more entertaining film as the irony adds to the film’s dynamism.

Conclusion The techniques Sorkin uses in his writing ensure The Social Network achieves its emotional impact. While both dialogue and storytelling techniques can be used individually to emphasize emotional impact, the combination of these two on Sorkin’s part is what leads to an emotionally charged performance. Between the often heated and fast-paced dialogue of the characters, and the editing choices, placing a scene from the court and Facebook that coincide with Mark’s relationship’s current climate, each emotion can be felt at maximum capacity. The audience is continuously reminded of the consequences of Mark’s actions as they directly follow the events concerning that area of the story rather than waiting for it to unravel linearly and possibly losing the feeling of momentum. This gives a sense of a growing shadow, personal darkness grows as professional success is achieved and even in the good moments the audience is left questioning – how long will it last?

Works Cited Rudin, Scott, et al. The Social Network. Sony Pictures Entertainment, 2010.

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ANTI-RACISM theme of the year

The term “anti-racism” entails an on-going process wherein individuals make conscious efforts to combat systems of oppression through education and action.

At the Screenwriting Club at Victoria College, this year we have strived towards an emphasis on diverse films. Often storytelling is what allows people to develop a sense of empathy, and good movies, especially, are an accessible way of doing so. As per our club’s motto, this year our students have been challenged “to look through and beyond what you see”, not only in terms of storytelling, but of how that story conveys a necessary truth about race in our society. In the following section, our diverse team of students highlight films by and for people of colour, and the important truths those stories tell.

– Bridget Raymundo

Black Panther (2018): Superhero Cinema in a Diverse World Written by Vikram Nijhawan1,2,3 1 Department of English, 2Department of History, 3Department of Classics 3 Third-year undergraduate of Trinity College, University of Toronto Marvel’s film about the fictional African nation of Wakanda stands out amongst its peers. While many superheroes stories address the theme of “good vs. evil” in a simplistic manner, Ryan Coogler’s drama goes beyond this binary. He imagines a land untouched by colonialism, slavery, or economic despair, surrounded by countries who unfortunately do bear those historical markers. The film poses the question of whether the hyper-advanced and prosperous Wakanda is obligated to aid those people in need.

Black Panther lacks a villain in the strict genre sense. The antagonist is not a mustache-twirling evil genius, hell-bent on destroying our hero. Instead, Coogler frames the forces of overt and systemic discrimination, which have impacted Africans and their descendants across the world for centuries, as the primary source of conflict. Erik Killmonger, the estranged cousin of King T’Challa who vies for his throne and title, is merely a product of these conditions. The story begins in Oakland, California in 1992, in the midst of the L.A. Riots over the police killing of Rodney King. This is the environment in which Killmonger grew up, and it informs his motivation and ideology throughout the rest of the film. Upon arriving in Wakanda, he espouses the moral argument to T’Challa: that those with power and privilege have a responsibility to help oppressed populations.

The rivalry between T’Challa and Killmonger is essential for each other’s character development. The king of Wakanda grows through his conflict with the challenger to his position. He realizes the mistakes of his predecessors, in isolating their country from the rest of the world for the purpose of self-preservation. By permitting the forces of discrimination through their non-inference, Wakanda allowed a villain like Killmonger to come into being. Likewise, Killmonger spends the majority of the film blinded by his extreme and violent ideology. When T’Challa finally defeats him, and the forces of “good”, order, and stability prevail, the usurper to the throne has an epiphany. He finally witnesses what he longed for his entire life – an untouched and powerful African civilization, in all of its majesty. The tragedy is that, moments away from his own death, Killmonger is unable to enjoy this land, because of the heinous actions he took to get there.

With the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement, and increased conversation surrounding police brutality in America and abroad, Black Panther reminds us of the importance of standing up for vulnerable minority groups. This burden must be borne not only by those suffering at the hands of discriminatory forces, but also those with the means and power to do so.

Similarly, the film teaches us that righteous ideas can come from unlikely places, even from our supposed enemies. In our current political climate, this lesson is more important than ever.

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Sami-Blood (2016) and “Diversity” Written by Elizabeth Coulter1,2,3 1 Department of English, 2Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures, University of Toronto 3 Third-year undergraduate of Victoria College, University of Toronto “We want to start to say that we are still here, we still exist, the Sami still exist.”

– Lene Cecilia Sparrock (Lead Actress in Sami Blood, Lux Prize Acceptance Speech)

In the Northern region of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia live the Sami people; their distinct cultures and languages varying across this region. Few people have ever heard of the Sami however, and even fewer know much about their culture beyond the tradition of reindeer herding. With her film Sami Blood, Swedish-Sami Director Amanda Kernell calls attention to the prejudice which the Sami people have suffered for so long. Around the world, minority cultures are often forgotten in their own countries; there are certainly parallels between the Sami and Indigenous people in Canada, who when not simply ignored, are lumped together as a relic of the past. Indeed, the way Kernell approaches the topic of Sami discrimination tackles universal themes of identity that everyone can see reflected in their lives and the lives of those around them.

“People have really recognized themselves in the movie. We’ve been showing it in Japan and Canada. So many people have said, “Oh, this film is really about me.” And I hadn’t even thought about it before making it, but it rings true for a lot of people with a migration background. Of course, people can relate even more if they’re from minorities or oppressed groups.”

– Amanda Kernell (Director of Sami Blood)

The film follows Elle-Marja, a young Sami girl who is sent to a Sami boarding school before deciding to disown her heritage and become a Swede. The world of the Sami and the world of the Swedes are set up as distinct spheres that cannot mix. ElleMarja is told not to speak or act Swedish in her Sami home while she is encouraged to become “Swedified” in the boarding school. Of course, distinct differences between cultures are not a bad thing; the traditionally nomadic Sami, many of whom make a life around reindeer herding are necessarily going to have a very different society and values than the “European”, “civilized” Swedes of the cities. As such, Sami Blood asks us to think about what happens when such different cultures and values clash.

Racism is not a clear cut, oversimplified notion in the film; it does not present a black and white case of the “bad”, “racist” Swedes and the “good” Sami, or vice versa. The decisions of every character, Sami or Swede, are rooted in reality. It is in this way, by creating characters and situations real to life, that the film expresses the complex difficulties of two very different cultures coming up against one another. Even in a famously diverse and multicultural city like Toronto, there is always a core set of values, a culture, that ties community together. As a result, Sami Blood challenges us to think beyond whatever formulaic perspective on these issues we have grown comfortable in. We cannot deal with issues of ignored minorities until we have tackled the difficult questions of “diversity”. What really is the “diversity” we talk about? What do we do when different moral outlooks and interests come into conflict with one another?

Works Cited Kernell, Amanda. “Sami Blood: Amanda Kernell director - interview.” YouTube, published by Brave New Hollywood, 29th June 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gKJ-seihro, 4:29-4:55.

Sparrock, Lene Cecilia and Mia Sparrock. “Award ceremony of the Lux Prize 2017: “And the winner is … Sami Blood by Amanda Kernell.”” YouTube, published by Frédérick Moulin, 14th November 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ7LF3z2r8&t=1009s, 13:36-13:41.

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Representing Asian-American Experience in The Farewell (2019) Written by Bridget Raymundo1,2,3,4 Department of English, 2Women and Gender Studies Institute, 3Book and Media Studies, University of Toronto 4 Third-year undergraduate of Victoria College, University of Toronto

1

Screenwriter and director, Lulu Wang’s The Farewell depicts the complex and strenuous realities of being an AsianAmerican, and specifically the child of immigrant parents. Told in both Mandarin and English, Wang reflects her own reality into the protagonist of Billi—a Chinese American woman whose close connection to her Nai Nai (grandmother) tethers her to an otherwise distant culture in the East. Billi occupies a positionality in her young adulthood where she feels simultaneously disconnected from ideals of both her cultures. In essence, Wang asks her audience to deeply consider these dualities of identity— particularly for white non-immigrants who have never struggled with race and/or diaspora. The film embodies what it means for a person to live between one reality and another, in terms of ethnicity, geography, and genre.

Upon its release, The Farewell prompted many necessary conversations about diversity in media and storytelling. Wang clearly focalizes through the perspective of a woman who has always lived in the U.S. and intends for the narrative to be diverse yet distinctly American. And still—many categorize it as a foreign film. So, what category does The Farewell fall into? Wang does not allow a singular answer. For instance, the film is considered a comedy-drama in order to frames the complexity of Billi and Nai Nai’s characters. Moments of unity in Billi’s family alongside Nai Nai’s endless optimism reflects a common feeling for diasporic and racialized communities. Much of Billi’s family’s experience is characterized by struggle, and scarce opportunity, and while these are necessary components to diverse representation, it is equally important that writers allows POC characters to thrive. The culmination of The Farewell garners a feeling of profound hope. As Billi looks up to a New York sky and screams, “HA!”, the birds fly outside of her Nai Nai’s apartment in China, and the viewer is encouraged to think of these two spaces as forever intertwined—belonging to one another.

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Sorry to Bother You (2018): Screenwriting in the Age of Color-blindness Written by Marta Anielska1,2 Department of English 2 Second-year undergraduate of University College, University of Toronto

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The past year has seen Black Lives Matter and other social justice movements push for greater awareness of systemic and implicit racism. Boots Riley’s 2018 film Sorry to Bother You explores this type of racism, resonating with those that were and continue to be frustrated by the ignorance of a privileged majority. In the first scene, Cassius Green steps out of a manager’s office after begging for a telemarketing job. The harsh lighting turns from bright yellow to gloomy blue, illuminating row after row of low paid workers and framing the story as a class struggle. The imagery and dialogue are designed to create awkward tension between people with massive power imbalances. However, the mechanisms of capitalism that Sorry to Bother You captures only serve to obscure the implicit racism that lurks beneath economic inequality.

Cassius’ success as a telemarketer acts as a microcosm of how systemic racism is sustained in capitalist societies. Since customers cannot see telemarketers, claims of racism affecting employee success seem unreasonable. Consequently, the job represents the ideal of capitalist meritocracy wherein every worker has equal opportunity to move up. This notion is quickly dispelled when Cassius’ older Black colleague advises him to use his “white voice” while making a sale. He explains that a “white voice” gives off an impression of prosperity and freedom which appeals to the customer. Moving forward, Cassius’ success is directly linked to the racially coded voice he is able to mimic. Moreover, the source of the advice characterizes it as a trick of the trade, an open secret that people of colour in low paid positions share amongst themselves. This turns the “white voice” into a metaphor for the multitude of racially coded practices embedded in capitalist society, effective precisely because it is difficult to trace them back to authority figures.

Racial coding is present throughout the film; however, it manages to be subtle enough that the more overt racism revealed at the end is a shock to the viewer. After Cassius is promoted, he attends the party of a wealthy CEO where a crowd of white partygoers pressure him to rap after he refuses several times. To prevent disappointing them, Cassius starts chanting the n-word over a beat, at which point the crowd chants it back at him in a perverse game of call and response. This scene seems to come out of nowhere; while racism is a consistent undertone, it is at no point that explicit. The twist makes it clear that racism at lower levels must be concealed because of the number of people, specifically people of colour, that would have evidence of discrimination. In contrast, the implicit racism at the bottom of the social ladder becomes overt at the top, where wealthy and primarily white individuals are so separated from the rest of society that they fear no consequences and even feel entitled to being racist.

When I first watched Sorry to Bother You in 2018, I had just started consuming anti-racist literature and media. In the spirit of every know-it-all teenager, I either believed that I already knew everything about racism or that I would immediately be receptive to new ideas. Returning to the film after so many years, I was surprised at how much had gone straight over my head. I now know that if I watch it again in ten years, I will probably pick up on a lot more than I did this time. The process of writing this film analysis has reminded me that becoming an anti-racist and unlearning racist cues and behaviours is life-long work, and though I love what Sorry to Bother You has already taught me, I am even more excited for what it will teach me in the future.

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Hidden Gems “Hidden Gems is a specialized section of Screenwriters’ Perspectives that shines a light on films that deserve greater recognition. Members of Screenwriting at Victoria College have detailed in one short paragraph why they think their chosen film is underappreciated and you should watch it.”

– Elizabeth Coulter

Boys In The Trees (2016): Climbs up a tree as a boy and climbs down a tree as a man Written by Kenneth Ting Boys In the Trees is a film that utilizes a metaphoric, fantastical approach to explore the inner transformation of two boys growing up in a small town. Unlike traditional coming-of-age films, Boys In The Trees relies heavily on subtext and an overarching bittersweet tone to portray the inevitable struggles of growing up. From resisting peer pressure to fighting for your own dreams, the film prompts us to recall the values that we used to have as a teenager. It also reminds us the promises that we have once made but never kept, and most importantly, the friends that we have once cherished but now abandoned.

Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993): The real-life Queen’s Gambit Written by Vikram Nijhawan Steven Zailian’s biopic follows the life of seven-year-old American chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin. Tracking his progression in the game – from a beginner, observing players in Washington Square Park, to U.S. Junior Champion – Zailian imbues a coming-of-age story with the spirit of competition, while also telling the story of a fragile relationship between father and son. With a renowned ensemble cast, Oscar-level cinematography, and a suitably innocent tone, Searching for Bobby Fischer invests viewers in the world of high-level chess, with the same subtlety and complexity as the game it represents.

Under the helmet of Dredd (2012) Written by Tong Han Directed by Pete Travis, written and produced by Alex Garland (Sunshine (2007), Ex Machina (2014), Annihilation (2018)), this sci-fi action film is set in a post-apocalyptic metropolis – Mega-City One. In this corrupted, lawless chaos, the title character, Judge Dredd, is the only one who can bring order. He is John Wick in a helmet, RoboCop with a heart; he is the human Terminator who can cleanse the city of its crime. This non-stop action flick features extremely entertaining and gory gun flight sequences. The creative use of slow-motion enhanced by the high color saturation makes every frame of the movie picturesque. In addition, the well-developed story arcs make the audience care about the larger-than-life characters in the film.

How I learned to love my Creepy (2016) neighbor Written by Tong Han Japanese horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2016 psychological thriller Creepy does not have ghosts, spirits or anything supernatural, but it will still leave the audience with an unsettling and creepy feeling long after the film ends. The suspense and tension start to arise when Koichi and his wife meet their new neighbor at their new home. Masterfully played by Teruyuki Kagawa, this normal looking new neighbor’s various behaviors indicate that something is off. Exploiting the cracks in their marriage, the cowardly sinister neighbor slowly takes control of their lives. This film doesn’t need fast-paced action sequence to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. The various storylines, brilliantly set up in the first two acts of the film, collide in the third act in a spectacular fashion that leaves the audience contemplating the twists and turns along the way.

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Microhabitat (2017): Cigarettes, Whiskey and You; The Exploration of the Simple Pleasures of Life Written by Leanne Leung Jeon Go-Woon’s Korean language drama details the sacrifices of adulthood closely woven into melancholy close-ups and single shots to provide a story of the small but certain happinesses of life. Miso, a young housekeeper living in Seoul, lands in the pitfalls of society when confronted by the ultimate decision—giving up her home or cigarettes and whiskey.

As her rent increases, she sacrifices her housing to keep her small pleasures in life, a sip of whiskey and puff of a cigarette.

Microhabitat tackles the capitalist pressures and economic instability leading the lives of young millennials in South Korea.

As her rent increases, she sacrifices her housing to keep her small pleasures in life, a sip of whiskey and puff of a cigarette.

Microhabitat tackles the capitalist pressures and economic instability leading the lives of young millennials in South Korea.

No Happily Ever After – Marriage Story (2019) Written by Faisal Hay Noah Baumbach’s romance drama tells the tale of Nicole and Charlie Barber, a theatre couple struggling through marital separation and divorce, with their son Henry caught in between. It brings to full light the complex and often morally ambiguous nature of any divorce process — from continuous legal proceedings to frequent back-and-forth shifting of relations — and employs a number of symbolic elements to highlight and simplify these complexities. It also places Nicole and Charlie under deep introspection as they grapple with their mixed feelings for each other, culminating in a tear-jerking climax and bittersweet ending that solidifies Marriage Story as not just fiction, but the reality of marriage.

Hochelaga (2017), terre des âmes: A Voyage through Quebec’s History Written by Freya Abbas Quebec director François Girard’s historical masterpiece employs multi-narrative storytelling in Algonquin, Mohawk, French and English to unfurl centuries of flashbacks. A sinkhole opens during a McGill University football game, symbolizing the theme of the inescapability of the past. Asigny, an archaeologist, investigates the ruins exposed by the catastrophe which lead to the introductions of characters from various chapters of the past: soldiers from the Patriote Rebellion, a Wendat woman who loses her lover to a purple fever outbreak, and the lone survivor of a massacre. At the end of the movie, Asigny uncovers the cross of Jacques Cartier from the first contact between the French and Indigenous peoples in 1535. Girard’s Hochelaga is a breathtaking tribute to Quebec’s culture and does not shy away from recounting tragic episodes in the province’s history.

The Invisible Homeless: Parked (2010) Written by Elizabeth Coulter Parked is a film that brings to light the pitfalls in life which ordinary people can easily fall into, ending up homeless. Fred returns home to Ireland after years abroad to find himself in a bureaucratic trap. Unable to receive benefits and with no friends or family, he ends up living out of his car. His life changes when Cathal turns up in the same car park, also living out of his car. Despite feeling that he has hit rock bottom, Fred is nevertheless determined to maintain face and hide his embarrassing secret in public, particularly when he meets Jules, for whom he develops feelings. An unlikely friendship forms between the live-in-the-moment Cathal and the orderly Fred, brought together by their shared circumstances, who help one another through their individual difficulties – but while Parked optimistically shows how the goodness of people can help people to re-enter society, it does not shy away from the darker side: the utter hopelessness people can succumb to.

“Look through and beyond what you see”

– Screenwriting at Victoria College Est. 2018

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