What's worth preserving-King Kong 2005 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

What's worth preserving-King Kong 2005 - Essay Example But paired with a brilliant script and good direction, the maker’s of Kong 2005 knew it was a recipe for success, and not just the box-office kind. No other remake of a fiction film was able to reflect realities or tell truths than the original in such a thrilling and tear-jerking fashion. And truthfully speaking, that’s what really counts. To say that the film took audiences at the edge of their seats is an undeniable understatement. Even without seeing Kong, the scene with the savages is enough to make one suddenly â€Å"goosebumpy†. King Kong then finally arrives and a screech from Ann Darrow confirms the presence of the big beast. And lo, Kong never looked more like a real gorilla. Cheers to science! Thanks to science and the filmmaker’s reference to it that kids watching the movie can easily identify with what their watching. With its massive size, huge fangs, and intimidating bearing, one might think that fear is something that’s instantly instilled in innocent minds as they realize that there are real beings bigger than their parents looking exactly like it. And spectacular as the wrestling scene was with the T-rexes, the big ape is now alone with a human being, â€Å"Is it dinner time?† But then, all fear of the girl being eaten is suddenly gone as they all see that the 50-foot monster is, indeed, the gorilla that they learned in school—it eats plants. And speaking of learning, I remember a story of a friend who shares the same sentiments as I have on the film. He watched the movie with his cousins and their families and their little nephews and nieces watched too. When it came to the particular scene I just mentioned, he laughed quietly as his cousin says to her son, â€Å"See Andre? If you want to be big and strong like King Kong, you have to eat vegetables too.† Again, cheers to science! The film goes on and we realize that Kong of 2005 is more of a gorilla than

Public International Law as a Branch of Ethics Assignment

Public International Law as a Branch of Ethics - Assignment Example The vital question that needs to be answered in the given context is as to whether public international law is simply a branch of ethics or the concept has a distinct legal character? The fact that must be understood here is that there exists very little divergence between the ethics and the law is it in a local or international context. In such a scenario, public international law is an institution that has strong ethical moorings and an effective and pragmatic legal character. Devoid of ethics, the public international law will be a tool serving the more powerful. Sans a legal character, public international law will be some sort of international diplomatic luxury. Hence, to be effective, the public international needs to rest on the twin pillars of ethical sanctity and legal force. Law stands to be a rule or general principle that has significance and acceptance in a specific domain and is enforceable by an authority. Ethics pertain to the general aspects of morals and the particular moral choices to be made by an individual, community or a nation, which are not enforceable by any authority. Going by these definitions, there certainly exists a relation between ethics and the law. The power of law rests on an agreement between the individuals, institutions, and nations that they will abide by an acceptable and just code of conduct in their association and relationship with each other. Hence, law constitutes the fundamental foundation of any viable community, be it local or international. It can only sustain itself as a pragmatic institution if the involved parties abide by it and agree to respect its outcome and sanctity and respect the institutions and organizations divested with the power to enforce the law. The notion that encourages the individuals, organiza tions and nations to abide by and respect law is their acceptance and understanding of the fact that the institutions designed by them to enforce and administer law will do so in a just and upright manner, without resorting to any impropriety, that is in an ethical manner.

HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN PERSPECTIVE Class Research Paper - 1

HUMAN BEHAVIOR IN PERSPECTIVE Class - Research Paper Example into the understanding of differences such what we owe the old, different theories such as Law of Nature to determine behavior, and the connection between the approaches such as social and sexual contract. That the law of nature can be seen as a law of reason and that natural law can be seen through the same eyes that are used in reason. According to Locke, the natural law has often been found in the scriptures and that they have been established through the will of God. The natural law should, therefore, be understood in the line of actions that are consistent with God’s scriptures. The other approach that has been fronted by John Locke is that the law of nature should be considered as a universal entity that applies to everybody at every particular time and in any place, but the law has to consider that the differences in culture will have to state what is culturally acceptable in different societies. Locke talks of natural law to be normative rather than descriptive and that it is not mandatory that civil laws stay in harmony with the elements of natural law. It is significant to understand that civil laws should often be made consistent with the structures of natural law. F or the purpose of seeking to derive an understanding in regards to the law of nature, one has to put human behavior in perspective and to create an awareness that civil rights are connected to natural law and that the different cultures do not have to exhibit similarities in the peculiarity of the beliefs The link between sexual contract and the social contract had been documented by John Locke especially when he developed a discussion on the relationship between the two types of contract as well as the relationship between the individual and the state. The discussions about the relationship witnessed between the state and the individual are the ideas that shaped Carole Paterman’s theory of sexual contract and the critique of the views presented by such thinkers as Locke and John Stuart

Evidence-based Assessment of ADHD in Children Essay

Evidence-based Assessment of ADHD in Children - Essay Example negatively affect the child’s academic performance and self-esteem including the child’s relationship with family members and friends (Hoza et al., 2005; Hazelwood, Bovingdon, & Tiemens, 2002). ADHD can also lead to behavioural problems which often make the child unable to socialize with other people (Kerns et al., 2001). In rare cases, Fleischmann et al. (2005) found out that approximately 20.8% of the suicidal cases in young people have disruptive behaviour disorder which is related to ADHD. In the absence of proper treatment such as medicine and behavioural therapy, children with ADHD could cause behavioural problems not only at home but also in school, work, and relationship with the opposite sex. Eventually, the negative effects of ADHD could cause a child to become depressed, frustrated, or engage with the use of illegal drugs if left untreated. To effectively provide children with ADHD with proper treatment, early detection of ADHD is important. Concerning the increasing number of ADHD throughout the United Kingdom, this study will focus on assessing some of the evidenced-based assessment method used in detecting ADHD in children. In the process of going through the main discussion, evidences behind the psychological assessment of ADHD in children will be evaluated. As part of assessing whether a child has ADHD, medical professionals would often use analogue methods such as conduct an interview with the child, go through the patient’s medical history which includes issues related to social, emotional, educational, and behaviour of the child, physical exam, and the use of behaviour rating and/or checklist in detecting ADHD (Kooij et al., 2008; Parker & Benedict, 2002; ; Forbes, 2001; Barkley, 1991). Likewise, laboratory measures such as the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (CPT) and Gordon Diagnostic System – a self-contained computer device can also be utilized in detecting symptoms of ADHD (Kelley, Noell, & Reitman, 2002, p. 28; Barkley,

Trends in Psychology and Psychologists

Trends in Psychology and Psychologists There are some cases where people think that the best way to deal with their mental issues is to keep it within themselves. However, that is not the best solution for all cases. It is a fact that bottling up your emotions could increase the risk of getting a heart disease or some forms of cancer and have serious negative effects oh your health (Chapman, Fiscella, Kawachi, Duberstein, Muennig, 2013). For everyones mental and physical health, people should take their feelings and emotions out through talking to someone or seeking help. This is where Psychologists are needed. Psychologists conduct research, experiment about the human mind and behavior, and provide counseling to promote the well-being of people and improve mental health. Psychologists are essential because we are complex beings, no other animal brain is capable of functioning with high consciousness as we do, and its not easy to understand and express ourselves. The study and practice that they do help people become mor e aware of their mind and conscious for mental prosperity. Psychology occupation is relatively large in size because there are many fields in psychology that people can specialize and work in. The employment of psychologists was 21,600, and the total employees were 10,700 in 2014 with the average retirement age being 63. Clinical psychology is one of the most popular specialty areas. They are in charge of evaluating and treating mental illnesses and work in hospital or health center to assess conditions of individuals or families. Another popular area in this occupation is experimental psychology. Psychologists in this field area are interested in conducting research about the behavior of humans and animals. Other areas include forensic psychology, developmental psychology, industrial psychology, and so on. Psychologist choosing to work in private practice is continuing to increase over time. In 2010, the percentage of the psychologist who stated that private practice is their primary job was 41%, which is a dramatic increase from 1960, when the percentage was just 17% (Norcross Karpiak, 2012). This career is part of a larger group called Social and community service professionals (NOC 415). According to the labor force survey (2015), in Canada, union rate for this group is 52% Psychologists are responsible for advocating mental well-being by working directly with their patients or clients and treating people with mental or emotional disorders. Considering this, it is understandable that effective education and training is important for people who want to work in this career. The requirement and license process vary from province to province. Some provinces require PhDs for a license to work independently while in others a masters degree is sufficient. Due to the many different areas psychologist works in, their earnings are wide in variation. The average starting salaries for psychologists range from about $35,000, particularly for those who are self-employed and just starting out, to more than $120,000 a year. The typical working hours for this occupation depends on their job and the level of responsibility. Some have about 40-hours, and others have more than 50 to 60-hours a week. Psychologists have a high level of stress because treating patients can be extremely rewarding but also emotionally draining. They have heavy workloads and tight schedules. They sometimes have to deal with violent and uncomfortable behaviors. However, no matter how much years psychologists spend to satisfy the requirements and how much stress they get from treating patients, job satisfaction has remained constantly high across the 50 years. No less than 85% of psychologists do not regret going through the process and hardships because of their satisfaction in the career (Norcross Karpiak, 2012). Psychologists could have their jobs for life, but the periods of government cutbacks in the past has made it harder for psychologists to secure the job. However, they can still count on having their job for at least 5 to 8 years. This occupational group is predicted to encounter a shortage of workers in the future because of the substantially higher number of job openings available compared to the recent years. According to Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS), new job openings for psychologists are expected to total 10,00 while only 8,800 new job seekers are expected to fill them over the period 2015-2024. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has asked 649 company owners how the labor shortage affected the business. More than 50 percent of owners has said that themselves are working more hours and that they were receiving lower quality applicants. 45% of owners has also stated that they had to raise labor costs. Looking at the job predictions of psycholog ists, we can expect that the worker shortage may have a serious negative impact on businesses. Many trends in society have affected jobs in the field of psychology. This fields expected growth is about 12 percent over the next ten years. One of the reasons why the predicted job growth is relatively high might be because future impact of mental illness on Canadians is expected to increase by 31% over the next 30 years, resulting in more than 8.9 million people living with a mental illness (Smetanin, Stiff, Briante, Adair, Ahmad, Khan, 2011). Anxiety, depression and other mental disorders growth can be explained by the continuous development of technology. 95% of teens are continuously using the internet. Smartphone ownership in teens ages 12-17 is continuously growing, from 23% to 37% from 2011 to 2013 (Madden, Lenhart, Duggan, Cortesi, Gasser, 2013). It is proven that social media sites make people compare their life with others. People suffer from increased anxiety because of their failure to meet the expectations and demands that are forced on mood them (Lidbetter, 2012). In Salford Business School at the University of Salford, 298 people were surveyed for the charity Anxiety UK and it was found out that 53% of people think social media changed their behavior; 51% of the people said that it was negative behavior because of their confidence declining due to comparisons to others. This would mean that many teenagers would experience an increase in anxiety and depression leading to needing more support and treatment to overcome the emotional issue. Increased use of social media also affects teenagers drug usage. A study by National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XVI: Teens and Parents, the 16th annual back-to-school conducted by CASAColumbia at Columbia University (CASAColumbiaTM) showed that teenager from 12-17 who use social media on a daily basis are five times more likely to use tobacco, three times more likely to use alcohol, and twice as likely to use marijuana. In addition, 40% admitted they had been exposed to pictures of people under the influence via social media, suggesting a correlation between the two factors. The most addictive substance, tobacco, causes premature mortality in Canada. It is responsible for almost 17% of all deaths (Whiteford, 2013). The serious negative impact caused by addiction to drug and alcohol increases the need for psychologists for a treatment of the addiction. Another reason why the field is expected to grow may be because the stigma surrounding mental health declined (Bell Canada, 2015). In a survey done by National Harris/Decima in 2015, it was found out that 57% of people believed that the stigma surrounding mental illness reduced compared to 5 years ago. Also, 81% has admitted that they were more aware of issues involving mental health than they were five years ago. Lastly, 70 % has said that they believe peoples belief and thought regarding mental illness has changed to a positive attitude. Thanks to this, many people with emotional and mental issues are becoming more comfortable in speaking up about their problem with their family and friends thus resulting to more people seeking help. This is important because the stigma is one of the main reason why people with mental illness do not seek help. Through removing the stigma regarding mental illness, people would be able to speak openly without fear of getting judged. With more people asking for help, the need for psychologists would continue to increase. Not only did the development in technology affect the field of psychology to grow, but it also improved and changed how the psychologists treat patients. Though out the history, treatment has been carried out with the patient and the psychologists in the same room. However, technology has developed to the point that this can be achieved without actually being together at one place. Telehealth, which is about using technology such as video calling to virtually have a conference and deliver treatment services to the clients, is continuously growing in usage among psychologists (Nickelson, Magallettaa, Ax, 1998). Online therapy is similar in concept. It is about performing therapy through real-time type communication between the psychologist and the patient. Although there is a clear benefit, it makes it easier for people to get therapy without transportation, it also raises a lot of questions on the ethical and practical issues, such as, the effect of therapy when the patient is on a video monitor and not in the room or the problem of security when virtually communicating with the patient. Other issues involve the hardship in understanding the client accurately and forming a relationship through communication in a text. There is no definite answer to these problems, and the issue is still being reviewed by psychologists. I believe that for a person to become a psychologist, one should be able to come up with new and better solutions, suggestions, and techniques to improve clients well-being and ask insightful questions to help different clients in need. I feel that Bibliography Bell Canada (2015). Bell Lets Talk: The first 5 years (2010-2015). Retrieved from http://letstalk.bell.ca/letstalkprogressreport Campbell, L. F., Freedheim, D. K., Norcross, J. C., VandenBos, G. R. (2016). APA handbook of clinical psychology (1 st ed., Vol 5. ). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Government of Canada. (2015). Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.publichealth.gc.ca Jessica L. Kohout and William E. Pate, Employment and trends in psychology, pp. 343-361, Springer New York, New York, NY, 2013 Madden, M., Lenhart, A., Duggan, M., Cortesi, S., Gasser, U., (2013) Teens and technology, 2013.: Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/03/13/teens-and-technology-2013/ Morgan, R. D., Kuther, T. L., Habben, C. J. (Eds.). (2012). Life After Graduate School in Psychology : Insiders Advice from New Psychologists (1). Hove, US: Psychology Press. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com Psychologist. (n.d.). Career Cruising. Retrieved January 21, 2017, from http://www.careercruising.com Smetanin, P., Stiff, D., Briante, C., Adair, C.E., Ahmad, S. and Khan, M. The Life and Economic Impact of Major Mental Illnesses in Canada: 2011 to 2041. RiskAnalytica, on behalf of the Mental Health Commission of Canada 2011. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. (2011). National survey of american attitudes on substance abuse xvi: teens and parents. Retrieved from http://www.centeronaddiction.org/addiction-research/reports/national-survey-american-attitudes-substance-abuse-teens-parents-2011 Whiteford et al. (2013). Global burden of disease attributable to mental and substance use disorders: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet, 382: 1575-86. Chapman, B.P.; Fiscella, K.; Kawachi, I.; Duberstein, P.; Muennig, P. Emotion suppression and mortality risk over a 12-year follow-up. J. Psychosom. Res. 2013, 75, 381-385.

The History Of Documentaries Film Studies Essay

The History Of Documentaries Film Studies Essay Documentary film is a broad category of visual expression that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to document reality. A documentary film is a movie that attempts, in some way, to document reality. Even though the scenes are carefully chosen and arranged, they are not scripted, and the people in a documentary film are not actors. Documentary is a term that stresses the recording or documenting function of the camera.   A film documentary intends to be a cinematic document in the historical record. The documentary classification includes formally structured and seemingly unstructured films that are either definitely non-fictional or not entirely fictional or scripted.   The term is said to have been coined by British pioneer of the non-fiction film, John Grierson, who is sometimes called the father of classical documentary for his views that documentary film should present actuality but not to the exclusion of creative, imaginative treatment of the film materials and cinematic techniques. Documentary filmmakers seek to render the world as they see it.    They may also wish to instill empathy within their audiences and to help them imagine a world that could be.   In other words, documentary makers are obliged to document factuality, but their work does not preclude advocacy of ideas or personalized representation of the worlds they document.   Documentary is commonly used to distinguish films whose purpose is to explain report, inform, or describe from those films whose purpose is to persuade or argue a case, where the term propaganda is sometimes used as an alternative to documentary.   Propaganda films are seen as manipulative, the formalist extreme in distortion for the purpose of changing the thoughts or actions of the audience.   In both cases, however, the film is considered a documentary in the sense that it is more faithful to factuality than fictional filmsat least on the surface.   Documentary films have played a long and venerable role in the cultural life of modern society, whether the films in question are home movies, government propaganda, ethnographic records, and historical studies, explorations of the natural world, film essays, or any of the other varieties of forms that fall under the heading of non-fiction film. With the advent of digital cameras and computer-based non-linear editing programs, more and more people have access to the tools for creating such films, fueling a vast new interest in the documentary form, and through their creation bringing to light new and unexpected arenas of the human experience. Although documentary film originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can be either direct-to-video or made for a television series. Documentary, as it applies here, works to identify a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries. Sometimes, a documentary film may rely on voice-over narration to describe what is happening in the footage; in other films, the footage will speak for itself. Often, a documentary film will include interviews with the people in the film. The earliest film of any sort was a documentary film. These featured single shots of actual events, such as a boat leaving shore, and were referred to as actuality films. Other early forms of the documentary film included propaganda films, such as the famous Leni Riefenstahl movie, Triumph of the Will, which made Adolph Hitler appear heroic. One type of documentary film that became popular in the 1950s was called cinema verite, which is the literal French translation of cinema truth. Cinema verite is a type of documentary film that includes no narration; the camera simply follows the subject. One famous example of such a film is Dont Look Back a biography film about Bob Dylan, covering his tour of the United Kingdom in 1965. In recent years, the documentary film genre has become more popular and high profile, though it is still far less popular generally than the action or adventure film genre. Many of todays examples of the documentary film have a political or otherwise controversial agenda, such as An Inconvenient Truth, Super Size Me, and Fahrenheit 911. Michael Moores Fahrenheit 911, which documented the Bush familys ties to Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden, was the most popular documentary film of all time, with over $228 million US Dollars in ticket sales. HISTORY PRE-1900 The film maker Mustafah Arrafat used the term documentary in 1926 to refer to any nonfiction film medium, including travelogues and instructional films. The earliest moving pictures were, by definition, documentaries. They were single-shot moments captured on film: a train entering a station, a boat docking, or a factory of people getting off work. Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. These short films were called actuality films. (The term documentary was not coined until 1926.) Very little storytelling took place before the turn of the century, due mostly to technological limitations, namely, that movie cameras could hold only very small amounts of film. Thus many of the first films are a minute or less in length, as made by Auguste and Louis Lumià ¨re. 1900-1920 Travelogue films were very popular in the early part of the 20th century. Some were known as scenics. Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time.[2] An important early film to move beyond the concept of the scenic was In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), which embraced primitivism and exoticism in a staged story presented as truthful re-enactments of the life of Native Americans. Also during this period Frank Hurleys documentary film about the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition South was released (1919). It documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914. 1920s ROMANTICISM With Robert J. Flahertys Nanook of the North in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism; Flaherty went on to film a number of heavily staged romantic films, usually showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then (for instance, in Nanook of the North Flaherty did not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead). Some of Flahertys staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. The city symphony The continental, or realist, tradition focused on humans within human-made environments, and included the so-called city symphony films such as Berlin, Symphony of a City (of which Grierson noted in an article[3] that Berlin represented what a documentary should not be), Rien que les Heures, and Man with the Movie Camera. These films tend to feature people as products of their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde. Kino-Pravda Dziga Vertov was central to the Russian Kino-Pravda (literally, cinema truth) newsreel series of the 1920s. Vertov believed the camera with its varied lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time-lapse, ability to slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion could render reality more accurately than the human eye, and made a film philosophy out of it. Newsreel tradition The newsreel tradition is important in documentary film; newsreels were also sometimes staged but were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged; the cameramen would usually arrive on site after a major battle and re-enact scenes to film them. 1920s-1940s The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most notorious propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahls film Triumph of the Will. Frank Capras Why We Fight series was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. public that it was time to go to war. In Canada the Film Board, set up by Grierson, was created for the same propaganda reasons. It also created newsreels that were seen by their national governments as legitimate counter-propaganda to the psychological warfare of Nazi Germany (orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels). In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement. John Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti, Harry Watt, Basil Wright and Humphrey Jennings amongst others succeeded in blending propaganda, information and education with a more poetic aesthetic approach to documentary. Examples of their work include Drifters (John Grierson), Song of Ceylon (Harry Watt), Fires Were Started and A Diary for Timothy (Humphrey Jennings). Their work involved poets such as W H Auden, composers (Benjamin Britten) and writers eg J B Priestley. Perhaps amongst the most well known films of the movement are Night Mail and Coal Face 1950s-1970s Cinà ©ma-và ©rità © Cinà ©ma và ©rità © (or the closely related direct cinema) was dependent on some technical advances in order to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound. Cinà ©ma và ©rità © and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in a broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave, the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences between cinà ©ma và ©rità © (Jean Rouch) and the North American Direct Cinema (or more accurately Cinà ©ma direct, pioneered among others by French Canadian Michel Brault, Pierre Perrault, Americans Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, Frederick Wiseman and Albert and David Maysles). The directors of the movement take different viewpoints on their degree of involvement. Kopple and Pennebaker, for instance, choose non-involvement (or at least no overt involvement), and Perrault, Rouch, Koenig, and Kroitor favor direct involvement or even provocation when they deem it necessary. The films Primary and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (both produced by Robert Drew), Harlan County, USA (directed by Barbara Kopple), Dont Look Back (D. A. Pennebaker), Lonely Boy (Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor), Chronicle of a Summer (Jean Rouch) and Golden Gloves (Gilles Groulx) are all frequently deemed cinà ©ma và ©rità © films. The fundamentals of the style include following a person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no sit-down interviews, and the shooting ratio (the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the work into a film. The editors of the movement such as Werner Nold, Charlotte Zwerin, Muffie Myers, Susan Froemke, and Ellen Hovde are often overlooked, but their input to the films was so vital that they were often given co-director credits. Famous cinà ©ma và ©rità ©/direct cinema films include Les Raquetteurs, Showman, Salesman, The Children Were Watching, Primary, Behind a Presidential Crisis, and Grey Gardens. MODERN DOCUMENTARIES Box office analysts have noted that this film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as Bowling for Columbine, Super Size Me, Fahrenheit 9/11, March of the Penguins and An Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable. Fahrenheit 9/11 set a new record for documentary profits, earning over US$228 million in ticket sales and selling over 3 million DVDs. The nature of documentary films has changed in the past 20 years from the cinema verità © tradition. Landmark films such as The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris incorporated stylized re-enactments, and Michael Moores Roger and Me placed far more interpretive control with the director. Indeed, the commercial success of these documentaries may derive from this narrative shift in the documentary form, leading some critics to question whether such films can truly be called documentaries; critics sometimes refer to these works as mondo films or docu-ganda. However, directorial manipulation of documentary subjects has been noted since the work of Flaherty, and may be endemic to the form. The recent success of the documentary genre, and the advent of DVDs, has made documentaries financially viable even without a cinema release. Yet funding for documentary film production remains elusive, and within the past decade the largest exhibition opportunities have emerged from within the broadcast market, making filmmakers beholden to the tastes and influences of the broadcasters who have become their largest funding source.[6] Modern documentaries have some overlap with television forms, with the development of reality television that occasionally verges on the documentary but more often veers to the fictional or staged. The making of documentary shows how a movie or a computer game was produced. Usually made for promotional purposes, it is closer to an advertisement than a classic documentary. Modern lightweight digital video cameras and computer-based editing have greatly aided documentary makers, as has the dramatic drop in equipment prices. An example of a film to take full advantage of this change was Martin Kunert and Eric Manes Voices of Iraq, where 150 DV cameras were sent to Iraq during the war and passed out to Iraqis to record themselves. THE EARLIEST DOCUMENTARIES: Originally, the earliest documentaries in the US and France were either short newsreels, instructional pictures, records of current events, or travelogues (termed actualities) without any creative story-telling, narrative, or staging. The first attempts at film-making, by the Lumiere Brothers and others, were literal documentaries, e.g., a train entering a station, factory workers leaving a plant, etc. The first documentary re-creation, Sigmund Lubins one-reel The Unwritten Law (1907) (subtitled A Thrilling Drama Based on the Thaw-White Tragedy) dramatized the true-life murder on June 25, 1906 of prominent architect Stanford White by mentally unstable and jealous millionaire husband Harry Kendall Thaw over the affections of showgirl Evelyn Nesbit (who appeared as herself). [Alluring chorine Nesbit would become a brief sensation and the basis for Richard Fleischers biopic film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955), portrayed by Joan Collins, and E.L. Doctorows musical and film Ragtime (1981), portrayed by an Oscar-nominated Elizabeth McGovern.] The first official documentary or non-fiction narrative film was Robert Flahertys Nanook of the North (1922), an ethnographic look at the harsh life of Canadian Inuit Eskimos living in the Arctic, although some of the films scenes of obsolete customs were staged. Flaherty, often regarded as the Father of the Documentary Film, also made the landmark film Moana (1926) about Samoan Pacific islanders, although it was less successful. The term documentary was first used in a review of Flahertys 1926 film. His first sound documentary feature film was Man of Aran (1934), regarding the rugged Aran islanders/fishermen located west of Irelands Galway Bay. Flahertys fourth (and last) major feature documentary was his most controversial, Louisiana Story (1948), filmed on location in Louisianas wild bayou country. Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, better known for King Kong (1933), directed the landmark documentary Grass: A Nations Battle for Life (1925), the first documentary epic, which traced the travels of the Bakhtyari tribe in Persia during their migrational wanderings to find fresh grazing lands. The filmmakers next film was the part-adventure, travel documentary filmed on location in the Siamese (Thailand) jungle, Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927), about a native tribal family. Other European documentary film-makers made a series of so-called non-fictional city symphonies. Alberto Cavalcanti and Walter Ruttman directed Berlin Symphony of a Big City (1927, Ger.) about the German city in the late 1920s. Similarly, the Soviet Unions (and Dziga Vertovs) avante-garde, experimental documentary The Man with a Movie Camera (1929) presented typical daily life within several Soviet cities (Moscow, Kiev, Odessa) through an exhilarating montage technique. And French director Jean Vigo made On the Subject of Nice (1930). Sergei Eisensteins October (Oktyabr)/10 Days That Shook the World (1928, USSR) re-enacted in documentary-style, the days surrounding the Bolshevik Revolution, to commemorate the events 10th anniversary.

The Social Model of Mental Illness Essay -- Psychiatry Psychology Pape

The Social Model of Mental Illness The social model of mental illness emphasizes the social environment and the roles people play. Thomas Scheff maintains that people diagnosed as mentally ill are victims of the status quo, guilty of often unnamed violations of social norms; thus the label "mental illness" can be used as an instrument of social control. I agree with Scheff's analysis, and I strongly concur with the view Thomas Szasz takes on the notion of mental illness. Szasz argues that much of what we call "mental illness" is a myth; it is not an illness, but simply "problems in living", troubles caused by conflicting personal needs, opinions, social aspirations, values, and so forth (Szasz 13). It thus follows that the widely accepted medical model of mental illness is inherently flawed; that mental illness should, then, certainly not be treated much like physical illness. Szasz is extremely critical of contemporary psychiatry as a discipline, arguing that psychiatrists are not benign professionals helping t o liberate individuals and improve their lives by diagnosing and treating mental illnesses, but instead act as agents of social control; silencing, stigmatizing and dehumanizing people who disturb the prevailing social order. Every society rewards conformity; those with more serious problems in living often do a very poor job of conforming, and are punished accordingly. In Ideology and Insanity: Essays on the Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man, Thomas Szasz writes that "on the one hand, by seeking relief from the burden of his moral responsibilities, man mystifies and technicizes his problems in living...on the other hand, the demand for "help" thus generated is now met by a behavioral tec... ...s in trying to understand and properly treat what is known as mental illness, we should give some credibility and responsibility back to those who are labeled "mentally ill," looking to them for ideas, for suggestions, for guidance. Those who have more severe problems in living (as well as their families and/or friends) may know more about their predicament than those who do not, and may be able to propose, indirectly or directly, remedies that may alleviate their unfortunate plight. Bibliography: Awake! Magazine. "Hope for the Mentally Ill." September 8, 1986 ed, pgs.3-10. Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of New York, Inc, 1986. Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. Turtle Bay Books. New York, NY, 1993. Szasz, Thomas. Ideology and Insanity: Essays on the Psychiatric Dehumanization of Man. Syracuse University Press. Syracuse, NY, 1991