Not Without My Daughter Essays

Not Without My Daughter Essays Not Without My Daughter Paper Not Without My Daughter Paper Brian Gilbert used textual features such as lighting, camera angles, shots and music to demonstrate the conflict between the members of the Manhood family. Early in the movie there is a scene where Betty learns that Moody has no intentions of leaving Iran. Lighting and framing are used then to reflect the conflict. The room they are in is dark with very little light coming through a window. This low key lighting reflects the feelings of despair Betty feels. She feels Iran is a very primitive country and not a suitable place for her child to be raised. In addition, framing and angles are used to present the differences In power. Low angles shots are used to show Moody. The low angles reflect the power Moody has In the Iranian society. In contrast, high angle shots display Bettys lack of power, making her look small and weak. The differing angles and contrasting power they reflect foreshadow future confrontations between Betty and Moody. Lighting and framing were effectively used to show the shift in power in Iran. Later on in the movie, Moody finds Betty at the school and starts beating her, and hen Mammoth stands up to her father he hits her too. In this scene shots and framing are used to reflect the dominance of males in Iran. First, Brian Gilbert uses a high angle show Moody beating Betty. This shot effectively reflects how helpless Betty is in the Iranian culture where women have little to no rights. She can neither stand up to moody nor run away from him as he has absolute power over her. Furthermore, a long shot Is used when Moody hits Mammoth. This shot makes Mammoth look very small. Thus reminding the audience Just how different the laws In Iran are as Moody can hit his child and have no consequences for doing so. Brian Gilbert used shots and framing to portray how the newfound power has revealed just how violent Moody is and how he does not care about the well being of the rest of the family. Betty eventually escapes Moody control by leaving with a man who assists western women in similar predicaments. She calls Moody on the phone and an angry conversation ensues. Camera movement, sound and music were used to reflect the offering beliefs between the two countries and the changes in the familial conflict. For example, the camera pans around the room where Moody sits while talking on the phone with his family surrounding him. The pan allows the audience to see all of Moody family. The sheer number of people behind Moody reflects the customs In Iran as everyone views his abuse of Betty as commonplace. They do not question the morality of his violent actions nor do they care about the welfare of Betty. In Dalton, music and sound reflect a shift in power. There is no non-dietetic sound in the scene emphasizing ten conversation. I nee conversation Is Important Elector sound Decease it displays how much more confident Betty is now that she has escaped. It reflects the differences in roles of woman between American and Iranian culture as Betty is completely different when she no longer has to fear being beaten by Moody. She is now able to make her own decisions and choices. Music, sounds and camera movement were used in this scene to reflect the Iranians view of the conflict and how Betty and Mammoths freedom changed the conflict. In movies small things like the angle of a shot or the lighting of a scene can change the mood and interpretation of a scene. These subtle features were all used effectively in Not Without My Daughter to demonstrate a cultural conflict within the Manhood family. Each scene demonstrated different aspects of the familial conflict providing a clear image of how different the cultures Iran and America are. These differences not only affect familial relationships as demonstrated in the film, but also relations between the two countries.

Summary of Sartres The Transcendence of the Ego

Summary of Sartres The Transcendence of the Ego The Transcendence of the Ego  is a philosophical essay published by  Jean Paul Sartre  in 1936. In it, he sets out his view that the self or ego is not itself something that one is aware of. The model of consciousness that Sartre  provides in this essay  may be outlined as follows. Consciousness is always intentional; that is, it is always and necessarily consciousness of something. The object of consciousness can be almost any kind of thing: a physical object, a proposition, a state of affairs, a recollected image or moodanything that consciousness can apprehend. This is the â€Å"principle of intentionality† that forms the starting point for Husserls phenomenology.   Sartre radicalizes this principle by asserting that consciousness is nothing but intentionality. This means conceiving of consciousness as a pure activity, and denying that there is any ego which lies within, behind or beneath consciousness as its source or necessary condition. The justification of this claim is one of Sartres main purposes in The Transcendence of the Ego. Sartre first distinguishes between two modes of consciousness: unreflecting consciousness and reflecting consciousness. Unreflecting consciousness is simply my usual consciousness of things other than consciousness itself: birds, bees, a piece of music, the meaning of a sentence, a recollected face, etc. According to Sartre consciousness simultaneously posits and grasps its objects. And he describes such consciousness as positional and as thetic. What he means by these terms is not entirely clear, but he seems to be referring to the fact that in my consciousness of anything there is both activity and passivity. Consciousness of an object is positional in that it posits the object: that is, it directs itself to the object (e.g. an apple, or a tree) and attends to it. It is â€Å"thetic† in that consciousness confronts its object as something given to it, or as something that has already been posited. Sartre also claims that consciousness, even when it is unreflecting, is always minimally conscious of itself. This mode of consciousness he describes as non-positional and non-thetic indicating that in this mode, consciousness does not posit itself as an object, nor is it confronted by itself. Rather, this irreducible self-awareness is taken to be an invariable quality of both unreflecting and reflecting consciousness. A reflecting consciousness is one that is positing itself as its object. Fundamentally, says Sartre, the reflecting consciousness and the consciousness that is the object of reflection (the reflected consciousness) are identical. Nevertheless, we can distinguish between them, at least in abstraction, and so talk about two consciousnesses here: the reflecting and the reflected.  Ã‚   His main purpose in analyzing self-consciousness is to show that self-reflection does not support the thesis that there is an ego situated within or behind consciousness. He first distinguishes two kinds of reflection: (1) reflection on an earlier state of consciousness that is recalled to mind by memory–so this earlier state now becomes an object of present consciousness; and (2) reflection in the immediate present where consciousness takes itself as it is now for its object. Retrospective reflection of the first kind, he argues, reveals only an unreflecting consciousness of objects along with the non-positional self-awareness that is an invariable feature of consciousness. It does not reveal the presence of an I within consciousness.  Reflection of the second kind, which is the kind that Descartes is engaged in when he asserts â€Å"I think, therefore I am,† might be thought more likely to reveal this I. Sartre denies this, however, arguing that the I that conscious ness is commonly thought to encounter here is, in fact, the product of reflection. In the second half of the essay, he offers his explanation of how this occurs. Brief Summary Briefly, his account runs as follows. Discrete moments of reflective consciousness are unified by being interpreted as emanating from my states, actions, and characteristics, all of which extend beyond the present moment of reflection. For example, my consciousness of detesting something now and my consciousness of detesting the same thing at some other moment are united by the idea that I hate that thinghatred being a state that persists beyond the moments of conscious detestation. Actions perform a similar function. Thus, when Descartes asserts I am now doubting his consciousness is not engaged in a pure reflection on itself as it is at the present instant. He is allowing an awareness that this present moment of doubt is part of an action that began earlier and will continue for some time to inform his reflection. The discrete moments of doubt are unified by the action, and this unity is expressed in the I which he includes in his assertion.   The ego, then, is not discovered in reflection but is created by it. It is not, however, an abstraction, or a mere idea. Rather, it is the concrete totality of my reflective states of consciousness, constituted by them in the way that a melody is constituted by discrete notes. We do, says Sartre, apprehend the ego out of the corner of our eye when we reflect; but if we try to focus on it and make it the object of consciousness it necessarily disappears, since it only comes into being through consciousness reflecting on itself (not on the ego, which is something else). The conclusion Sartre draws from his analysis of consciousness is that phenomenology has no reason to posit an ego within or behind consciousness. He claims, moreover, that his view of the ego as something that reflecting consciousness constructs, and which should, therefore, be regarded as just another object of consciousness that, like all other such objects, transcends consciousness, has marked advantages. In particular, it furnishes a refutation of solipsism (the idea that the world consists of me and the contents of my mind), helps us overcome skepticism regarding the existence of other minds, and lays down the basis for an existentialist philosophy that genuinely engages the real world of people and things.