High-Def Digest's Favorite Bookmarks: July 2011
By Steven Cohen
Welcome back to another edition of High-Def Digest's favorite bookmarks, where we spotlight some great scenes from various Blu-ray titles that we've found ourselves revisiting again and again.
With bookmarking capabilities allowing viewers to save their favorite scenes becoming such a common extra among many Blu-ray releases, we here at High-Def Digest thought it might be fun to take inspiration from this popular feature by spotlighting some of the scenes that we've personally bookmarked.
We're talking about the kind of scenes that literally reach out and grab you, that make you forget you're just watching lifeless pixels ignite and fade, that make your house rumble and eyes open wide with wonder. The type of scenes that simply make you smile from the sheer, infectious passion for filmmaking in their images and sounds.
Last month I covered an eclectic mix of scenes that included a lovelorn robot, a famous Ferris wheel, an eleven year old "superhero," Don Corleone himself, and some no good Nazis. If you missed it, be sure to check out the July bookmark list .
This month I'll be covering a professional hitman with a gentle soul, a clairvoyant chase through a shopping mall, a demonic talking goat, a madman's emotional breakthrough, and an esoteric journey through space and time. For those who haven't seen the titles featured, be warned that there are of course major spoilers ahead ' Léon: The Professional ' (Ch.14, 01:25:08 - 01:33:29) - Luc Besson's action packed masterpiece is loaded with great sequences, but perhaps none more memorable than its explosive and emotionally charged climax. Throughout the entire film we have seen contract killer Léon (Jean Reno), pull off some amazing stunts, effortlessly displaying a cool, collected aura of deadly control, taking out his targets with precision and stealth. Little did we know that all this time, he was actually holding back. Here, Besson unleashes his creation's full, unrestrained rage, giving the lonely hitman true motivation not only to kill, but much more importantly⦠to live. The scene starts off with a heavily armed SWAT team knocking on the Italian assassin's door. Just around the corner they have Léon's young protégé, Mathilda (Natalie Portman), captured. The door slowly opens and the team cautiously enters. Besson expertly chooses his angles for maximum suspense, showing only what he wants us to see. We don't know where Léon is exactly, but we know he's in the room. Suddenly, a previously hidden hand comes down from the ceiling and gently closes the door. With this tiny, beautifully chosen detail, the director has revealed where our hero has been hiding, while still keeping his location a secret to his enemies. We now know exactly what's coming, but they have no idea. This leads to another great directorial decision, where Besson stays fixed on the closed door as a barrage of bullets blast through. By not showing us exactly what happens on the other side, the director is able to prolong the suspense while adding an almost mythic layer of mystery to Léon's actions. The door slowly opens, and as the camera catches a glimpse of the bloody aftermath, we, and the SWAT team, start to understand the full gravity of the situation. A couple of cops are simply no match for the killer that waits patiently inside. To even stand a chance, they're going to need, "EVERYONE!
Evocation Of Emotion In Fiction - News
The great strength of "Rules of Civility" is in the sharp, sure-handed if sometimes overripe evocation of Manhattan in the late '30s, and Mr. Towles's conjuring of the demimonde and the haut monde—the people who knew just exactly how tedious the
The scene as a whole is a mesmerizing marriage of image and sound, and though its full meaning may remain elusive, the visuals themselves weave a kind of understanding of their own, evoking emotions and ideas through pure cinematic mastery,
Her back arched; her mouth opened in a gasp as all those tightly wound emotions came loose. Anguish, dragging roughly through her; suffocating heartache; absence, deep and vast. Yet beneath it all was a thin but strong hum of pleasure,
Exposition in the background (note a cameo of Isaac Asimov's Foundations, the ultimate exposition-heavy science fiction novel) and drama in the foreground which eventually collide into something that is both surprising and inevitable.
Despite overwhelming evidence tying his clients to bombings or murders, he found success, more often than not, by shifting juries' focus away from facts and toward motives and emotions. He once earned a not guilty verdict for a boy who shot a sheriff
Elephantouristics: How economics, elephants and emotions collide
CHIANG MAI, Thailand.
1.
Sympathy opens wallets. This we know. But the subtle science of evoking sympathy is intentionally hidden. It’s in front of our faces but behind our eyes. It’s quite unlike standing before an elephant. As German philosopher Immanuel Kant said: “A feeling of sympathy is beautiful and amiable; for it shows a charitable interest in the lot of other men… But this good natured passion is nevertheless weak and always blind.”
In the 21 century, the term “Culture of Aid” is thrown around to describe us. Some goodheartedly give billions, others goodheartedly receive billions. Tribes in Africa, despite having X-ray machines, diagrams and prenatal supplements strewn throughout their village, still twist and pull out the placenta in ways that often leaves the mother without life. How much of what is given actually gets to the received and how much of what is received is actually used efficiently or at all – these are questions increasingly posed and answered in books like Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid , “The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.” Whereas the study of “sympathy” has plenty of researchers who view it primarily as a human weakness, Darwin believed sympathy walked with survival, that those communities “…which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members, would flourish best, and rear the greatest number of offspring.”
By most assessments, however, the entire process of aid begins with the giver. This is the obvious start of the cycle, but the obvious is rarely the case. If the whole of our aid discussion was condensed within a thirty minute episode of Law & Order the asker asks, that has actually shaped entire countries, and, in the case of Chiang Mai, Thailand, entire industries and therefore cities.
Chiang Mai is like all places throughout the world. It’s a fusion of the built and natural environments. But it’s more balanced than most. Surrounding the laid back yet bustling city are some of the thickest, greenest mountains you’ll ever see. Within the city is a three-storied Starbucks. Deep within the mountains are ancient tribes: Akha, Palong, Karen, Lahu, Lusi.
Evocation Of Emotion In Fiction - Bookshelf
Paradoxes of emotion and fiction
This isn't truly a Factualism, for Levinson does not claim (nor does he intend to claim) that a novel, movie, or play always ends up evoking emotions for ...Fiction and emotion, a study in aesthetics and the philosophy of mind
But given the way it is defined and developed, my concern is whether the imagination can succeed in accomplishing its goal, namely the evocation of emotions ...Aesthetics and film
Even if we can respond with genuine emotions to fiction, ... to the depiction of horror and to the evocation of the emotions of fear and disgust that define ...Science-fiction, the early years, a full description of more than 3,000 science-fiction stories from earliest times to the appearance of the genre magazines in 1930 : with author, title, and motif indexes
For his supernatural fiction, see The Guide to Supernatural Fiction. ... story is filled with good sea lore and is remarkable for its evocation of emotion. ...Studies in the short story
We have suggested that emotion in fiction, like character or theme, is handled by ... the evocation of emotion solely in terms of character and situation. ...Detect News Directory
www.nd.edu/~nelliott/Greiner.htm
"The Ideology of the Narrative Form in Sensation Fiction" by Jonathan Loesberg ... by Loesberg was "evocation of emotion" in sensation fiction novels (p. 118). In other ...
Search Results for "evocation"
The clarity of art-the precise evocation of mood in the novel, or of summer twilight in a ... Poignant suggests the evocation of keen, painful emotion: Poignant grief cannot ...
The Woman on the Corner - an evocation - Writer's Corner ...
Writer's Corner: Experimental/Underground Fiction: The Woman on the Corner - an evocation. Updated Jul 25 '04 ... an attempt to evoke an state of emotion, of time and place. ...
emotion and art - expressiveness, Emotion and the Arts, Sound ...
In addition, there is the question of how a work's expression of emotion—what is often ... main focus of discussion has been the paradox of fiction, turning on ...
Press Release - Sci-Fi Writers to Share Secrets of Their Craft
(NewDesignWorld Press Center) - Science fiction is well known for the evocation of that peculiar emotion characterized as the sense of wonder,' " says local author ...