Fireside Chat

            My fireside chat was a tribute to my parents. I had recently been inspired by the poet, Billy Collins, and his poem “The Lanyard.” This poem is about recalling in his youth that he made a lanyard for his mother as a gift. At the time he thought the gift would make them even for all the things that she had done for him and given to him. Only later in life did he realize that you can’t ever repay your mother. This struck a chord with me, since I have my own young child now, and caring for him has made me realize just all that my parents have done for me. I’ve thought of ways that I could repay them. Actually, getting a degree in Media Arts is one of the ways that I hoped to do it. I often dreamed of making it big in film and becoming wealthy. And when I’d dream of having a lot of money, I thought of few things I’d like to do for myself, but mostly I thought about the things I could do for my parents in an attempt to give thanks and repay them for all that they’ve done for me. But over the past few years I’ve come to realize that this is simply impossible. Nothing you can buy will ever repay the people who gave you your life.  I wanted to let them know that I was aware of this, so I made my project about them, and I used to poem as a jumping off point.

            I used the old photos to go along with my narration so that it would feel like a little trip down memory lane. I felt that using pictures they hadn’t seen in a long time would stir up some good memories and be very powerful. I selected photos that represented the monetary things they had given me and then the things which are beyond value. I did this for contrast and to also set up what I mentioned earlier about no dollar value could be equivalent to them giving me life. I chose to make it mostly serious because it was a serious feeling, but thought that a little bit of humor would be reflective of my personality(they did need to know it was actually me who wrote it).  I also used that poem of Billy Collins’ because I felt it said some things very well that I couldn’t say any better myself. Every time I rehearsed when I got to the end,  I knew I was going to get a little emotional. I always kept it together when I practiced, but when the real thing came, and my parents were there, I was fighting back tears. I feel that was one of the purposes of this assignment – express some very real emotion in real time.

           

Concerned Citizen

 

When we first started to throw around ideas of who we might like to get to know better as a concerned citizen, we thought maybe someone that works at an animal shelter, or doctors that were doing innovative things with patients. But then we watched the Fit for the Kingdom video that was centered around the LDS poet, Rusty, where it was in a much more intimate setting where we really got to know what kind of person he was and what his inspirations were. This led us to choosing someone like him that was doing something relatively small in the community, but still making a difference.

In Goldbard’s article, she references a few instances where policy seemed a bit behind the times, with the Muslim women and their hijabs, and the growing prison population in the US. Knowing we wouldn’t be able to tackle an issue quite as big as either of these, we decided to tackle a smaller issue, but still one in which the citizen was doing something that didn’t quite fall in line with the larger community around him. Josh Palkki is a student at BYU, residing here in Provo, but grew up in Oregon, where he was raised to recycle. We thought it would be interesting to discuss with him why he continued collecting recyclables, even though it is more difficult to recycle here. For our video we took inspiration from something we found on vimeo about an artist in LA (https://vimeo.com/79222497).

In short, we spend a lot of time listening to what the artist has to say while he’s sitting in a chair, but there are cutaways to some of the work that he’s done and things that help you further understand what he is saying and who he is as an artist. This is why we decided to include a lot of the interview, he had some really interesting things to say and we thought it would be beneficial to include things like his dirty kitchen  to sort of contrast how he is an avid recycler but is maybe more lax in other aspects of his life.

 

An interesting issue that we ran into while we were trying to find an apartment complex nearby that had recycling set up for students (so we could film some cutaways there), was that there was no such thing. We spent nearly an hour searching for one and came up short, having to go on campus and to the dorms to find any actual recycling bins. This was comical since we had just discussed with Josh how it was much more difficult to find anywhere in Provo to actually recycle. Our hope in spotlighting Josh and recycling is that hopefully others might be impacted by what he has to say, like we were, and take more steps in helping the community around them.

Protest Poster

The poster that I made is a protest against the CDC(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and their handling of Lyme disease. Lyme disease is contracted from Ticks and enters the blood stream. It is a terrible, debilitating disease that thousands and thousands of people suffer from because they often are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed with something completely different. This reason for this is the fact that the CDC does not even acknowledge Lyme disease as chronic. They claim it is something acute that can easily be treated with antibiotics – no matter when it is discovered. This is simply not true. If detected early and treated, then it certainly can be cured quickly as well. However, for those individuals who go years without a diagnosis, the suffering can be tremendous. Treatment is extremely difficult and the road to recovery is long and frustrating.  Because the CDC doesn’t acknowledge it as a chronic disease, most physicians are not familiar with it at all and would have no idea what to look for to diagnose it, and what’s worse is that insurance companies do not cover treatment for Lyme beyond simple antibiotics, and not even those sometimes.

So I took found a picture of Lyme disease at the microscopic level in the blood cells(the little guy shaped like a corkscrew is the actual Lyme spirochete). Next, I found a picture of the official seal of the CDC, cropped it and placed on to each of the blood cells in the photo. Next, I changed the opacity level so that the two would blend together, giving the appearance that the seal was actually inside the cell. This gives the appearance that the true infection – the real reason behind chronic Lyme disease – is the CDC and their refusal to recognize it for what it really is and help people. The only reason Lyme becomes chronic is because the CDC doesn’t help spread awareness.

Next, I placed black borders on the top and bottom of the picture because I wanted to make it look like a meme. Memes are very commonplace and viewed frequently. I think most memes are designed to be humorous so seeing a serious one might catch people’s attention. On the borders I placed the words, “Chronic Lyme Disease. Take a closer look.”  I was doing two things here: referencing the fact that my photo is at the microscopic level of someone with this disease and the second is that if they look and see that seal, they’re realize is that that is out of place and then my hope is that they will do some research on the matter and looking closer will help to reveal the truth to them.

I put my poster up on my Facebook page and it was well received, even in a short time. It seemed to be easily understood and a few people even looked up Lyme and the CDC. Seemed to work.

For this project I took inspiration from our viewing of “The danger of a single story.” I think that’s what the CDC does. They only see Lyme as one way – simple and not dangerous. In reality, it a chameleon amongst diseases, often referred to as “The great pretender” due to its ability to mimic the symptoms of other diseases. In reality it extremely complex and highly dangerous. That’s what ultimately made me choose do this – their inability to look at it in any other way.

As far as the design of my poster I was inspired by some microscopic pictures in the documentary Under Our Skin, which focuses on the fight against the CDC and the stories of several who have suffered from Lyme for years. If you want to watch it you can do so for free right at the bottom of the page.

I would highly recommend it. Educate yourself and you could help save someone or, who knows, maybe even yourself from this horrible disease.  

 

Webspinna Battle!

Opening Theme

Help me Obi Wan Kenobi

Darth Doody





The ways of the force

Religions and Ancient Weapons




Imperial March

I am Your Father

Seen His Face




Red October Standing By

All clear kid

Explosion




Final Theme

Chewbacca Roar

Perfectly Alright

When I chose to build my Webspinna around Star Wars I did so simply because I thought it would be the most fun to create. I think I was right. My objective with the audio clips I chose to use was simply to recreate the plot of Star Wars through sound. I picked very significant parts of the film and found sounds that would be easily recognized by anyone. For the most part I followed the general plot in its chronological order, with a few twists for humor or purely for fun. An example would be the clip from The Empire Strikes Back when Vader proclaims, “I am your father.” This line is not a part of the original film, but was too iconic for me to exclude. I also chose a line from Han Solo that occurs in the middle of the film but I placed it at the end simply because it’s my favorite line and I thought it would be a great way to conclude my mix. This attempt to be mostly chronological was in response to our reading. When reading DJ Spooky’s page, I honestly went a little crazy. I felt the disorder could work for him, but if I wanted to successful navigate my page, I needed a little bit of order.

The majority of my clips came directly from the film, but a few were borrowed from other sources such as Family Guy. I thought this would be a good way to mix the clips because Star Wars is so iconic that there have been countless copies of it or references to it. I decided to combine the two in order to point out the fact that it’s not just a movie that was extremely popular, but it is something that is engrained into our culture – it’s a fixture that will never be removed. It’s actually a piece of us as though we have all been to that far away galaxy a long time ago. And most of us are so familiar with the lines that when we hear one with even a single word changed, we can tell the difference. So I threw in a few to make it fun.

Star Wars vs. Harry Potter was something we really enjoyed because they’re both very iconic and actually incredibly similar to each other when compared closely. So when pairing sounds we took parts that were similar to each other to compare them, to point out the similarities. I actually received a little inspiration on that section from a joke by Aaron Woodall, a fellow Humor U comedian of mine. Watch it

here if you like.

As far as the actual performance goes, I feel that Libby and I did well. We rehearsed a few times, and it never went well, but when we stepped in front of everyone, we only had one little goof so I think that we did very well. I certainly gained a whole new respect for DJs who can go out and make things happen on the spot in front of people. It’s pretty incredible. When it came to costume selection I went with greatest character to come out of the franchise: Han Solo. It's was a pretty simple choice - just be as cool as possible. 

World Building

When it comes to building worlds, the film industry has to do a lot more than most other mediums. Learning this skill will become very valuable over the course of our careers. The one advantage that we had to create the world with real Pokémon, was that there already is a world established. However our goal was to create a world that would have realistic possibilities.

One of the key things we learned from the readings was about “thoughtful exploration.” When examining the possibilities of a world where Pokémon actually exist, we did not simply insert ourselves into the world that had already been created to enjoy the fun we would have as kids, but rather, we considered what would be the real issues. We thought about politics and education, pop culture etc. and  which of those would involve or revolve around Pokémon. We decided on what we thought would be  the key issues, created a few ideas of our own, and then considered how they would be represented or advertised in that world. Here’s what we came up with:

Recreation

For recreation we decided to show how in a world where Pokémon exist they play cards with animals from our world. I used the animal’s real name and changed a lot on the card. I chose to do this because I felt that a lot of people have fun playing Pokémon and I think they would have fun playing cards with animals.

Animal Rights

Or should I say Pokémon Rights. I thought of this because the idea of Pokémon battles is kind of barbaric. No doubt, in a world where Pokémon exist would be a Pokémon rights group. Pairing the two: Pokémon clips and Sarah McLachlan’s commercial was the perfect way of trying to show what I meant. When people just hear the music they think of that commercial right away.

Along that same vein I created a billboard ad that I modeled after some that I’ve seen from a very popular company called Domo. Although, this ad is geared towards the protection of Pokémon against poaching. With so many different species of Pokémon there is plethora of opportunity for poaching. This ad would be intended to generate awareness of Pokémon poaching and contains a website address that would allow people to help protect innocent Pokémon. Not only does it generate awareness, but it makes protecting Pokémon cool. At least, it’s supposed to.  

Magazine

When I was coming up with the concept of this world I thought about how I would show multiple things going on in a small space. There was no better place for that than a magazine. Complete with articles and advertisements that would expand the world. For the first advertisement I wanted to show a release for a new Poké Ball. I used Photoshop to create everything by first creating the outline of a pokeball then layering a galaxy and keeping only what fit inside, then did the same with the silver bottom. When that was set I tried to make it look a bit more three dimensional by adding a bit of a gradient shade. Then I just created a tag line and copy for the advertisement the same way apple would have. This was largely inspired by Apple advertisements because I pictured the eSiplh. Company to be a leading innovator in technology.

The second portion of the magazine was merely a news report about rising stars. I kind of treated this like a typical kids magazine because most Pokémon trainers are young. So I made sure the type was larger than normal and it was merely about simple stuff and their achievements. However I wanted to also make it informative and have a call back to Aralie’s video. This was all created in Adobe InDesign, I largely didn’t know what I was doing but had some good drive about how I wanted it to look. The Pictures I just took from the internet from some great Cosplayers That I felt had a good look about them for the world and Ideally if I were to create this world for a film I would have made a photoshoot with actual people.

The last part was to show how Pokémon influenced the fashion world. This doesn’t quite fit into a teen magazine but I feel that it would help influence the kids to learn better fashion but more so If this were to be a real world there would be more street worthy clothes and not so bright or flamboyant as we see in the anime. However that goes without saying that some cultures might adopt that type of style. Yet from my perspective I felt that high fashion would drive the industry. This photo was made by merely inserting a Pokémon into the already taken photo from fashion magazines and with a selected Pokémon to show a possible influence of style.

Education

When Pokémon are the animals that inhabit your world, you’re going to have to study them. Considering that there are so many types, I started at the beginning. I created a page out of textbook that shows the anatomy of the Pokémon, Bulbasaur. It includes a picture of its exterior and also the interior anatomy of how it functions. The page also includes a physical description, some interesting parts of its personality, and its evolution forms.

Remix

In the fourth grade I took art from Mr. Watson. He showed us all kinds of famous paintings, most of which I thought were very cool. But one day she showed us a painting that changed it all for me.  It was made up of millions of tiny little dots that when combined made a picture of people in a park. The painting is A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. I had never seen something so incredible. Learning that it took over two years to complete made it all that much more amazing to me. Ever since that day, it has been my favorite painting.

Later that same year, I sat down on a Saturday morning and turned on the T.V.  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came on. I was blown away – definitely a life-changer. Additionally, I was shocked at the scene in the film where Ferris, Sloane, and Cameron go to the Art Institute of Chicago and they look at a lot of the paintings Mr. Watson had introduced me to, including A Sunday Afternoon. That to me, was a very incredible moment. And I didn’t even actually realize it at the time, but it would be a huge influence on my decision to pursue filmmaking as a career.

That realization came later when I had decided that I wanted to make films and I began researching the film’s director, John Hughes. He too, was a huge fan of that painting and put it in the film simply for his own pleasure. He said, “...I always thought this painting was sort of like making a movie. A pointillist style, which at very very close to it, you don't have any idea what you've made until you step back from it.”[1] I literally screamed when I heard him say that because I had once thought it.

I framed this photo so that the painting and the film were the only thing inside it – no outside objects. Except, of course, for me. But the way I lined it up it could appear that I’m a part of it. It’s all one. Either way, the point was to see the layers of creativity and inspirations. Seurat inspired Hughes, Hughes inspired me. What will I create and will that inspire someone to create something of their own? I derived this idea from out discussion of the Star Wars family tree. Another element to it is that it’s two works that I love occupying the same space, simultaneously inspiring me. It’s like the painting itself: there are millions of little pieces that make up the whole picture. For me, there are so many influences that have shaped who I am and who I want to be as an artist and this moment was monumental for me.

 

 

1.      Ferris Bueller's Day Off-(Commentary by John Hughes) (DVD). Paramount Pictures. 1999-10-19.

Medium Specificity

 

For my medium I selected stand-up comedy – something I have a few years of experience in performing. In my time performing I have written a lot of different jokes, helped a lot of other people fine tune their own, and I’ve watched a lot of different comedians perform – in person and on T.V. or the internet. In all the thousands of jokes I’ve been involved with, there are several topics that seem to be covered in depth by just about every comedian. Topics include, but are not limited to: dating, marriage, differences between men and women, pregnancy, food, childhood, the difference between kids today and us, technology, social media, celebrities, politics, and current events. The reason for this is the fact that these topics are very relatable, easily understood by most members of any audience. Each comedian has a different spin on each topic, due to his or her experiences and perceptions. But as the root of it all, are those same exact topics.
In response to this I wrote a set of jokes that simply explore the most basic joke topics, and the general sentiment that most comedians have towards those topics. The difference is my jokes can simply be described as premises – ideas about those topics. Rather than explore the specifics, which are what distinguish comedians from one another, I chose instead to explore what makes them the same. Comedy at its root is simply observation about every-day things. So my set of jokes is simply observation about those observations. Although these comedians say very different things on the microscopic level, on the macro, it’s all very much the same.
I drew inspiration from both the reading and the Daffy Duck video that we watched in class. I really love the idea of a medium of art talking about itself, observing itself, identifying its origins and the different elements that make it what it is like in “Show and Tell”. Another piece that inspired me was the comedy of Demitri Martin. In one particular set, he explores the origins of his own material. He calls it the “the place where his jokes come from.” I attempted to do the same with my piece. I wanted to explore what all stand-up comedy is really saying and use stand-up comedy to say it. I really enjoyed this part of the assignment, looking deeper in to something that I’ve done for a long time now, but figuring out what makes it unique from other mediums of art. I tried to pretend that I was stand-up comedy and then I had my Zoolander moment, looking into the water and staring into my own reflection and I ask, “Who am I?”

This project was fun, to take a historical event and put a unique spin on it. It’s been said that “good artists borrow, but great artists steal.” Using a historical event as inspiration is handy because stealing from it is more socially acceptable than most alternatives, and you can take a lot of liberties. Also, it is an almost endless source of fascinating stories about true human behavior, which as we know, can often be stranger than fiction. The historical story we drew on and interpreted had kind of a ridiculousness about it, as it’s not often we hear about national, royal decrees involving potatoes, that most unshapely tuber. We chose to run with that, emphasizing the cartoonish aspects rather than the realistic aspects of the story. Originally, I heard about it from my Dad, who is an expert collector of mental lint and told it emphasizing the potato’s role as the solution to marching soldiers over the crop fields, and talking humorously about the great lengths Frederick the Great went to take advantage of them. I fixated on just one aspect of the process, this potato field, partially because it was crazy, partly because it worked, mostly because it was crazy that it worked. As I wrote it, I did some more research, and learned that Frederick the Great still has potatoes placed on his grave. And Austria, of course, still grows potatoes. I love that plans that seem crazy, both at the time and decades afterwards, can turn out to be a good thing. Our script celebrates that craziness while trying to maintain the spirit of its success. We were really glad in class when we watched “My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts.” Most other examples we enjoyed were much more serious, and dealt with harsh issues in a strong, humanist light. That was good, but not super compatible with the spirit of our scripts’ premise. Granted, we could have focused on the famine and stubborn resistance to change that preceded the potato, but we think that always would have been undermined by the way Frederick the Great went about solving this admittedly grave issue. Instead of taking that route, we went the way of gentle exaggeration also utilized in “My Grandmother.” We felt like we had more confidence in our approach after watching that. We also felt like it reminded us to focus more on characters, not just events, because it’s the characters that ground the events.

Crossing the Roads of the Mundane and Beautiful

by Steven Rowe and Marshal Davis

When we got together to talk about the process assignment we both wanted to represent a simple and overlooked process that all humans have in common. We hoped by highlighting the seemingly mundane; that our sound would transcend from its overlooked state to something that has so many levels and depth and beauty.

            Our initial choice was to record the sound of brushing teeth. It was exciting as we recorded; when amplified you could hear the unanimous movement of the each and every fiber, working towards your dental cleanliness. Then on September 26^th, at 12:53 pm our worlds were rocked when we discovered that ‘getting ready for the day’ processes were not a valid option. So we had to scrap the recording and start at the beginning.

            We talked about a few options, but few really hit the ticket on the ‘seemingly mundane’ yet beautiful vibe we were going for. The day of the assignment grew closer. Discouraged, we began the long walk to Wymount, where we had previously stored the recording equipment. As we trudged along the sidewalk we glanced forward and saw a light… literally, we saw a stoplight up ahead and it hit us. We could record the sound of crossing the street. It was seemingly mundane, it is something that we all have in common, and it is definitely an ignored process.

            As we set out to record the process we ran into a few obstacles, the wind was blowing so hard that the microphone was overpowered. After playing with the gain and putting a ‘dead cat’ on the microphone we managed to capture some crisp sounds of traffic passing through, the sound of pressing the crossing button, the beep that announced our turn to cross. We had to record the footsteps at a more remote location, because the faint sound of Stevens footsteps were overpowered sounds of traffic and screaming passersby.

            This project became significant for me as we started to edit the sound and listened to the play back various times. I remembered the simple joys of childhood, racing my siblings down the sidewalk, each of us with the hope of being the one to hold the honor of pushing the button that magically illuminated the mysterious walking man on the opposite side of the street.

            I learned two things during this process, the first being that when you are in a creative stump, whether it is writing, playing music, filming or recording sound just move forward and the idea will likely come to you. Second, sound has can be very powerful, perhaps more than image. It allows us to paint the image ourselves, based off of the reflections of our own being.

5 Short Stories

Mark fainted in the hallway. While falling he cut his wrist on a vent. He woke to see the blood and shut his eyes again, only slower this time.

To please her ever-sickening husband, Millie made him French Toast-his favorite dish-every single day. Secret ingredient: good vanilla. Actual secret ingredient: motor oil.

George returned late from work. He parked in the garage and closed it. He shut his eyes only for a moment and slowly breathed in the fumes.

Evelynn collected many books. She could not walk through her house. Trying to reach the kitchen she bumped a stack, which toppled. She laid there, calling out in vain.

Jason was cutting a pear. It dripped from the counter. He bent over to clean it up, slipped on the moisture. Skewered, bleeding, he thought, "I don't even like pears..."

I had a difficult time deciding what I could use as a theme for my stories. I had a lot of good ideas but none of them went together, there was no order. Finally, I heard a story on the news about an accidental death of a woman and then I had the idea for “slow deaths at home”.  The ideas took a while to formulate and the way to write them took even longer, but I was very careful about how it was done. I tried to never reveal too much or give the story away too early. That was something that I appreciated about the short stories that we read previously- they were never too revealing and often required some inference out of the reader.

As far as the pictures go, I wanted them to take place moments before the death of each person. Each photo takes place in a moment where there is still a slight chance for each person to live, but death ultimately appears imminent. Once again I made a decision to not show faces, except for one simply because the face was too good to pass up. But that was a last minute decision that had not been previously planned on. Reason? It was totally genuine. My gracious friend was completely exhausted and I felt I need to capture that.

I created four of my stories, but one of them was inspired by something I had seen on television and been absolutely disgusted by so I decided to use it. I had seen a television show all about the addiction of hoarding and saw one where I woman had been trapped under some boxes and never was able to free herself. Since she kept mostly to herself no one ever came looking for her and she died under the boxes. I decided to do the same, only with books because the girl in my photo reads about 100 books a year and I just felt like warning her.

Similarly, four of my stories are accidental death and one is a murder. I actually didn’t choose beforehand to do it that way, that’s just the way the story played out when I wrote it. I think I liked it the best it was a surprise even to me. I had intended for this man to make the French Toast himself and accidentally poison himself, but eventually his wife just showed up in my mind to finish the job herself.  I think it works in the series of stories though, because amongst the surprises, I think it is the biggest. 

"The Iron Sea" - Keane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJGspad5uhw

This song is one that I have listened to for 8 years and never really nailed down what I thought about it or what it meant to me. Not until recently. When deciding on the song for this project I had actually chosen another, but after I had a late-night conversation with a friend, the meaning suddenly revealed itself to me.

The revelation of the pain and the hurt she’d been hiding in plain sight was almost overwhelming to hear about. But when she spoke about it I began hearing this song and suddenly it was all making sense to me. It was as though the song had been waiting all those years for her to come to me. I had to tell her story. The connection between my images and the music stems from the long, drawn-out notes coming from the keyboard and the guitars. They were a symbol to me of her imprisonment by her own feelings – they just seem to go on and on. Going along with that, the whole song has an eerie, almost alien sound to it. Again, this is a reflection of how she felt about being so consumed by this situation. She never imagined she would have been caught in it, but it sneaked up on her, “like a snake in the grass” as she put it.

I chose to never show her face. The reason was twofold: First, to not reveal the identity of my friend, who others in class may know. And the second was an attempt to convey a message and communicate emotions without revealing them through facial expressions. Instead, I used the rest of her body, mostly the feet and her hands.  I once saw it done in Catch Me If You Can and have always wished to try it.

Whenever I finished the song I never felt good. I think it was because it doesn’t exactly have a resolution. Similarly, neither do the images. Not every story ends happy. Not every story really ends. She may be living this story for the rest of her life. 

Tarantino: Changing History

History will tell us that Adolf Hitler’s death came at his own hands in April of 1945 due to the fact that the Allies were rapidly approaching and he was sure to face charges for all his crimes against humanity. However, Quentin Tarantino would have us believe something completely different. He would have us believe that Adolf met his demise in a movie theatre in France at the hands of an American Jewish soldier named Sergeant Donny Donowitz, more fearfully referred to by the Nazis as “The Bear Jew”. Donowitz, is of course a member of the notorious Basterds, a group of Jewish American soldiers sent to Europe- behind enemy lines- to harass and terrorize the enemy in any way possible. Of course he, and the Basterds, are also not real. Many critics have dismissed the film Inglourious Basterds as “ahistorical” or “entirely too fantastic” to be considered a true piece of art that is worthy of any sort of praise. This thought stemming from the notion that history cannot be changed and attempts are wasteful.  However, Tarantino’s bold reinvention to the end of the Second World War not only is a tremendous work of art, but is even better than reality. So how does Tarantino get away with blatantly changing historical events?  His use of dark humor and a musical score reminiscent of a Western are his greatest tools for changing the past.  Also, the fact that he not the first to do so, also lends some credit to his decision.

            I would not consider Inglourious Basterds to be a comedy, but rather closer to a dark comedy at best due to its extremely violent and graphic nature, but most films made about World War II like Saving Private Ryan or The Great Escape are much more serious in nature. Saving Private Ryan is considered by many to be the most realistic portrayal of combat ever put on screen(excluding actual combat footage). Inglourious Basterds plays ball a little differently. Scenes of combat are much more theatrical-the flying blood, exploding wounds and scenery- create a disconnect from the actual events that took place and replace it with something out of a young boy’s vivid imagination. The film is also is full of eccentric characters like the American Lieutenant,  Aldo Raine, “The Apache”(Brad Pitt) or Nazi Colonel Hans Landa, “The Jew Hunter”(Christoph Waltz). Each of whom have extremely distinct-almost out of place or other-worldly- dialogue that could easily be found in a Coen brothers film. Dialog from each character deals with serious subjects of war, conspiracy, murder and even racism. Yet their character, delivery, and mannerisms cause the film to be more lighthearted than its heavy subject would normally be. An excellent example of this would be a conversation between Raine and Landa where Raine corrects and then explains to the Colonel how to properly use the word bingo.  Again, this creates this slight yet fantastic disconnect from reality and ventures into a grounded fantasy. 

Similarly, the musical score in this film is something that could have easily been found in any one of Clint Eastwood’s many Westerns. Borrowing from that genre, Tarantino is able to create more of a Sherriff-vs.-Villain approach to the situation. The music subtly informs the audience that the Basterds, or the heroes, will meet with the villain, Hitler, at the conclusion of the film in an extraordinary shootout. And of course, we know that in Westerns the hero almost always wins(3:10 to Yuma anyone?). So the music in a small changes the genre of the film to Western, thus lending to the possibility of fantasy and allowing Tarantino to make the changes necessary.

            Another point I wish to make it that Inglorious Basterds is not the first film to change history for its plot. CSA: Confederate States of America is a film that explores what the United States would be like today if the South had won the war and slavery still existed. This film examines the consequences of what a changed history would look like today. Inglorious Basterds is actually brave enough to show just how history would have changed without showing any of the consequences. Then it leaves the job of speculation up to the viewer and begs the question, “How would the world be different if Hitler had been killed on year earlier?” So many possibilities.

            Quentin Tarantino effectively and violently changes history in his film. His brilliant use of humor and music are able to create a superior reality. The story he wrote may be fantasy, but it is the ending that humanity wanted. It is the ending that the Jewish people deserved: a brutal and poetic act of vengeance carried out of by one of their own in order to destroy a ruthless dictator who had murdered millions. His real death was cowardly and anticlimactic, thus, killing him in a movie theatre through film was far more poetic and deserved. Tarantino should not be derided for his brave inventiveness. He should be thanked for it.