In the movie Finding Forrester, a young boy and an old man meet under the most unusual of circumstances, creating an unlikely friendship that changes them both. As the elder, William Forrester is a mentor to Jamal who gives him valuable advice on life and his writing. At the same time however, Jamal teaches him a lesson too. When he introduces himself into his life, Forrester was still blaming himself for the death of his brother, and was desperately tries to hide from his past by becoming a recluse. Jamal brings along with him the lesson of moving on and making the best of your life.…
What's It Like to Be Depressed? David Scharf, a university student, takes a creative approach on explaining the difficulty of dealing with the real world and the depression brought about by it, in a short animated film called "The Forest". The video starts out with a 12 year old girl narrating her life. She doesn't like school; she feels alone among people; her father pushes her very hard. To escape the pressures and sadness of the real world, the girl spends much of her time daydreaming about a beautiful forest, her happy place.…
Fairy tales usually involve a happy princess who falls in love with a prince and they live happily ever after, the end. Typically, there isn’t a negative side to the story other than the occasional evil witch that the princess easily overcomes. These stories are almost always used as bedtime stories for children to give them a happy situation to sleep on and they usually do not have a deeper, underlying theme. “The Thing in the Forest” by A.S. Byatt is a different type of fairy tale with a much darker meaning then traditional stories. Two girls come across a “Thing” in the woods and are scarred by it for the rest of their lives.…
It is this very inner struggle of man that makes the film so relevant for everyone and increases the personal meaning of the film. In today’s world where so many tragedies occur and people are searching for meaning, Shyamalan…
The Red Tree (Shaun Tan, 2001) is a children’s picture book that is both written and illustrated by Shaun Tan. The Red Tree is a book about depression, despair and ultimately, hope. The book follows a girl struggling with depression who, at the end of the book, finds hope in the form of a red tree. For a picture book to be successful, both the illustrations and written text generally can exist independently, but complement each other. There is a strong marriage between the written and visual language in Tan’s book that creates a harmonious connection to powerfully and effectively represent depression.…
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which no outlets in our quiet life”(15). This quote emphasizes that nature is essential to one’s existence. Nonetheless, making sacrifices for what you love is a true passion.…
Whether your trip to the woods in Ridley High School was to visit your grandmother, sell your cow, or break a spell, no doubt you enjoyed the stay. Into the Woods, by Stephen Sondheim, follows the story of a number of well-known fairy tales - Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood, along with the addition of two original characters, the Baker and his Wife. The first act retells the original stories, with some slight changes, as all of them are intertwined in some way. However, in the second act, Sondheim imagines what life is like after these characters have their happily ever after.…
The Douglas Hay article ‘property, authority and the criminal law’ Hay’s chapter in ‘Albion’s Fatal Tree’ focuses on the argument that the Hanoverian period saw the development of the ‘Bloody Code’ due the increase of capitalism. There were several different laws that were put in place for the ‘Bloody Code’ this there to remove criminals out of the country and out of society. The bloody code imposed the death penalty for over two hundred offences. Those in court faced with this were expected to defend themselves with only the assistance of the judge. Douglas Hay expresses that the criminal law was concerned primarily with authority and secondly with the protection of property.…
To understand the notions put forward by Eduardo Kohn in ‘How Forests Think’, our anthropologic views must first be deconstructed. It is only after this that we begin to see ‘beyond the human’; as Kohn describes, it is a “kind of thinking that grows” (2013:27). Set out in six coherent chapters, Kohn begins by introducing familiar anthropological concepts. His exploration of semiotic dynamic, and how symbols and language are unique to humans, remind us of the well-known concept of homosapien dominance over other species. It is however, as we are introduced to various semiotic concepts within the sub-sections of each chapter, that these familiar notions slowly start to morph into more complex ideas.…
In the movie, Forest Gump, the trials and tribulations of Forest’s life are explained to us. One of the most famous lines from the movie, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get”, explains Forest’s outlook on life. He seems to take everything in stride. Many individuals would have given up, but not Forest. The support and teachings of his mother during his childhood guided him throughout life.…
What makes the perfect movie? An inspiring story of an underdog is a good start. Add a complicated love interest with some suspense. Mix in a big historical event and write your underdog character into it then you might just have a perfect movie. That's what makes forrest gump a great movie and if you haven't watched it then you are missing out on one of the most iconic films ever.…
In Allan Johnson’s book The Forest and the Trees, he notions that in order to understand the concept of social life, we have to not only look at the individual, but also at the environment the individual is placed and how they interact and create social systems. Johnson explains that “a forest is simply a collection of individual trees, but it is more than that. It is also a collection of trees that exist in a particular relation to one another, and you cannot tell what that relation is by looking at the individual trees.” (Johnson 2014) By using the imagery of the forest and trees, he shows how social systems and people influence each other.…
Life makes people make major decisions and some of those decisions will be for the better and some will make your life worse. Trauma can lead to having to make these decisions. Like if the everyone around you makes you angry in a major way you could choose to isolate yourself from them or you could face them and later move on from them. In the film “Finding Forrester” the director Gus Van Sant utilizes character development to suggest the idea that isolation is psychologically harmful to people.…
The Premise Forrest Gump is a movie detailing the life of an Alabama born man with a low I.Q. In a very realistic fashion, the audience follows Forrest as he grows through his life. Although the movie is a simplistic picture of the life of a single man, it also somewhat satirically details many of the events the fictional character would have lived through and provides a life-like picture of many people with psychological disorders in the acquaintances Forrest makes through his adventures. One of these acquaintances is Jenny Curran, who became Gump’s friend on his first day of school.…
Human Psychological Development in Forrest Gump Section One: 4 areas of Human Development Social development is how an individual’s relationship changes with others over time and how their skills interacting with others develop. In the film Forrest Gump, Forest clearly had limited social skills and minimal people he could call a friend. On his first day of school, Forrest met a young girl named Jenny whom asks Forrest to sit next to her on the bus, this was the first example of Jenny initiating contact with Forrest and the beginning of a great friendship that would grow overtime. Their relationship at a young age began with Jenny always looking after Forrest due to his disadvantages in life, an example of this is when Jenny tells Forrest on…