The Silent Gondoliers

According to the textbook, it mentions, “The four generations identified in today’s workforce are the Silent Generation, Baby boomers, Generation X and lastly Generation Y” (Chapter 1, pg.14). The textbook also states how, “Baby boomers which is the largest generation had to become extremely competitive to find jobs and promotions and how many became workaholics while spending less time with their families to keep their jobs or to obtain greater pay or promotions” (Chapter, pg. 14-15).…

“There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings… Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change” (Carson 2). This allusion, set at the beginning of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, detailed a town where pesticides disturbed the balance of life. The government’s blind support of DDT, a human-synthesized pesticide, after its successes in World War II led to an expanding market for the insecticide and widespread…

into its theatres (289). If the industry had not rushed forward in the sound evolution, the switch from silent to sound film may not have happened for a while with theatres unable to afford the sound equipment. The “Wall Street boom and quick success of the talkies” is what led theatres to readily buy the equipment in the first place (MacGowan 287). The movie industry was advancing from silent films into a new era that produced many great films and stars. Even though most audiences seemed to…

insecticidal properties. In World War II DDT was used to control malaria and typhus among civilian troops. It was later used as an agricultural insecticide and as it popularity increased, it gained commercial use. In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a book tracing the environmental impact of the nationwide spraying of DDT and the ethical concerns of releasing large amounts of potentially toxic chemicals into the environment without fully understanding their effect on human and animal…

Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song (1971; Sweetback hereinafter) is a low-budget, 97-minute-long independent film written, directed, produced and scored by Melvin Van Peebles (b. 1932). Its production is considered a watershed in the history of US filmmaking. Sweetback’s firm stand on racism in the movie industry and the wider US socio-political context is still pertinent today as the racist ideology is disturbingly still with us today. Hence, the importance of revisiting Sweetback to unpack its…

In the book Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson the thesis was that pesticides were harming the environment and wildlife, especially birds. Carson focused her attention on the pesticide DDT, which was first made in 1874. DDT was used heavily during World War II to try and control the diseases typhus and malaria. So she presented research that pesticides can cause cancers, other ill effects and how they can gather in animals bodies through a process called bioaccumulation. Rachel Carson was a…

Among the numerous great silent film directors, the three that are commonly mentioned surrounding that discussion are Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin. Having seen a greater amount of Charlie Chaplin’s wonderful work than the others, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd most certainly still got my consideration. In spite of every one of the three delivering awesome pieces of visual artwork, they shared some comparable attributes, but they each had unique differences which contributed…

In ‘Music and the Silent Film’ by Patrick Miller the writer comments that from the earliest days of the cinema, commercial films were accompanied by music. From the fairground nickelodeons where player pianos churned out popular favourites to the glittering movie palaces where large orchestras accompanied the images on the silver screen, film music flourished. Music for the movies not only heightened the emotional response to a picture, but also served the practical purpose of drowning out the…

“real music”; the appeal of black and white films is the fantasy of a simpler time of flapper dresses and men laying their coats down for women to walk over. It is for this nostalgic reason that Charlin Chaplin’s City Lights has survived as a classic silent film for over eighty years. Released in 1931, City Lights is a romantic comedy that follows the story of the Tramp, a clumsy man with a humorous mustache, who develops an…

almost feel the vibration from how loud it is. Chaplin was able to produce and star in silent films and he still was able to get his point across. Today when people watch a movie, there are multiple colors and sounds. It would be weird to people if it was how it used to be because people are used to the new changes. Life on the streets influenced Charlie Chaplin, his character “The Tramp” helped him become a silent film star, and Chaplin’s style was adored by to the public for his sense of humor…