December 3, 2012

Up The Yangtzee

This last film brought a unique light to what I intended to do with my final project. The terministic screens in this film are hardly clear and very noticeable. From the start we get a glimpse of a poor family struggle in comparison to a ship filled with wealthy traveling tourists. This alone creates a huge divide between the characters we see but this has little to do with how this family lives in comparison to others in their own country. There is also a significantly larger number of interviews with the workers on the ship than the family members. The question and answer portion of this video make it apparent that one is being guided on what to say, a loss of trust in the cinematographer comes into mind there. We have studied all semester how we may rhetorically produce a question to garner an intended response, the lack of purity in just filming their actions the whole time like they did with the family shows corruption in the intent. The lack of an in depth explanation of the need for the dam and what its monetary or other gains for the country were leaves it seeming purposeless except to damage the lives of those living by the banks.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This post is interesting because I felt the opposite way about the documentary. I felt what it had most of was depth and storyline (explanation). But after reading Natalie's post a new ight has been shined on the work for me. After reading this I am reconsidering my post and what I have said. Although the immediacy of the film is not affected by the lack of explanation... It is a bit disillusioning to me and something I would like to mend in my final project. This rift can be mended in the delivery of the message I feel. Perhaps had it not been so emotionally charged if would've felt more real and less like a drama that lacked explanation, either way I want to address this in my remediation and appreciate the new insight this post gave me.

Unknown said...

I see what your saying here, and definitely agree that the film had an agenda or specific view on the issue of flooding the damn / the Chinese government. What I'm wondering though is how privilege plays a role in this censorship or airtime. Was the director told to take out some material by the government? Were there more interviews with the workers on the boat because they had more free time because of privilege? Or should we view the director as the one with privilege? He is the agent in the situation so doesn't that make him the one with the control, the one who sets up to norm upon which all else is judged. Something to think about...

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