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Planet of the Apes. Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner. Twentieth Century Fox. 1968.
Representation of Race through Franklin J. Schaffner’s ‘Space’ By 1968 North America had experienced over a decade of significant political uproar about the oppression that African-Americans suffered from, with this being known formally as the Civil Rights Movement. This was also the year that Franklin J. Schaffner’s Planet of the Apes was released. The film extrapolates issues…
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IRIS. Dir. Albert Maysles. Magnolia Pictures. 2014.
Albert Maysles’ 2015 documentary film IRIS provides a portrait of the nonagenarian fashion icon, Iris Apfel. Filming inside Iris’s apartment, Maysles presents us with many images of animal representations. The animals are artificial reproductions of the ‘real’ thing. They are aesthteic objects concerned only with style; carriers of pleasure rather than carriers of meaning. Taking Whitney Rugg’s…
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Walking With Dinosaurs: Time of the Titans. Dir. Tim Haines and Jasper James. BBC Worldwide. 1999.
Walking With Dinosaurs: Time of the Titans is a 1999 BBC animated documentary that brought together paleontologists and animators alike with the aim of bringing the age of dinosaurs to life, giving the audience a feeling of what it was like when dinosaurs roamed the earth. This particular episode is part two of a six episode…
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Lolita. Dir. Adrian Lyne. The Samuel Goldwyn Company. 1997.
‘Lolita’ (dir. By Adrian Lyne, 1997) is based Vladimir Nabokov’s novel of the same name. It follows the story of Humbert Humbert and his twelve year old step daughter Dolores or as he nicknames her, Lolita. The relationship between these characters is far from the idealistic father-daughter relationship, as Humbert reveals his paedophilic motive. The…
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Bringing Up Baby . Dir. Howard Hawks. RKO Radio Pictures. 1938.
Howard Hawks created a mass of parallels between the female and the leopard Baby in Bringing Up Baby. He displays a classical Hollywood screwball gender notion – women are wild while men are sensible. It is obvious that the female protagonist Susan has a closer relationship with the wild animals than everyone else in the film.…
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Weekend. Dir. Jean-Luc Godard. Athos Films. 1967.
Weekend (1967), dir. Jean-Luc Godard (watch the full film with English subtitles here) Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 film Weekend follows the distinctly middle-class experience of Roland and Corinne as they take a trip to Corinne’s family home in the country to secure her inheritance from her father, which, as we will find out, they will acquire by any means necessary.…
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Jurassic World. Dir. Colin Trevorrow. Universal Pictures. 2015.
Welcome to Jurassic World – the planet’s most amazing theme park! Take a vehicle tour through Gallimimus Valley and run with the fabulous flocks, or roll around in the gyroscope to get up close to your favourite docile dinos. If you’re looking for a fright, check out the wow-tastic Mosasaurus feeding shows! And new for…
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The Jungle Book. Dir. Wolgang Reitherman. Walt Disney. 1967.
The Jungle Book (1967) Dir, by Wolfgang Reitherman Disney’s The Jungle Book is a film of young boy trying to prove he can survive in the jungle whilst being persuaded by a cast of animals to return to human life. Mowgli is defiant that he belongs in the jungle but the inherently conservative, and ultimately racist, message…
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The Revenant . Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu. 20th Century Fox . 2015.
While much of The Revenant’s plot focuses on the quarrels of men and the seeking of revenge, the bear attack scene makes us forget this for a moment. González Iñárritu instead creates a scene that feels authentic using an undramatised style. In doing this he presents the bear not as a monster but as an animal defending…
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