ZooScope

Tag: HAR: Pet Keeping

  • Duma. Dir. Caroll Ballard. Warner Bros Pictures. 2005.

    Duma. Dir. Caroll Ballard. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2005. Duma follows the narrative of a young boy named Xan embarking on an epic adventure to release his pet cheetah, Duma, to the wild. The ever-looming inevitability of Xan and Duma’s separation is the emotional core of the film, and Ballard’s depiction of their perilous journey together explores…

  • Seven Psychopaths. Dir. Martin McDonaugh. CBS Films. 2011.

    Callum HowkinsMonday 16 January 2017 At the core of its various subplots, Seven Psychopaths revolves around a situation in which a trio of criminals steal dogs in order to claim the reward money offered by the owners. It becomes apparent that the animal is a vital part of this film, serving as a framing device for the…

  • 102 Dalmatians. Dir. Kevin Lima. Walt Disney Pictures. 2000.

    Feathers Amongst the Furs: The Revival of Power Dynamic in 102 Dalmatians The visuals of the original 1961 animation and the 1996 live-action adaption have become iconic to those familiar with the story of 101 Dalmatians. The sea of black spots dispersed across endless white furs. The gangly, striking screen presence of the archetypal villain,…

  • Inside Llewyn Davis. Dir. Ethan Coen, Joel Coen. CBS Films. 2013.

    Inside Llewyn Davis, is a Coen Brothers mock biopic depicting a struggling singer in 1960s New York. The film leads the central character Llewyn to question whether or not he should continue to perform music following the suicide of his singing partner, Mike. The theme of alienation reoccurs throughout the film and is reinforced by…

  • Beauty and the Beast . Dir. Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise. Buena Vista Pictures. 1991.

    Ostensibly, the transformation of a dog into a footstool in Beauty and the Beast operates as a humorous pun.[1] Visually, it works: Sultan in footstool form is around the right size, his tassels stand in for a head and tail and his decorated legs make convincing paws. Furthermore, the transformation of a dog into a footstool plays on…

  • Ponyo. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. Toho. 2008.

    ‘What? She is captured by a boy? This is very bad. Is it already dead?’ yells Ponyo’s father Fujimoto when realising his precious daughter is being kept as a pet fish. The line raises an interesting question, does cinema represent animal domestication as kidnapping or an addition of family member? Hayao Miyazaki’s animated fantasy film Ponyo retells…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • Bringing Up Baby. Dir. Howard Hawks. RKO. 1938.

    In this article, I will analyse the scene in which David first encounters the dog, George, and Susan’s aunt, Mrs Random, while caught wearing Susan’s dressing gown. I will argue that here a direct comparison can be made between Susan and George. George is used to emphasise that rather than sharing characteristics with a wild…

  • Project X. Dir. Jonathan Kaplan . Twentieth Century Fox. 1987.

    Project X explores the journey of a chimpanzee named Virgil, taking him from the safety of his home with psychologist Teri Macdonald to an Air Force base where he participates in a secret experiment named Project X that trains chimps as pilots.  We learn that Teri has taught Virgil to communicate with humans via American Sign…