Operation Argo - Essay Example

Topic: Movie Assignment ‘ARGO’ the Movie Plot; More than fifty embassy staff members aretaken hostage after militants storm the embassy of U.S. in Tehran on 4th November, 1979. This was in relation for sheltering the lately deposed Shah. Six of the hostages manage to escape and hide in Ken Taylor’s (a Canadian Ambassador) home. With the situation of the escapees kept secret, the State Department of the U.S. starts to investigate options for rescuing them from Iran. This proposal is vastly criticized by Tony Mendez, a specialist of the CIA who was brought for consultation. Mendez seeks for an alternative, and he came up with an idea. Together with his supervisor, they contact a Hollywood make-up artist. They jointly set up a fake film studio, make their plans public, and they fruitfully establish the deception of developing a science fantasy called ‘Argo’. Posing as a producer for Argo, Mendez manages to enter Iraq and link up with the six escapees. He gives them Canadian passports and phony identities to enable them get past the airport security. Through a series of events and intrigues, Mendez manages to save the six hostages. I choose to analyze Tony Mendez. Tony Mendez-The values that I choose to explore about Tony Mendez include; Values, Commitment, Goals and Potentiality. Goals; Goals are the elements in a movie that give meaning to the general story that unfold momentarily in scene. In every movie plot, all main characters have at least one goal in the story that is long-term, and one minor goal or even more in every scene. The long term goal usually sets up the frontward movement of the story. This is the front story which is referred to as the Dramatic plot action. Short term goals on the other hand are objectives, actions or tasks a character needs to achieve within a speculated period of time so as to achieve his goals which are long-term. Incase the long-term identify the Dramatic Action Plot, and then the short-term goals will help identify the character development plot. My take on Tony Mendez’s Goals are as follows; one of the goals that Mendez had was to prove right his disapprovals of the US State Department’s options for saving the hostages from Iran. He had to help the hostages pretend that they knew everything about Canada; otherwise they would have been caught and killed. Another short-term goal that Mendez had, was to set up a fake film studio, manage to make public their plans, and productively set up the deception of developing Argo. While in Iran, he had a goal of providing the six hostages with Canadian passports and phony identities. That was to assist him achieve his minor goal which was to organize the hostages and help them get through the tight airport security. The long-term goal of Tony Mendez is to rescue the hostages from Iran successfully and safely. This long-term goal clearly sets up the frontward movement of the movie. These goals that Mendez had were meant to enable him save the hostages from their captivity in Iran without any casualties. All the short-term goals mentioned above were to make the rescue operation successful. If any of those short-term goals was not well handled, then chances of them not having a successful mission would be close to zero. The function of the long-term goal that Mendez had was to set the motion of the movie in a fluent manner from the first stage to the last stage. These goals have been further changed over the movie’s course by the intrigues that momentarily take place in the movie. The long-term goal was cemented by the fact that security at the airport was tight, and just as they were departing the airport, the security tried in vain to stop them. These goals are brilliant at creating and sustaining suspense all through the movie. Values; These are valuable and durable ideas or beliefs shared by a character of a movie about what is bad or good and undesirable and desirable. These are the regards that a character is held to deserve. They are the importance of the character in the movie. Tony Mendez believed that the manner in which the US State Department were planning on rescuing the hostages were not the best. He believed that the best way to handle this situation was by doing an underground job that the Iranians would not find out about. He believed that by pretending to be a movie director, he would easily get into and out of Iran. He valued peace, and thus opted for a more peaceful way of rescuing the hostages. Potentiality; This is the capacity of a character to grow in the course of the movie. It also refers to the possession of power and capability in a character. It is the capability of a character to deliver the main purpose of the movie. Tony Mendez potentiality was evident from the onset of the movie. He was able to come up with this plan after watching a movie called Battle for the planet of the Apes with his kid. He has great potential because he could come up with the plan of giving the hostages fake identifications, and Canadian passports. He has the high potential, which is well showed by the level of great creativity that he had. Commitment; This refers to the role that a character is playing. It refers to how much a character’s oneself can be lost so as to embrace the character. It is completely committing to a role so that the character that is being played truly comes to life. When it comes to commitment, a character has to forget who he is in the real world, and realize that that are in the middle of a scene and think about what they have to do. Tony Mendez had total commitment, for he managed to take up the role of a CIA specialist perfectly (www.slate.com). His ability to act comfortably with a face full of beard shows that he was willing to forget who he was in the real world. I feel like Tony Mendez fitted into his character very well, and he managed to bring the emotions and the intrigues in a perfect manner with his expertise. When it comes to gender of the character, which in this case is a male, it was a good choice because it made the movie realer. I think that if it was a female instead, then the goals, commitment, potentiality and values would not stand out as much as it did. The similarity it has to many recent movies is that, for most of them, the character is usually a man. This is most common if the goals of the character are hard and complicated. The difference is that in the movie ‘Argo’, not a lot of female characters were implemented into major scenes, unlike in other movies whereby the scenes are shared equally by both genders. When it comes to ethnicity, the difference that this movie has from the others is the fact that it is an all-white movie, and brings a picture that this is an all-white industry. An American is given a Latino role to play. This to me is an indication that the film industry did not want to accept a Latino as a main actor (www.slate.com). In the movie, Mendez tried hard to show that the Iranians are strictly religious. The “uh-huh” moment I had about the character is comes out from the fact that he managed to successfully disguise himself as a fake producer, and managed to convince the Iranians that he was an actual producer. What has become clearer to me is that, this movie is an actual occurrence that happened. It is based on a true story. The other thing that has become clearer is the fact that for a character to be good, he must have some unique capabilities. I can now clearly explain what is meant by the terms, potentiality, value, goal and commitment of a character when it comes to movie production. It has also made it clear to me that, for a director to produce a movie, he must not be in the actual location. In the movie ‘Argo’, the actual shooting was not done in Iran, but it was made to look as though it was done in Iran (www.slate.com). What I would like to pursue about modern psychology include; cognition, perception, personality, and motivation. Cognition is the section of psychology that studies mental processes. They are inclusive of memory, attention, producing and comprehending language, reasoning, learning, decision making and problem solving. Perception is the identification, interpretation and organization of sensory information. This is in order to comprehend the environment. Personality psychology on the other hand is the branch of psychology that evaluates individual and personality differences. Finally, motivation is the aspect that stimulates an organism to action toward an intended goal. It draws out, sustains and controls behaviors that directed to certain goals. Works cited "Ben Affleck in Argo: Why is a white guy playing Tony Mendez?." Slate Magazine - Politics, Business, Technology, and the Arts - Slate Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/10/16/ben_affleck_in_argo_why_is_a_white "Argo: True story? The facts and fiction behind the Ben Affleck movie.." Slate Magazine - Politics, Business, Technology, and the Arts - Slate Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/10/12/argo_true_story_the_facts_and_fiction Read More