Visual Arts and Film Studies - Essay Example

? Visual Arts and Film Studies How a study of a troubled child protagonist does help understand the cinema's social function in different national and historical contexts? Over the years, cinema’s only role has been thought to be entertainment. At times, this stereotypical outlook has ensured that the intentions of the filmmakers which go beyond entertainment have been ignored. This assumption has ensured that people have continuously missed sound lessons that would help overcome weaknesses they have, conceptualize important aspects of life, or help redefine different aspects of their social life. All these changes would help make people better persons and would unarguably make society a better place. This is in view that people would understand fully their roles and take up responsibilities as expected of them. This would have the effect of reducing friction and misunderstandings among people and eventually strengthen the social fabric that links people together. However, it is not all about cinemas having a socially conscious message (Russell, 2009). Overtime, people have been driven by a need to reproduce cinemas for commercial reasons a move that has diluted the messages passed on by these films. It thus calls for people to be overly conscious of the messages they perceive from these films as it is not always about positive messages. In fact, some have been seen to produce messages that are in great contrast with the values and beliefs of people. Such films upset society and are marginally responsible for the high levels of delinquency witnessed in society and at times they may be blamed for the complacency and ignorance of basic social norms by youths (Turner, 1999). Reference to youths is not accidental but is a connotation which seeks to point out the most affected group by the emerging films some of which leaves them worse of morally. This comes from the fact that this group is the most targeted group by filmmakers and at the same time it is the most active in watching films. Unfortunately, the group seems to perceive negative messages more than they perceive messages that have some social relevance. To examine further the social role of cinema/films, this study adopts an objective approach. It explores the film’s social impact by looking at three films; The Italian (2005), Pixote (1981) and NEDS (2010). It looks at the themes propagated by these films and particularly those of social realism and the representation of children as a social symbol. Attention will also be given to representation of crime, delinquency, and evil in the films. The assignment will hope to draw enough resources to substantiate information gathered from these primary resources in an endeavor to produce a complete and thorough representation of the social function of cinema. The three films have some common themes but the way they eventually deliver their message is different. They take us through the lives of innocent souls, children, who in their tender ages have to contend with tough choices and decisions only to guarantee their survival and existence in a rather brutal world. For instance, The Italian illustrates a child’s effort to get reunited with the parents. It illuminates on the rather unobserved role of children as home makers and the fabric which holds the family together. The second film, Pixote, illuminates the harsh reality on the streets. It represents a course that few choose to talk about; street life that turns children into brutal beings. It also shows the rather ugly side of unconcerned societal members who do not care about what they lead children into. When children eventually become delinquent, they turn against them forgetting their role in making them what they are (Smidt, 2006). The last film, NEDS, shifts focus into the very basic unit of the society, the family, as the molding block of our children and the many faults within this unit that eventually lead rather focused individuals astray. Section I The Italian The Italian is a film directed by Andrei Kravchuk and features a six old boy, Vanya Solntsev. Vanya is an adopted boy who among with a number of other adopted boys lives in an old dilapidated orphanage situated in the rural areas of Russia. The environment around them is wanting and even the situation within the orphanage is dire. The orphanage headmaster is a drunkard who cares little about the kids’ plight. To the boys, life is normal. They live with little anxiety on how life would be away from the orphanage or under the care of their parents. However, the situation changes one day when a wealthy Italian couple volunteer to adopt Vanya. Other children envy Vanya’s good fortune; they feel that his life has taken a turn for the better. Before leaving with the new parents, Vanya witnesses an unfortunate occurrence where a mother of another boy who was staying in the orphanage commits suicide. She prefers to die rather than live life without his son; we later learn that the boy in question had since been adopted by a separate couple. This forces Vanya to rethink his situation. He fears that once he leaves, the parents may come looking for him and there might be a repeat of the horrendous act he has just witnessed. To avoid this, he decides to trace the whereabouts of his parents with the help of his friend, Anton. Together with a couple of other boys, they retrieve his file through which he learns of his parents’ whereabouts. He escapes from the orphanage and embarks on tracing his parents. He travels by train and before long the orphanage’s owner, a corrupt Madam, with his chauffeur starts to trace him. The chauffeur catches up with him but he manages to escape though he keeps in close pursuit. He eventually gives up the chase on learning the determination Vanya has on reuniting with the parents. Eventually, Vanya traces his parents and they readily accept him back. In a later correspondence with Anton who was adopted by the Italian couple, we learn that Vanya loves his time with the parents and he is also glad to know Anton is happy. This film brings out the hardly talked about role of children as home makers and the fabric that holds the family together. Most importantly, it illuminates the difficult choices adults force their children to make in order to survive or make up for mistakes they did at one point in their lives. In this film, Vanya is an unaware of the harsh world and leaves happily with his peers barely talking about the likelihood of leading a complete life under the care of concerned parents. This situation does not exist for long since he is forced to think about family and the likely role he would play to avoid a catastrophic ending such as the one he has just witnessed. Somehow, this film, which is set in rural Russia, illuminates life in post Soviet days where films were used to drive across conscious messages on family and the plight of children. During the times of the Soviet Union, film content was restricted to specific themes that only showed the consciousness of the society. Films that focused on the ugly side of the society were banned. This was an unfortunate move considering that the very facts and themes they sought to conceal were rife and were continually affecting the society (Beumers and Rulyova, 2009). Soviet Union which sought to inculcate certain beliefs and ideologies in the young generations restricted films to certain topics which propagated growth and spread of communism as the ideal mode of governance. However, post Soviet films sought to turn this around and address social issues which had for long been ignored and relegated to the background in an effort to portray Soviet Union as an ideal Republic. They introduced socially conscious themes that highlighted the plight of children. Others touched on parenthood among other socially conscious messages. The film makers and the entire cinema world benefitted greatly from the fall of Soviet Union as this came with fewer restrictions. Besides, the fall and split of the Soviet Union presented the Union members with much greater problems to grapple with; film regulation was not among these. However, with the fall of the Union came multiple social challenges as the independent Union members had now to implore on ways to ensure sustainability. Such concerns paved way to corrupt means of livelihood such as forced adoptions as illustrated in this film. Such social ills created themes for film makers who now had greater space and autonomy to present social inadequacies with no fear of intimidation (Rollberg, 2009). It is such effort that resulted to creation and presentation of themes such as those presented in this film. Such bold steps allowed the public to identify that concern for economic well being was affecting and allowing chances for children neglect. Some of these being voluntary where other was forced as is the case in the Italian. Andrei Kravchuk, the film’s director and a Russian by decent, was probably inspired by actual situation which he sought to address with the hope of making the world a happy place for the children. He sought to illustrate that parents did not have to wait for drastic situations to occur in their children’s life to spur them to act. Rather, they had to take initiative besides the ensuing factors which made life unbearable for them. That social order which was fast degenerating should be restored; Vanya’s return illustrates restoration of social order. Through Andrei Kravchuk, we are able to see the important and vital role of post Soviet cinema in social liberation and restoration of social order. Section II Pixote This is a film directed by Hector Babenco and is a frightening illumination of street life in Brazil. Of more concern is the account of delinquent youths who are driven in to more trouble by the very people who should be helping their correction, the police. The film features two lead actors, Pixote and Sueli. The film starts with a police round up in the streets of Brazil where they apprehend a group of boys, among them Pixote who is an underage. Pixote is sent to a juvenile facility where he encounters a gruesome life; he witnesses brutality at its peak and the worst of acts including sodomy. The sight is difficult for him to behold and he results to sniffing glue to escape the harsh reality that surrounds him. As the film continues, one learns that the reason the young boys are held is not necessarily for correctional but to be used as pawns by the corrupt officers. There are a series of deaths in the facility. All of these results from the officers’ brutal actions but they always blame other juveniles for these deaths. Unable to withstand this life, Pixote and Lilica and Dito escape from the facility. They enjoy their freedom but soon they have to look for means to sustain their livelihood. The group gets involved in crude means of livelihood; they plunder, sell and traffic drugs and at some point they become pimps. This kind of life is difficult and they are at times duped and fail to realize anything from their efforts. The street life takes away the little humanity they had left and they seem to enjoy killing. For instance, Pixote stabs a lady who had duped them earlier and also later shoots Dito in an unfortunate shooting incident. Eventually, Pixote seeks comfort in Dito’s lover, Sueli, who is a former prostitute who Pixote tries to treat as a mother figure but she later rejects him and he walks away dejected. The film ends as Pixote walks away dejected and only a shadow of him is seen as the film ends. Social realism is a word coined to exemplify visual and other realistic art works which document the day to day conditions of the working class and the peasants and critiques the social factors which contribute to such conditions (Robin, 1992). Social realism, though existent since the beginning of the 20th century, only became socially accepted and widely used during and after the Great Depression. It was used to front social concerns and was a way of instigating people to take up active roles in economic activities so as to help alleviate their unfortunate status. Among the areas where it was widely used were United States and South America, mainly Mexico and Brazil. The film, Pixote, was a chilling depiction of Brazilian street life. Even though the situation may have improved, the film undoubtedly gave an actual account of the situation at the time. Socially, Brazil is a cultured nation with the majority of its people coming from families where traditional values and beliefs are held with great regard (Aggleton, 2004). Unfortunately, such values and beliefs are overcome by the deteriorating economic situations as well as erosion of values as people aspire to accommodate valid foreign cultures. This tears away the social fabric which had priory held the society together. This, coupled with the declining economic opportunities, people are driven away from their core responsibilities and the society becomes tolerant of behavior that would have been considered an abomination. Such behavior is as represented in the film, delinquent youth who fend for themselves in the streets and who later become refined criminals in an attempt to earn a livelihood (Reichmann, 2000). Alternately, there are adults who have forced these children and youth to become delinquent using them as pawns and mistreating them. They are mistreated to an extent they do not know of another aspect of life besides violence ad suffering. It is at that point that social reformer, Hector Babenco, sees the need to highlight these aspects in the hope that bringing into light such atrocities will drive society into rethinking their stance on the situation of children. The realities of social realism, which as defined earlier, involves use of art and other symbolic approaches to highlight social defects which continue to affect the society and which continue to support faulty systems and corrupt morals (Kahane and Rapoport, 2000). In contemporary times, social realism has grown beyond use of paintings and mural art to involve widely accessible forms such as film. Hector Babenco, in this case, is a social realist who seeks to point out that such social behavior as exhibited in his film can only lead to dejection and suffering as depicted in the film when Pixote vanishes surrounded by darkness. Section III Neds This is a film directed by Peter Mullan. It features John McGill who is a teenager in the neighborhood of Glasgow, Scotland. John is a devout Christian who at a young age holds his Christian values with great regard. He is disturbed about the ruthless culture that surrounds him and the overly involvement of the young people in street life. His family is not the best, with a drunken father and a violent brother, Benny to look up to. However, he does not envy the lives of the two. Instead, he is inspired to avoid delinquency and avoid the traps of alcohol that have destroyed their father. This strong desire to become a better person prompts him to do the best in class; he becomes a stellar performer bagging every academic award in class. His mother is proud of his son’s success in class and for once she can look forward to a brighter future; a future obscured by the irresponsibility of his husband and the erratic nature of his elder son. However, the excitement is short-lived as John enters his teenage years where he becomes a victim of street bullying. He turns to his brother for protection; he hopes that the brother will help in fending off bullies and in particular one who seem to trail John’s life. The boy comes from a richer family and John looks at his continuous harassment as insubordination due to their different social classes. This plants anger in him and he eventually becomes a ruthless street kid. Just as he was not an ordinary kid in school, he is no ordinary delinquent. He becomes overly violent and appears a psychotic. Britain is an example of early civilization where people were drawn together by the unity of their actions and were held together by the single goal of building a united society. All along, morals were a critical part of this society and children were expected to abide by a strict code which was enforced by the parents and the society in general. The British culture was an example of the most conservative cultures in the civilized worlds (Wallace, 2003). However, this should not be taken to mean that it was a perfect world; rather, it was a normal society which had to contend with the usual shortcomings such as poverty, delinquency, crime, segregation and discrimination. Existence of these short comings called for concerted effort in addressing them. Britons recognized the success of social idealism which had since been welcome in France and had already helped in addressing social concerns. Borrowing from these developments, Britain sought to use social idealism as a way of improving the dire social situation characterized by the priory mentioned elements (Christensen and Haas, 2005). To highlight these issues, Peter Mullan used film which as observed earlier is a contemporary form of social realism. Through his film, Neds, we are able to see how young and focused children have become recipients of societal extremes. These are represented by John who is faced by the need to protect himself in the face of a disintegrating family and a corrupt neighborhood. He adopts violent behavior overshadowing his religious values and sharpness in class. Through such representation Mullan is able to magnify the acts which have corrupted society and illustrate the far reaching consequence. Most importantly, he illustrates how family helps in proper upbringing and how the same contributes to delinquency and violence when it disintegrates or some of its members fail to take up their responsibility. At the end of the day, Mullan through his film Nends provides another reflection of society seeking to sensitize people on the causal effect relations of neglect and carelessness in upbringing of children. It represents yet another tool of social realism, aimed at bettering society. In conclusion, children are the most sensitive section of the human race. Due to this innocence, they take in everything that is thrown to them by the society as they lack the know how and the ability to reason on what they should do and what they should not. At the end of the day, they become the mirrors of our societies. The films, Pixote, The Italian and Neds clearly show us how children become victims of the wretched ways of the society. They become the actual representatives of the ills that take place within the society either as a result of delinquency or neglect. Either way, they suffer not because they wished to but because they systems in which they are brought up condemned them to such suffering. However, all is not lost with the advent of social realism there is hope that these issues will be brought forward through films and others forms of art as is the case with these three films. They portray to us the new face of social realism, cinema/film, these are representative of the single most medium that is universal and which can help bring to an end the issues of delinquency, child neglect and crime. Bibliography Aggleton, P. 2004. Culture, society and sexuality: a reader. New York: Taylor & Francis. Aulich, J., and Sylvestrova, M. 1999. Political posters in Central and Eastern Europe, 1945-95: signs of the times. London: Manchester University Press. Beumers, B., Hutchings, S. C., and Rulyova, N. 2009. 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