Surrealism in American Film Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Surrealism in American Film - Essay Example The essay "Surrealism in American Film" discusses the American film and surrealism. Three American films are good examples of surrealism in the American Cinema. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) by Michel Gondry, Blue Velvet (1986) by David Lynch, and Spellbound (1945) by Alfred Hitchcock all draw upon the cultural movement of Surrealism in order to create their works. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) was written by Charlie Kaufman, well known for his surrealist concepts. David Lynch, who wrote and directed Blue Velvet (1986), is also a well known surrealist who has dealt at length with the theme of the illusory nature of reality. Alfred Hitchcock, whose talents for creating suspenseful films that leave the audience in wonder and shock, has long been an influence to contemporary film directors and writers for the modern interpretations of Surrealism in film. His film Spellbound (1945) is a primary example of this influence. Surrealism is a style of art that was developed to create an expressive expansion of the dreams of artists so that the internal could be expressed rather than the external repeated. For Salvador Dali, the work of the Surrealist is â€Å"based on phantasms and representations brought about by the materializations of unconscious acts†. The style utilizes what is real but puts it into an unreal framework. A good example of this type of recreation is in Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone, 1936, where a lobster has been substituted for the receiver of the telephone.

Is terrorism ever justified Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Is terrorism ever justified - Essay Example It is, by its nature, defined and thought to be wrong no matter which society or which culture. Even within war, terror tactics are usually ruled out by the principles of justice in war. This is because the destructive force is deliberately aimed at innocent targets. The just war doctrine says that it might be permissible to harm innocent civilians if this harm is an unintentional side effect of a legitimate military goal. Terrorists are not concerned about morality or the ethics of the terrorist act. In fact, they deliberately seek to attack these very concepts in order to draw attention to themselves and highlight their actions in order to realize their goals. Baljit Singh (1990) wrote that terror incorporates two facets, namely: a state of fear within and individual or a group and the tool that induces the state of fear. These very dimensions to the terrorist acts are inherently inhumane and illegitimate tainting its end results no matter how successful they are. One should rememb er that the masses do not rally to terrorist causes. If terrorism is successful in using terror to shape public policy, then our world would be plunged into chaos as the line between what is right and wrong in conflicts is blurred. The 2004 Madrid bombing which killed 200 people and killing thousands more led to the installation of a party to power that might not otherwise be elected. (Jenkins 2004, p. 21) We also have the successes of terrorist organizations to remove democratic governments such as those in Uruguay and Argentina. If these trends are left unchecked, groups will be emboldened to use it as an instrument to achieve political end and that some states could inevitably sanction the same terrorist strategies in order to combat either domestic opposition or influence international affairs. There are scholars who argue that terrorism is an aggrieved group resorting to violence for nationalist or separatist reasons and that it could be considered as