Lecture:
In the lecture this week we watched the 1965 French film ‘Alphaville’. Although it was not my kind of movie and I didn’t enjoy it, I could appreciate the concept. The film centered around the idea of a computer using mind control to be in command of society. This movie was made around the time when computers were a new technology so society’s uncertainty of them would have been at its peak. This movie probably expressed these views in an exaggerated manner. Now, however, times have changed and computers have become a necessity in everyday life. They do, in a sense, control society but not to the extremes represented in ‘Alphaville’.
Tutorial:
My family are not very in tune with technology today. It was only a year ago that we first got the internet, and to this day most of my family still do not know how to work a mouse, let alone a keyboard and are still learning to SMS. To communicate with my family when I traveled to New Zealand, I sent letters and phoned them. Email was out of the question. However, with my friends, it’s the opposite. Although, I’ve never met a friend through the internet, I am now able to keep in touch with many of my friends since only recently discovering Facebook. However, even without technologies such as SMS, email and Facebook, I believe I would still be able to keep in contact with friends and family through letters and phone calls. I like going to the mailbox and finding a letter from a friend. It’s more personal and shows that they have taken time to write to me. These new technologies may have sped up the process of communication, but in a way I feel that the sentiments have been lost.
Readings:
The readings for the week included a film review and critical essay on ‘Alphaville’, in which both articles commented on Jean-Luc Godard’s intent to be groundbreaking and make a film with a futuristic undertone. Another reading discussed the French New Wave in cinema, listing the new techniques used by directors. I took particular note of Jean-Luc Godards mention in the article, saying that he was a film-critic turned director, working on a small budget. However, in spite of the fact that Godard was inexperienced and new to directing, it is suggested in the article that he may have been the most influential and remembered directors of the time. Which, considering the importance of French New Wave cinema, would be an incredible achievement for him.
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