Paper #2 Due March 25

Paper #2 on “The Machine Stops,” her, “The Long Years,” and “Be Right Back.”

Paper due March 25 (March 27 for workshoppers Anthony, Katherine, Ashley, and Jennah)

Length: around 4 pages. If you write more, that's okay.

Audience: someone who has read or watched these texts (so no plot summary, but you should orient the reader to what scene or episode you're talking about)

Tips on writing about film:

• To cite a scene from a film, you need only quote from the film, once you've made it clear which film you're talking about.  You don't need to state the title again or to provide a chapter or time.
• I expect you to quote from the dialogue in the video texts just as you would from a book.  The important thing is that you must quote exactly.  You will need to look again at certain scenes in order to get the language right.
• For the correct spelling of characters' names, rely on IMDb.com.
• Underline or italicize film titles.  For television series, underline or italicize the series' name; use quotation marks for the episode title.
• Do bring in non-verbal details of a film when necessary to support your argument.  You can talk about the setting, the mise-en-scène (the overall look of the film), the clothing, acting choices, camera movement and distance from the object photographed, editing (that is, transitions between scenes), sound, and any special effects used.  When talking about these details, it's customary to briefly describe specifics of the shots you're talking about.  For example,

"There are a number of double images or double reflections in M that seem to muddle the questions about a society in crisis...At one point, [the director] shows Beckert looking in a shop window, where the image of Beckert is contains in a frame within the film image--a frame made by a reflection of knives laid out in a diamond shape inside the store.  Here, the normal man-on-the-street becomes a menacing reflection of himself." (from A Short Guide to Writing about Film 97)

If you would like a free and short guide to film terms, I can give you a copy; just let me know.

As always, feel free to ask me about any details you need more guidance on.

Topics:

1.            In her (and “Be Right Back” if you want to bring it in too), how are the differences between human-to-human and human-AI relationships represented?  Is one superior to the other?  Why does one fail and the other succeed?

2.            The concept of evolution, of the ability to change, is referenced at several points in her.   Find these references and explain why this concept is so crucial to the film.  Do all the characters use the term the same way?  Do some characters change and others do not?  Why do they choose or refuse change?  Is changing represented as a good or bad thing in the film?  Is it something related more to OSes or to humans?

3.            The literary theorist Roland Barthes writes that the reality perceived by most of us is actually the accumulation of cultural codes, ideas handed down by literature, by language, by cinema and other arts: “Although entirely derived from books, these codes…which turn culture into nature, appear to establish reality, ‘Life.’ ‘Life,’ then, in the classic text, becomes a nauseating mixture of common opinions, a smothering layer of received ideas” (S/Z 206).  Even those who communicate these codes, writers and so on, “are themselves part of the legend, a part of what must be read in order for love to be spoken” (S/Z 35, italics in original). The question raised by this view is, if we never knew culture, would we ever love?  Is love just a series of conventions that give significance to an amalgam of feelings and activities?

Keeping Barthes’ ideas in mind, how does her engage with this idea of love, as a series of conventional gestures that are learned and replicated rather than an authentic emotion, uniquely expressed by each individual?

4.            How is distance portrayed in “The Machine Stops” and her?  Consider physical, geographical, personal, and emotional distance.  Is technology helpful or harmful in navigating these distances between humans?

5.            In “The Machine Stops,” Forester writes of the “imponderable bloom” of humanity (5).  What does he mean by this “imponderable bloom” and do her and “Be Right Back” endorse or refute this idea?