Author: Andre

INTRODUCTION

Our assessment was built and evolved around the stimulus of Alan Kurdi’s death, and effects it had on his fathers life after. Alan Kurdi was fleeing with his family from Syria, (due to danger from ISIS like millions of other Syrians) and was crossing the Mediterranean where he was driven in an unsafe boat steered by an unqualified driver and eventually it capsized. Hours later, he was found dead on a Turkish beach, washed up on the shore and a journalist took a picture of him being picked up by a Turkish officer and the picture went viral. His death was a real wake up call to the world, and now governments are picking up on these smugglers who are charging these vulnerable refuges a lot of money to be taken across these vicious seas, which are sometimes fatal and devastating.

Since we had been discussing frequently about refugees and Alan Kurdi’s death specifically, we decided that it would be interesting if we had done our rehearsed improvisation around that idea. We decided to do it on his his dads life after his death, so that we could give the audience a better idea of how exactly he might have felt, and how he was able to cope with the death of his children and wife on a daily basis.

Item 1:

We decided to explore the idea of a day in Alan Kurdi’s dads life after the tragic death of his sons and wife. We got this idea, as we thought that this event that occurred, was a turning point in the importance of what refugees were and still are going through in that specific chapter of their journey to safety, and how we, as people who live in more powerful countries, can help out. In the process of making our little play, we had this scene where we wanted Andre (one of the boys) to walk on his knees so that he was at more of a kids height in proportion to when he acting alongside a adult character in the play. We decided to scrap the idea as we felt it would look a bit strange and unrealistic if we had him walking around on his knees and it wouldn’t be appealing to the audience.

In our scene, we had three main characters who were: Alan Kurdi’s dad, and his two sons who performed in a ghost form throughout the play. We decided to have the kids in a ghost form, as we believed it was more effective in creating the notion that he was going mad, by seeing his sons as ghosts, and how no one else can see them apart from him. In the play, we decided to keep the names of the characters as ours in real life, so that we leave the audience with something closer to home, and not something that the media had given or labelled. We wanted to leave the audience thinking about what this play was related to. We also felt that it was important to leave them with the decision of what THEY thought the scene was revealing/referring to. It was important that we made the ages of our characters to be of Alan Kurdi’s, his dads and his brothers. We aimed to have Alan’s around 4 years of age, his brother 7 and his dad 35-45. It was essential that the audience was able to recognise this, as the play would have been made more realistic, so when the two brothers had lines, we put on a small kids childish voice to portray they’re age and of course by then, it would have been quite clear that his dad was one of the only main adult characters in the scene.

Dear Christopher McCandless

I am writing to you to tell you how you and your extraordinary story inspired me to go and travel into the wild.

Your story taught me how corrupt the world and government is. In this letter i want to tell you about how inspiring you story is . I really liked the way you wanted to be free and not live under the government’s rules. I also like the way you wanted to live with out money so the part where you sent 24,000 to charity was a really good thing to do.

The part where you rejected the new car from your parents suggest that you don’t need new shiny cars to be happy. You can be happy without those things. You said ” there just things, you don’t need things to be happy.”

When I saw how free you was when you got in the wild you looked so happy and that was really inspiring. Also when i saw how much fun you was having it made me feel like i should go into the wild myself. You looked like you was having the time of your life in the wild and seeing you so happy put a smile on my face.

You looked like you had a fun time travailing around the world meeting all kinds of people.

In this essay i will be disusing the comparisons between the film into the wild by Sean Penn and the book by Jon Krakauer in which they both present the McCandless family in different way some good and some bad.

The film presents Walt McCandless (father of Chris McCandless) as a world apart from his son. For example, the entrance of the sports team into formal dining hall and an over the shoulder shot of Walt’s reaction compared with similar shot of Chris. When this moment occurred in the scene, the camera angles proved that Chris rated the excitement of the football team, and wished he was in the same atmosphere, as we notice a very large smile on his face. On the other hand, his father has a complete opposite reaction. We notice his frustration of being in the same environment as the football players, due to his angry face, which justifies how different the characteristics are of Walt and Chris. This proves that the parents always want to maintain their high status, whereas Chris isn’t bothered, he just wants to do what he enjoys. However, the novel presents Walt and Chris as sharing similar core characteristics. For example, colleagues refer to him (Walt) as brilliant, while Chris ‘came into this world with unusual gifts’. Other peoples comments prove that the father and son both have their own gifts and talents, despite Chris’ being ‘unusual’. This could suggest that Walt is more likeable than his son, however I believe it is simply because of Chris’ minor worries about other peoples thoughts. The phrase ‘unusual gifts’ could also suggest that Chris has a personality that isn’t very common and could potentially link to him being ‘one of a kind’. If this was the case, this would be proof that Walt and Chris both include a piece of brilliance within their personalities and tend to be adored by the majority of people they come across in life. Based on these parts of the story, it is obvious that the McCandless family is presented differently in Penn’s and Krakauer’s versions of Into the wild as the film highlights the differences between Walt and Chris, whereas the novel shows the similarities.

In the film into the wild Billie McCandless is presented as fake ,where as in the novel she is presented as a caring mother. an example that portrays Billie as a fake in the film is when Chris comes to the fancy restaurant after his graduation just before he comes inside and is just parked in his car Billie looks at his car with disgust because she see’s his old car parked between two new cars. she also is portrayed as fake because when he walks in and sits down Billie  tells him she would like to buy him a new car to get him out out of that junk yard car. this shows that she is fake because she only cares about how her and her family looks rather than care about her sons feelings towards the car. In the novel, she is portrayed as a caring mother because she hand knits Christopher McCandless a blanket. We also know that she is a caring mother because if he really did despise his parents, then he wouldn’t have taken the blanket that Billie made for him to Alaska with him, but instead that was the only thing that he took from home which shows that he loved the fact that she made him this instead of buying him one which shows that she is caring. This shows that she is caring because he cared a lot for the blanket meaning that he had strong feelings for his mother, showing the reader than she cared about him enough for him to love her gift so much, also she is caring because she was worried that her son might be cold and she made him a blanket showing that she cares about his well being.

Christopher McCandless is presented as ungrateful in the film, in the novel Christopher McCandless is also present as ungrateful in the film in the restaurant they film a over the shoulder shot where they show the reaction of his  parents after they generously offered their son a new car and he aggressively shouted at them for making the offer. He could also be portrayed as disrespectful because instead of telling his parents calmly, he shouted at them which might have made them feel embarrassed because they were in a public restaurant. In the novel of Into The Wild, Christopher is also portrayed as ungrateful in the novel because when his parents offered him the car in the novel, there is a quotation that says ‘he later complained’. This quote portrays Christopher as regretful because instead of leaving the matter with a no thank you and continuing to enjoy their evening, he continued disrespectfully instead of thanking them for their kind offer but declining it kindly.

Christopher McCandless is presented as principled in the film. Christopher McCandless is presented as distant in the novel.  in the film he is presented as principled because instead of taking the car like any other teen, he followed his own morales and declined their offer. In the novel he is presented as defiant because in the text it says he got nobody presents but he got his mother something so he did not stick with his rules.

Christopher McCandless is presented as more humble than his parents in the film,Christopher McCandless is presented as more humble  than his parents in the novel too in the film it shows a point of view shot of Christopher’s datsun between two fancy cars. This shows he is more humble because his parents prefer him to be in a fancy car where as he wants to keep the junk yard car. In the novel it says ‘he had a perfectly good car,’ this shows him as more humble because he believes that his car is good ,but his parents think that he has a junk yard car and instead should get a fancy one.

The film presents McCandless’s family in an negative way. An example in the film is Physical fights. they are portrayed in a negative manner through out the film. in the book there is no evidence that Walt and Billie ever got in an physical fights. Penn uses this scene in the movie to show that both parents didn’t get along another. in the book they show an negative side of McCandless family but also shows that both parents loved McCandless. The movie also shows Chris McCandless dislikes his parents as the movie portrays that Chris McCandless did not like his parent an evidence in the movie is his speech to Carine McCandless wishing his parents should have never have met. This shows that Chris McCandless did not like his parents relationship. another evidence that shows that Chris McCandless disliked his parent especially his dad is when he found out that his father had another family this appears in the book and was one of the reason Chris McCandless disliked his father.

Carine as a sister who is happy for her brothers graduation but also it shows support of what he says and he wants. Carine as a quiet girl who only wants to make her brother feel  that he has someone that supports him when he has something to say. In the film it shows them getting out the car and walking into the restaurant holding hands and tells us that they always have each others back.In the novel it says that Carine and Christopher always walked down the road holding hand and the second thing i learnt is that Chris wants Carine to look up to him this suggest that Chris doesn’t want to be seen as looking up to his little sister this is obvious  because Carine says that there was ‘no way he was going to sit behind his damn sister’ so this shows that Chris would rather leave the symphony than sit behind his little sister this also shows chris loves his little sister. He also quit playing the french horn because he didn’t want to sit behind his sister. The text proves that he really loves his sister because there was a part where it said they spent hours building forts out of cousins. Carine says she wants to “be like Chris” this suggest she looks up to him and sees him as a role model and has a lot of love for him.

1a. Chris was talented with the french horn.

1b. Chris quit playing the french horn because he didn’t want to sit next to his sister. He also didn’t like the rules.

1c. Chris and Carine spent hours building forts out of cushions.

1d. Chris and Carine held each others’ hand as they walked down the street.

2a. the detail in the text that suggest Chris disliked authority because he decided to leave the band.

2b. Carine says she wants to “be like Chris” this suggest she looks up to him and sees him as a role model and has a lot of love for him.

2c. Carine says “no way he is going to sit behind his damn sister” this suggest that he looks down on her and should be respected more than his little sister.

2d. Carine says Chris would “hold my hand down the street.” This suggests that Chris is protective and cares about Carine very much and doesn’t want to let her go.

3. the first thing i learnt form chapter 11 is that

1a. Jon Krakauer had climbed ” nearly seven hundred “, since he stopped off the glacier.

1b. Jon Krakauer says that “the rime was plastered over the rock to a thickness of two or three feet ,so I kept plugging upwards.” This shows that Jon krakauer had the confidence to climb the mountain.

1c. The frost feathers was 5 inches thick . This suggest that the ice was weak and there is a risk of getting killed .

1d. Jon krakauer hat to climb back down the mountain simply because he couldn’t go any further. Due to the ice being to thin. And he had nothing to cling on to.

2a.

• The distancing effect, more commonly known (earlier) by John Willett’s 1964 translation the alienation effect or (more recently) as the estrangement effect (German: Verfremdungseffekt), is a performing arts concept coined by playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht first used the term in an essay on “Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting” published in 1936, in which he described it as “playing in such a way that the audience was hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters in the play. Acceptance or rejection of their actions and utterances was meant to take place on a conscious plane, instead of, as hitherto, in the audience’s subconscious”.my scene was about recruitedments couldn’t training properly or following instructions for example I wasn’t doing push ups properly. The general was shouting at us and trying to make us work harder then he made us stand up in a line but we couldn’t do it then the scene ended

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Talk about how the character of the FOREMAN would be performed according to his motivation and objectives.
The Forman’s motivation would be fear . He knows that if he didn’t get the work done in time he’d die. The Forman is the head of the building operation but still a builder himself . But because he’s the head and in charge it’s his fault if the wall isn’t build in time . So he only wants to finish the wall to get paid and keep on breathings as if the wall isn’t ready in time he’s dead . I would portray the foreman as a person who moves a lot and rushing his men to working . As well as nervous and scared around his superiors . I would hope that the audience would think of him as a jumpy character never relaxing and always moving . Hopefully they would learn from the scene that he is worried , scared and anxious

1.”the climb was over the only place to go was down” the suggest that it was to hard to go higher on the mountain.

“the climb was steep and so exposed it made my head spin” this suggest that the mountain is too steep and it makes him reflect on life as a whole because he could be dead in one second.

“all that held me to the world, were two thin spikes of chrome molybdenum stuck half of inch into a smear of frozen water .” This suggest that he’s near death one slip and it could be game over.

2. Jon krakauer describes the feeling of danger by saying how he forgets everything eles like “unpaid bills” or the “cramping thighs” this suggest that he is so focuses on climbing and not falling he forgets about everything else and all his problems.

In our scene we had me billy Henry ibby and lis we decided to have billy and Henry sitting down acting as posh people. There act was to spill tea in there cloths by accident and billy and Henry made a really big fuss about it. But in the other part of the split scene is where Ibby and lis was sitting in the trenches and was scoping them out with a sniper. I shot ibby and there was blood everywhere but no one made a big fuss about it. This tells the audience that there was a contrast between life as a rich man at home and life as a man in the battlefield. It tells the audience that rich people made a big fuss over nothing when there was men fighting a war and seeing there friends die in battle and not make any fuss about it. The audience could see this because when lbby got shot by me no one made a fuss about it and everyone got on with there war. We used the spit scene to compare the difference between rich men at home and men that are fighting a war in the battlefield.