1. Sulieman is not interested in the whole idea of zionism seeing as how he is Palestinian and is threatened by Israelis. He does, however, state that his humor is more towards an Israilie perspective.

2. Sulieman uses personal experiences and a constant set of notebooks to help him write a script. He is also very concerned about not censoring his own work. He states that his tastes don't have much to do with palestinian films but he is interested in Hou Hsia-Chen Antonioni in a self reflexive way. He says that he's not into the palestinian films by Youssef Chahine and Michel Khleifi because of the exotic representation though he does call himself a Palenstinian filmmaker.

** I couldn't get reserves to work for the second article, it's spotty sometimes. I'll try again soon.

Bov 16

1. Gideon Levy's problem with the politics lies in the portrayal of the war that the film presents. He feels it is to stylish and self-absored; not to mention about 20 years too late. He feels that this is a just a boo-hoo-look-at-me film since the jews weren't even the ones who perpetrated the massacre. Basically he doesn't like the idea that someone has other ways of showing a war that obviously had some impact on him. Nor does it address the anti-arab sentiments that existed during the massacre.

2. Hillels problem with the film is that it doesn't take into account many of the other things going on during this time. Not only was this war being fought on mulitple fronts, but there are also multiple groups of people involved for varying reasons. Because of this he also states that the film is one sided, especially in the comments about how the PLO was never mentioned and "palestinian" was rarely used.

3. I think it's pretty clear why each side is fighting against the others. Everyone wants to call that land their home and don't think that the other religions should share it. Add to that the bitterness that arises from conflicts past and you end up with a many thousand year conflict. The only thing I'm not sure if is what the christians were doing there and why no one else is louder about them being the ones who massacred those people (if i'm understanding it right.)
This whole war is bologna to me either way since they are pretty much only fighting over land and ideas (misguided ideas).

1. Nationalism has changed since the cold war because the globe just finished dealing with two world wars that were caused primarily by nationalism. The "imagined community" is what comes about when nationalism creates a nation that not only exists within geographical borders but exists in it's historical practices as well as the citizens visions of themselves. The new sense of nationalism is a good thing because it allows cultures to resist the influence of other cultures as opposed to the old sense of nationalism whose culture would be the one being forced.

2. -The continuous feeling of Exile and a need to return to the homelands
-To escape antisemitism and form a save haven
-The idea of modern nationalism which includes a feeling of self identification
It fits in with Andersons definition because Zionism was a movement to create not only national identity but also a geographical homeland.

3. Jewish identity and culture were expressed through diasporic experiences and the "men of letters" who were in charge of reviving the hebrew language and expressing their need for a homeland by creating symbolic texts of their culture (ie myths).

4. The assimilationists and the orthodox Jews were the other competing ideologies. Zionism had at its backbone the idea of the "new jew" that valued hard agricultural labor, a collective lifestyle as well as struggle with past hardships.

5. The films were made with government subsidies. Since these filmmakers were free from having to depend on the audience they were able to produce films that were more politically critical. In the 90s there was a movement towards personal, internal worlds that step away from the nationalist drama.

6. High culture began to shun nationalism while popular culture and nationalism became synonymous. The "art" films that won academy awards in America drew small crowds in Israel.

1. Gitai doesn't believe in objective images because he feels we see the world solely in subject imagery. Camper believes that switching from objective shots to point of view action shots in a single take aligns the viewer so they take the characters as the truth of war rather than just being a part of one. (Instead of seeing it as a war with soldiers we see them as soldiers in a war)

2. Camper uses the long take in the helicopter when we are shown the wreckage that cuts when the helicopter is hit by a missile.

1. Cultural Hegemony is when one social class rules over an entire society under the false pretense of mutual benefit. After the war Israel saw an influx of Jews from around the world while there was an overall movement towards industrialization. Along with this the Maipai party used their power to idealogically align the education system and the military to them.

2. Zionism is the overall movement towards the reestablishment of a homeland for Jewish people while a Sabra is a jewish person who was born in Israel. The woman represents the future of the state because she stays true to her values but isn't afraid to progress forward socially. She is shown as a harmonious balance between tradition and modernity.

3. The use of diaspora and Sabra characters in the film allows the Sabra to replace the negative stereotypes of the anti-semite eastern-euro jews with the positive idea of furthering Israel by fighting for it.

4. Instead of ceasefire agreements Egypt started a war of attrition against Israel that lasted with sporadic military conflicts until the next major war in '73.

5. The film Seige is about a widower who must break from from the social bounds that society put on her in marriage. Instead of becoming part of a group to fight a problem she must fight a society for her individuality.

1. The first obvious parallel is stated in the text that Hou likes to stage key plot points during meals. Granted we wouldn't realize the weight of the first scene given that the information takes a while to come back and bite the smart guy in the butt. The two scenes also take place in the same setting with the staging of the characters directing the viewers eye and mind to the key players in the scene. The difference lies in the first scene when the window is opened and we are allowed a view into the outside world versus the second scene whose composition is tight and cramped to highlight weng-leungs capitulation to the gangsters.

2. In Flowers Of Shanghai Hous style was influenced by the novel from which the film was adapted. Since the novel was written as journal entries from a prostitute he uses long one-takes that are separated by fade in/outs. This speaks to the idea of the story of events being told by a single persons point of view in real time.

1. The reviews are trying to formulate a way to instruct people on how to watch them. It's natural human curiosity to want to explain things and that's exactly what the reviews are attempting to do. Since nothing like Hou had ever existed before they want to explain why it works so that inevitably someone can take the idea and modify and create an entirely new style.

2. Vitali states that the reviews of Hou's films tend to focus on characters and are usually treated as political allegories or representational of some historical even though the reviewers never give the historical context any explanation. The reviews also rely on the idea that Hou embodies stylistic continuity throughout his career works.

3. I get that Vitali is saying that film critics, especially in Britain and France, try to use Taiwanese films as a jumping off point to discuss whats happening in their current film industrys. What I don't understand is how that quote mentions anything about France or it's film industry.

5. The instruction manuals are the same because both film industry's use specific stylistic choices and ideas to convey whatever meaning or story they are telling. If one has no understanding of this language they will be lost. The reason these manuals exist is for people who grew up with one type of film language to not only understand a different language but also understand what about their learned film language makes it work.

1. Willehem doesn't like Hous films because of their complexity because he believes that complex films can still be bad films. If you had a pocket knife that had 30,000 uses but you can't figure the damn thing out then it's not a very good pocket knife.

Oct 19th

1. The February 28th incident was the day that martial law was declared over the newly freed Taiwanese people. The government did so when an anti-nationalist sentiment developed over the selection of an alternate national language as well as corrupt officials. The government began shooting and killing anyone who seemed capable of leading a rebellion.

2. The controversy around the treatment of the February 28th incident comes from the fact that the film actually discusses it. During this time no one would be mentioning it but this film caused a discussion to start about the incident.

3. That quote was a good description of what I experience in most movies but in A Time to Live and A Time To Die the idea is much more prominent. When we are hit with a scene and a space you instantly start asking questions (who, where, what are they doing/saying) and then you slowly get the details from that. At the end of the scene you get the idea and move on but in this film that could usually take longer.

1. The two dimensions of symbolic violence that Teo are symbolic violence of ritual and the violence of male domination. The first manifests itself in the use of swords as well as the baton that everyone wants. The swords harken back to the Chinese ritual of sword use especially in Triads. The second manifests itself in the way that each man is indoctrinated into the Triad to follow their rules and treat others a certain way. The men eat at a table and discuss business as the women play mai jong and the children play.

2. Teo states that Tos depiction of the Triads is more localized because he shows them as more progressive and logical compared to their Italian counterparts. In real life, however, triads do not elect their leaders as much as there is a ruthless free for all and who ever is left standing is the winner. It was just recently that Government officials became democratically elected as pointed out by the police officers quote in the film. In both senses the elections were started to modernize the organization (HK and the Triads).

3. Teo argues that Election 2 is more political of a film because in the end the actual government of China is involved in perpetuating the violent ideals of the triads. This reflects the socio-economical issues of the time in the way that China refuses democracy in HK under the pretexts of peace and order just as the Triads refuse democracy amongst themselves.

4. I think the Tos depiction of violence without guns is violence in service to a greater cause; whether it be respect or in search of peace. I think that in election this is taking it a step further by being shown in an urban environment (where guns are easily available) to show the higher meaning. Anyone can pick up a gun and shoot someone but to stab someone is to get close to them and physically cause the act of death.

5. This question is tough, im gonna come back to it before monday