Hirokazu Koreeda

There could be no hope, no present, without forgetfulness.

Red Cliff at Landmark Sunshine Theater.

Spoke with Professor Zhang Zhen, Professor Choi Jung-bong, Professor Dan Streible, and Professor Bill Simon.

A head start on my film history and historiography paper. Professor Streible gave me a high 96-97 for my paper abstract. Good work!

My midterm paper for Professor Simon's class on film form and film sense is only a B+. However, I am totally motivated to write an A paper for the final.

Professor Allen Weiss gave me the permission to enroll in his course on Landscape in Film and Performing Arts. I'm really happy. Maybe I can write the final paper for the Contemporary Japanese Cinema class on landscape. I need to think more about it in the next couple of days.

Isabella Tianzi Cai

H72.1010 Film Form/Film Sense (Simon)

November 20, 2009

Abstract of Final Paper

The narrative in Chris Marker’s La Jetee is constructed by still photographs and third-person voice-of-narration, with occasional sound effects. Simultaneously a sci-fi fantasy and a romantic tragedy, the film intrigues me formally as well as thematically. I want to investigate the film’s gradual shift from sci-fi to romance using Murray Smith’s structure of sympathy. Additionally, because all sci-fi fantasies operate on some level of escapism as a comment or critique of the present, I want to narrow down the subject(s) of this film’s comments or critiques. The fact that the film makes us understand the protagonist’s longing for the past and his choices of going back and even dying in it seems like a comment on the triumph and tragedy of personal will over group will. The fact that the film makes us learn that the future sometimes resides in the past also seems like a comment on predestiny and determinism, which are not necessarily pessimistic because they teach us that life isn’t all about accidents, isn’t always random, but may have a purpose to it.