Movie Screening : To The Lighthouse

Hello Readers !

        Welcome to my world . This blog is about reflective writing on the movie " To The Lighthouse " .  The movie is based on the novel of Virginia Woolf.  It was adapted by Hugh Stoddart, directed by Colin Gregg, and produced by Alan Shallcross. The movie beautifully captured the essence of the novel. But here in the movie director don't follow the narrative design that is given by author.

    (    Click here to watch a movie..,..)

           So here I am discussing the particular Frame of the movie and also the reference of India in the movie and how the philosophical ideas unfold in  the movie. Let's start…….

           The movie " To The Lighthouse "  begins with a couple shots of creepy dolls in a dark house, just so we know what we’re getting into. A small girl is asleep. A small boy looks longingly through a lace curtain and sees the lighthouse . In the novel we find the first scene is James asking his mother that we will go to visit the lighthouse today ? And Mrs. Ramsay replied that “Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,”.

He was attractively looking at the lighthouse. He was craving to go to the lighthouse. This Frame  portrayed his inner desire and feelings. His obsession towards 'Lighthouse' we see through out the movie but at last she he was going to the lighthouse he was not exited as before.

Here there are two frames together , in which we find the girl who was alone standing in the garden. She was looking towards her mother and her brother sitting together. Maybe she was jealous because her mother always gives attention to James. Always pampering his soul.  And also it was a symbolic frame because here we saw the experience of Virginia Woolf that society always gives attention to boy child's dreams and their life. So her mother was somehow partial to her duties. Mother can symbolize the whole society also.

This frame we find at the end part of the movie. Lily Briscoe , trying to make a painting of Mrs. Ramsay. What she was feeling at that time. There is absence of Mrs. Ramsay. But people who are there in the summer house , they miss Mrs. Ramsay. So the painting shows her present form of the mental world. In the frame we find that the present world (reality) and the painting is Lily's state of minds. Does she feel sorrow for Mrs.Ramsay ? because the painting shows us a stream of consciousness of Lily Briscoe. That Mrs Ramsay spent her whole life for others she doesn't live a single moment for herself.  To some extent we can say she was emotional because Lily was not happy with how she spent her whole life.

👉 The Reference of India :-

 

In  the movie we find the reference of India I think only one time. ( Time duration : 50:39) When one of the daughters of Ramsay's and one man were sitting in the garden. And talking about Augustus Carmichael who was sleeping in the garden in front of them. The girl added that he was writing poetry many times at night. ' It's quite well-respected Perch. You know'. He was a Teacher in India.  I think that is the only reference of India I found in the movie.

So the question is whether the reference was a good one or not and how the image of India unfolds. Here in the context of Mr. Carmichael was considered as some sort of achievement or something good. In the novel we find more references to India.

In the novel we find that the reference of India that is six time. So let's see in which context that is their in novel. References are in good manners or not.

In the novel we find the six references of India.  First of all there is a reference that India is ruled by others. Then the second one is there, when all the daughters who were talking with Charles Tansley live in different forms. There we find that the information of the Indian Empire : 

……..of the Bank of England and the Indian Empire, of ringed fingers and lace, though to them all there was something in this of the essence of beauty, which called out the manliness in their girlish hearts, and made them, as they sat at table beneath their mother’s eyes, honour her strange severity, her extreme courtesy, like a queen’s raising from the mud to wash a beggar’s dirty foot,.....

         This  paragraph gives us a view of looking at India. The description is kind of that India is a great empire and like a very exotic place where great romance ,  adventure and happiness lies there.

      The third reference is that Augustus Carmichael that we discussed earlier.

       The forth references is there :

      "  There were all the places she had not seen; the Indian plains; she felt herself pushing aside the thick leather curtain of a church in Rome. saw it."

   

       Here we can see that she was craving to visit the place India . So that through we can say India is something for Virginia Woolf 8a that desirable things.

The fifth reference :. 

    "  But which was it to be? They had all the trays of her jewel-case open. The gold necklace, which was Italian, or the opal necklace, which Uncle James had brought her from India; or should she wear her amethysts? "

  

      Here we can see that something that is brought from India is valuable for them. And also the owner with pride.

The sixth reference :

  " The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands. " 

     

              I think here we can say that the author tried to describe the hotness of Indian climate . There is also reference to battle. So that through we can say that knowingly or unknowingly she was putting the situation of India at that time.

References of philosophy  : 

     In the novel we find the character of Mr. Ramsay who was the philosopher and his student Charles Tansley, who was working for his PhD. Many times we find that the philosophical discussion is going on among the characters.

          Mr. Ramsay, a professional philosopher, was referred to as the greatest metaphysician of the time. Many times he was talking about the relationship between body and mind, and appearance and reality. Mr. Ramsay's books are about " Subject and object and the nature of reality".

👉

The dinner table became a  most important symbol in the movie. Because it comes more and more time. I think the dinner table reveals feelings, thoughts and emotional state of minds towards particular characters and others. With words and silently also( their stream of consciousness). For example James' reaction towards his father. Sometimes it seems like the dinner table is the discussion table. Many decisions were made at that time. That through we can see the mood of the characters.

    

 If we look at the point of view of  Northrop Frye's Archetypal criticism, then we find that the interesting things. That detector very beautifully present the snowy and heavy rains atmosphere. In which we find that the season of winter or snow itself symbol darkness and sorrow. Here in the movie we find that after the scene of rain and snowy automospher Wrist situation occurred. 

Here in this particular frame in which we find that women are always more attached and give more attention to the boy child. Mrs.Ramsay Always pampering male ego. Here we can predict that women are enemies of women. Because which way Mrs.Ramsay always tries to give attention to James. And in a way controlled James. As Lily Briscoe who said that James looks like a kite and Mrs. Ramsay who tries to control James. 

There is one scene in movie that Camara go through the windows and then focused on Mrs. Ramsay who was thinking and looked outside to the windows.  So we find that she herself Said at one time that ' close to the doors and open the Windows'. So here Camera is working like for Mrs. Ramsay windows only open, she can't go outside within a frame of her household work. In the frame she looks at on the outside of the windows that we connect with her little bit desire to go out and get freedom. This frame came after her illness. She realized that she was near to death and she realized that she doesn't live a single moment for her.

References :

To the Lighthouse. By Hugh Stoddart. Dir. Colin Gregg. Perf. Rosemary Harris, et al. Prod. Alan Shallcross. 1983. CD. 11 October 2020.

Woolf, V., Goldman, J., & Woolf, V. (1998). To the lighthouse ; The waves. New York: Columbia University Press.

Thank you....

Rivers and Tides :Andy Goldsworthy Working with Times

 Hello Readers !

Welcome to my blog. This blog is about the Golden Gate award winning  documentary " Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Times" . The documentary was directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer. So here I am looking for frame study on this documentary. And also discussed about the transient nature of art and as well as life. How beautifully Andy Goldsworthy made a gorgeous piece of art with all his anxiety. How beautifully Andy Goldsworthy made a gorgeous piece of art with all his anxiety.  Here also we can see how he was dedicated to his art and his work. He was making something from nothing without damaging nature.

Click here to watch documentary......

          So let's know something more about Andy Goldsworthy…….

   

               Andy Goldsworthy  (born 26 July 1956) is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculptures and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He lives and works in Scotland.

The materials used in Andy Goldsworthy's art often include brightly coloured flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs, and thorns. He has been quoted as saying, "I think it's incredibly brave to be working with flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole." Goldsworthy is generally considered the founder of modern rock balancing. For his ephemeral works, Goldsworthy often uses only his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to prepare and arrange the materials; however, for his permanent sculptures like "Roof", "Stone River" and "Three Cairns", "Moonlit Path" (Petworth, West Sussex, 2002) and "Chalk Stones" in the South Downs, near West Dean, West Sussex he has also employed the use of machine tool.

         Andy Goldsworthy is the subject of a 2001 documentary feature film called Rivers and Tides, directed by Thomas Riedelsheimer. In 2018, Riedelsheimer released a second documentary on Goldsworthy, Leaning Into the Wind.

As we know that famous sentence :  the Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholders.   If we realize what is in the documentary , it is not only there but that is also in our atmosphere also. But as  we said that beauty lies in the eyes of beholders, so their beauty in all the aspects of nature but how we see and how we relate to our lives that is the beauty. So that thing was perfectly done by Andy Goldsworthy. The beauty of nature is always their but when we realize then this is existing in our eyes.

        Each and every mankind craves for his or her praises. Especially during when we are doing something. Here in the documentary we can see that artist make "something from nothing" usually something that is eye-catching using the elements of nature like water, tides, sunshine, wind, trees, leafs, stones, natural color, iron oxide chalk, raw sheep’s wool, flower blossoms, leaves and grass, feathers, random sticks and stones, broken rocks, pieces of icicle, green iris blades and red berries, thorns, bracken, or handfuls of snow etc contributing to the process. He was making the piece of art that is existing for a few minutes or second. Here we can understand the concept of transient nature of art and lives.

      As Andy Goldsworthy mentioned that Art for me is the form of nourishment.  And also he said " I don't think land needs me at all But I do need it".  He included that if he doesn't work then he feels less.

 

It doesn't feel at all like...destruction. That moment is really part

of that cycle of turning. You feel as if you've touched the heart of the place. That's a way of understanding for me...

Seeing something you never saw before that was always there but you were blind to. There are moments when it is extraordinarily beautiful in a piece of work. I mean, though it happens, that is...Then those are moments that I just live for.

That is the lines taken  from the transcript of the documentary. In which we find his feelings for his art. When the particular piece of art is going to destroy at that time he doesn't feel like destruction. He called it a cycle turning, and also you touched the hearts of the place.

For him no matter whether people saw this art or not , he just wanted to enjoy the moment.  He doesn't want praise from others. So we can say that the end results are not important but the process to gain something that is important. 

          At one point When he was making art from stone at the  sea shore And it was not going well with times because at some point of time Tide came near and near. Four times the stone collapsed but he continued his work with the same patience. He was said that 

"and each time I got to know the stone  a little bit more. I got higher each time. So it grows in proportion to my understanding of the stone. And that is really what one of the things that my art is trying to do."

       He mentioned that  he knows that the sea destroyed the piece. But he said that is the gift for the sea. He also never hoped for it. He also connects life' s different situations with that.  The same type of causes upheaval and the shock in life.

References :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Goldsworthy

https://subslikescript.com/movie/Rivers_and_Tides_Andy_Goldsworthy_Working_with_Time-307385

Thinking activity : The Scarlet letter

 

Hello Readers, 

        Welcome to my blog. So first of all, we want to discuss exactly what the task or thinking activity is. This blog is part of my academic writing.  If you want to know more about this task then visit Heena ma'am's blog. ( Click here to visit madam's blog).

          The novel The Scarlet letter by Nathenial Hawthorne  The theme of the other is a threat to our existence. In The Scarlet letter we find how the others play a role in an individual's life.

Especially in the character of Hester Prynne, Peal and Dimmeadale's life Other, you can say society plays a vital role in  their lives. In Hester's account we find society decided that her act is apt one or not.

In the case of Dimmesdale we find that he is also present at the scaffold scene. But he could not show courage to come forward and confess. He could not accept it in public because the fear of society. So the question is, what is the importance of individuals ?

      Society was curious to know about Hester and her Sin. She was tortured by society that she must tell her lover fellow sinners. In the opening scene in the novel we find that Hester stands on the scaffold. She is there to face the look of the people. Here we can see the Puritan mindset. Here I want to add something about how time changed with various social standards, that sin kind of thing at one time that became normal things. But that makes mass up in an individual's life.

Here we can see that the experience of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the story of Adam and Eve because , in both cases, sin results in expulsion and sufferinglk lol

       So here I am writing about my personal experience, how I feel the pressure and how society's standard that I don't feel comfortable. So let's go through my conscience….

Whenever I go out in a public place that time we observe people through we find what kind of standard they set. And if someone who doesn't follow the foolish standard then they talking about that particular man and woman in a

bad manner. Why that was happening is the question for me. Whether they are also treated by other people in a bad way, may be that's why many people think that  way, if we face this problem then why not you ? Otherwise people don't have a notion of what is good or bad.

          

Is it my fault ?

That I am scrolling down and up myself, like others want.

Which kind of force makes me fool to myself.

Here society controls the individual self.

Thank you.........

Thinking activity on The Waste Land

 

Hello friends !

     Here I am discussing The Waste Land  , a modern epic  in the context of the Indian Upanishads, T. S.Eliot versus Freud and T.S. Eliot and Nietzsche.

          Thomas Stearns Eliot OM was an American-born British poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. He avoided personal emotion in contrast to the more romantic effusions of the Georgian poets. His distaste for romanticism, a desire to treat the poem in isolation from the poet and the cult of traditional classical values went hand in hand with a dislike of the modern world.

 About Poem :

          The waste Land , widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. This poem is divided in five parts , that are : 

✍️ The Burial of the dead,

✍️  A Game of chess, 

✍️ The Fire Sermon, 

✍️ Death by water, 

✍️ What the thunder said.

 

        If we look at a poem for the first time then we may say that the poem is nothing more than a collage of various images. And also the images are not linked with each other. But if we try to understand deeply then that is deep roots in human civilizations. T. S. Eliot beautifully expressed world literature in this poem. T.S. Eliot made a good use of world literature. Many critics like I.A. Richard and Cleanth Brooks agree that this poem is more about Christan poem or a religious poem. But if we go through the poem then we realize that this poem isn't Christan but also Buddhist, Upanishadic to some extent. Poet hasn't dealt with directly but indirectly that is there.

   The main theme of the poem is Sexual perversion and spiritual degradation. But there are questions like whether spiritual degradation leads to Sexual perversion or sexual perversion brought spiritual degradation ? The whole poem is about spirituality and the solution of the problems.

 👉 What are your views on the following image after reading 'The Waste Land'? Do you think that Eliot is regressive as compared to Nietzche's views? or Has Eliot achieved universality of thought by recalling mytho-historical answers to the contemporary malaise?

Nietzsche talks about the term ' Superhuman', 'Superman', 'Übermensch' significantly used in Also Sprach Zarathustra (1883-1885). In which we find that, If God is dead then the superhuman or overhuman is the gift that can now be presented to humankind. Maybe each and every problem will be solved by superman. The teachings of the superhuman is a kind of continuation of the subject of man. Superhuman is a continuation in the future as an ideal rather than a realistic goal.

As compared to Nietzche's views T.S.Eliot was significantly regressive. If we look at the poem The Waste Land then we find that Eliot tries to find solutions from the history of world literature. Weather in the side of Nietzsche we can say that he was progressive because he thought differently for the sake of human beings. He was thinking in progressive way but we can't say that is great but that is also problematic. The Characteristics of a superhuman that is something dangerous, there may be alake of morals.

    And Yes, Eliot achieved universality of thought by recalling mytho-historical answers to the contemporary malaises in the famous poem The Waste Land (1922).

 👉 Allusions to the Indian thoughts in 'The Waste Land' (Where, How and Why are the Indian thoughts referred?)

This poem is considered as world literature because in this poem we find the context of many religions and literature. In which we find that the Indian thoughts also. Let's discuss in detail…

      One of the things is that how T.S. Eliot using 'I' in his poem. We cannot properly get who is the 'I'. This type of narrative we find in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. (Some extent we connect here)

(Click here to read Brihadaranyaka Upanishad) translation in English

          The third part of the title 'The Fire Sermon' itself shows us that this is connected with Buddha;s Fire Sermon.  There is also a reference of Burning that 8s also related to Buddhism.

    There are references of Indian River, a mountain that is familiar to the Indian readers. Like 

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves

Waited for rain, while the black clouds

Gathered far distant, over Himavant.

The jungle crouched, humped in silence. 

      Here we find that Eliot refers to Wisdom of India for spiritual salvation of modern humanity.

 The most influential thing is that last part 'What the Thunder Said' in which we find that the three Da. 

Datta :       Be a giver

Dayadham :    Empathise

Damyata :       Self- Control

These three tendencies are originally in Upanishads. Prajapati who taught his children God (devah), Humanbeing (Manushyah), Demon (asurah). The practice of these virtues will preserve, promote and enhance the value of life. Men themselves are distinguished into these three classes according to their lack of self control and possession of the defects or according to the tendencies of the three gunas.

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदम् पूर्णात् पूर्णमुदच्यते।

पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥ 

     This particular shloka is in invocation and at the last of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishads. Here in The Waste Land the meaning of the Shanti is 'peace that passeth all understanding'. Poet discussed all the malaises of modern times and at last he was giving solutions and then he wanted peace.

 👉 T. S. Eliot versus Sigmond Frued :

Prior to the speech, Gustaf Hellström of the Swedish Academy made these remarks:

What are your views regarding these comments? Is it true that giving free vent to the repressed 'primitive instinct' leads us to a happy and satisfied life? Or do you agree with Eliot's view that 'salvation of man lies in the preservation of the cultural tradition'?

Freud was made a point that giving free vent to the repressed primitive instinct will automatically lead towards the anarchy. For transitioning happiness, we should not create disorganization in society. And also Yes, it is true that giving free vent to the repressed primitive instinct can lead us to a happy and satisfied life, but individually, things and happiness which are satisfying us can harm others and which give pleasure to others can harm us.

    Here, Eliot seems more powerful than Freud because if we live our lives with some discipline or with the organization than life becomes easier. But to some extent that is also not fair one. Frued wrote that for progress any individual primitive instinct was needed but in order to preserve tradition Eliot says that there is need for to grow together so both are right at their position. 

    These are my views regarding these three topics. Your views may be different, you can write your views in the comment section. 

Thank you…..