An Introductory Class Of Cinema And Cultural Studies

Taking an introductory class to Cinema and Cultural Studies has truly been a remarkable experience for me. Considering the fact that I am in the Health Science major, it would be highly unlikely for me to take a class with any relation to cinema or cultural studies. I only enrolled in this class to fulfill one of my Stony Brook Curriculum requirements, however I absolutely do not regret my decision at all. Every Monday night I am given an opportunity to watch a film, from either the twentieth or twenty-first century, focusing on issues such as racism, genocide, adultery, homosexuality, and many more. Whether I had cried my eyes out or laughed nonstop throughout the movie, I would leave the lecture hall with an even greater appreciation of†¦show more content†¦Something that I believe really took away from this movie would be the editing. The transition between scenes is quite frankly abrupt and distracting; at the end of several scenes, the entire screen would intensify to a bloody red color, which forced me to look away because my eyes hurt from looking at it. Another bad case of editing can be seen more towards the end of the film. When Francois finds Therese’s corpse by the side of the pond, he embraces her in his arms, with his head on her chest devastated. When I first watched this scene, I thought there was some sort of glitch with the system because the scene started replaying about ten times. It appears that Agnes Varda’s intention was to make this scene as emotional and dramatic as possible, but when a clip is replayed constantly it can be misinterpreted as comedic; everyone watching, including myself, burst out in laughter when we saw this part of the movie. From my perspective, another flaw in Happiness that made it a second-rate film was the plot. I was confused by various parts of the film and even after the film was finished, I had so many questions left. From just the opening scenes of this movie, it is quite obvious tha t Francois and Therese are deeply in love with each other; often times they will express their love for each other through physical touch and sexual intercourse. But I