Canadian Film Forum

robert.tulici · Junior Data inscrierii: 31/Mar/2010 Mesaje: 6

"This short documentary offers a dizzying view of the Mohawk Indians of Kahnawake who work in Manhattan erecting the steel frames of skyscrapers. Famed for their skill in working with steel, the Mohawks demonstrate their nimble abilities in the sky. As a counterbalance, the viewer is also allowed a peek at their quieter community life on the Kahnawake Reserve, in Quebec." This would be the description of the documentary given on the site.

It begins by showing a construction worker on a truck using a tele camera. This worker is the narrator and main character also. What I noticed it is that they use very often close-ups and especially on people. The ones who shot the documetary didn't use the focus button at all and probably at that time there was no wide angle camera so everything is shot in tele. The image quality isn't a very good one, but we can't expect for more taking into account the date it was shot. Not a very interesting documentary but this is the case of most of the Canadian documentaries, no wonder nobody watches them and they are quite unknown. There is not much to say about the documentary or the techniques the people used to make it.

Grand_Shaman · Administrator Data inscrierii: 26/Oct/2007 Mesaje: 112

Robert, you are repeating yourself. You are repeating what you said in the pathetic little paper (calling it an essay would be an insult to the wise people who have refined this genre over time...), which would be something like this:

- I don't give a damn' about Canada or Canadian Studies. The Canadians are sore losers anyway, compared to the demi-gods of the USA.

- Canadian film sucks wholesale. It is boring, nobody watches it, and we have been losing our time in these bloody classes.

- I don't care about aesthetics --as long as there is Hollywood and action movies, my ratio of fun will always be there. Films should only be about violence and blood and car crashes and aliens and distinct effects. Anyone claiming to think differently is a snob and deserves my contempt.

- I don't care about technicalities -- I don't care how films are done, as long as I am entertained.

- Actually no one should ever watch films that are older than 2 or 3 years. The special effects of 2000 are so passé, so outdated. Films are the same as electronic gadgets: the get obsolete very quickly.

- And obviously I do not care about history, let alone art history. All the people in history are either dead or too old. Sooo boring. So what if I'll go the same route in a few decades?

OK, you did not utter these words, but this was your attitude.

It is OK to have an opinion --even if this is the opinion of an uncultivated obtuse person-- but what is not OK, academically speaking, is to just spit a few flegmatic words on a paper, with no concern for argumentation, logical sequence or style. It is OK to disagree, but --because we are in an academic environment (whether you like or not...)-- you need to be able to realizează commonly acceptable arguments.

Which you don't.

There is not a single valid argument in the pitifully meagre composition you produced. No, wide angle lens would be of no use in shooting people working at altitude. Tele lens would. Those Native Americans working up there, yes, under harsh conditions, and probably for little money, do a great deal more important things than someone snickering by the side and spitting his tedium and bile...

But I am wasting my time... Go back to Spiderman or Robocop, enjoy them and imagine this is the real thing.

Or grow up, for God's sake.