FARENHEIT 451 (FILM)
Last Friday we had the chance to watch the movie. This movie was directed by Francois Truffaut in 1966. The plot was the same of the book: a man whose job was to burn books in a society where books are forbidden because they make people unhappy. He mets a girl, a school teacher, who arise in Montag all kind of questions not only about if the influence of books is good or bad, but if he is really happy. This curiosity leads him to read and soon he becomes a fugitive.
The characters and dialogs are mostly the same of those of the book, but some events were changed in its sequence. The setting describes a very cold place, almost always raining, and this bizarre futuristic atmosphere is reinforced with the clothes that reflect the lack of expressivity and independence.
The performance seemed sometimes trivial, but we had to admit that the special effects were quite naive but it was 1966, we can't ask for more.
It is hard to give and a conclusive opinion about the movie, as I have not finished the book, but the movie is not as amusing as the book is. Anyway, I've always thought that books' adaptations to movies are always bad, this one is not the exception.

Fahrenheit 451's review (Exquisite corpse)

-The things that have been prohibited

-Without using flashback or flashforward, the plot is chronological and not complex at all.
- The dialogs resemble those of the book or at least the dialogs I've read so far.
-Montag was a cold man that became a lover of books. he changes through the story. Linda: Montag's wife, she doesn't represent big changes for the story.
-The characters were excelentbecause they show us the real experience.
-Actors and actresses have british accent and all of them are white and blonde.
-The settings are mournful places, places thar show solitude and the missing of something.
-Flames, are necessary to give dramatic effects to the movie.
- The music tried to represent plot's drama
- the film lets passing many details
-Fireman's customes look like Magneto's custom (from X-Men), wearing that helmet

-I' didn't see the movie nor read the book. I'm curious how is it, really.

EXQUISITE CORPSE (FAHRENHET 451 FILM)

- This is a society where people are forbidden to read, because reading promotes individualism.

- Montag is one of the firemen responsible of burning books that remain hidden, but he will realize his mistake and he will try to change the world in which he lives.

-The dialogues are a bit boring, but these are to follow the topic of the book.

-The costumes are horrible; the firemen looks like police and don’t reflect the intention of book.

-The film doesn’t a good adaptation of the book because they omitting characters important who appears in the book.

-The characters don’t make me feel nothing, the interpretations were so boring.

-The environment really tries to show us a futuristic society.

-Special effects were very bad, however if we were in the 60th it were like the lord of the rings

Exquisite Corpse

Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident was a kind of collective collage of words or images called the cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse). Based on an old parlor game, it was played by several people, each of whom would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on to the next player for his contribution.

The technique got its name from results obtained in initial playing, "Le cadavre / exquis / boira / le vin / nouveau" (The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine). Other examples are: "The dormitory of friable little girls puts the odious box right" and "The Senegal oyster will eat the tricolor bread." These poetic fragments were felt to reveal what Nicolas Calas characterized as the "unconscious reality in the personality of the group" resulting from a process of what Ernst called "mental contagion."

At the same time, they represented the transposition of Lautréamont's classic verbal collage to a collective level, in effect fulfilling his injunction-- frequently cited in Surrealist texts--that "poetry must be made by all and not by one." It was natural that such oracular truths should be similarly sought through images, and the game was immediately adapted to drawing, producing a series of hybrids the first reproductions of which are to be found in No. 9-10 of La Révolution surrealiste (October, 1927) without identification of their creators. The game was adapted to the possibilities of drawing, and even collage, by assigning a section of a body to each player, though the Surrealist principle of metaphoric displacement led to images that only vaguely resembled the human form.  

Source: "Dada & Surrealist Art," by William S. Rubin

FAHRENHEIT 451 FILM REVIEW

Censorship, alienation, and incomunication are the topics of this film and they are represented with the prohibition of reading books. Montag is a fireman -a man that burns books for they are forbidden- who met a young woman in the "subway", an elevated train that travels hanging from the rail. This meeting is really significant because It provekes Montag's critique to the society in which he lives. (To be continued, Have French class).

Exercise to do a Fahrenheit's review

FIRST VERSIONS

-People can access to knowledge through books, but goverments are interested in eliminate them to maintain the power.

-Dialogs were complex but sometimes surrealistic.

-Montag used to five books, but he met a girl who showed him how books were important.

-Custumes design represents the 60s.

-I think it is a good film, but the plot could be less boring and quicker.

-It was a good adaptation of the book, but there were some scenes mixed up.

-The characters were not able to make me feel touched.

-They create an idillical environment in which there is full of abstration.

-The film portraits a futuristic city in which the train-one that goes through the air-is the main transportation. Forests are all around the city.

-Honestly, the special effects were the best part of the movie, if we were in 1966 it would be different.

-The special effects were similar like the power rangers, the objects seemed toys.

Why did George Orwell write?

When we were asked whether Why I write is an academic text or not, I immediately thought of the ‘shape’ of the text. I looked for its abstract, theoretical framework, references, etc. but my search was in vain. I have always been told that an academic text has to be a ‘serious’ one, avoid stylistic constructions, lack personal references or opinions and adopt a formal complex specialized discourse. An academic text did not have to do with metaphors or similes, feelings or personal experiences; it did not have to do with exploring language to find the better way to express knowledge.

Then I thought of essay, that spirited genre that has been so productive in our continent, and other idea came to my mind: an academic is address to knowledge production. In laboratories or through field work, controlling or not variables, interviewing or observing, there are many ways and resources to produce knowledge. And there are many fields in which one produces knowledge: paint, mathematics, literature, pedagogy, industry, writing practices and a long etcetera. This question emerges in my mind: Is there just one possible and legitimate way to express the knowledge one produce in any field?

If George Orwell intended to produce knowledge related to writing practices, that is a good reason for me to think of that Why I write as an academic text. If someone says that it lacks sections and formality required in academic texts, I would answer that each field of knowledge has its own realities, its own discourses. Each field of knowledge has to explore the better way to express their contents and to make people understand them.

ME? WRITER? LET ME THINK...

Many pages full vowels or consonants. Meaningless sentences through the notebooks: Mi-ma-má-me-mi-ma, la-pi-pa-de-mi-pa-pá. My teacher dictates and we -second grade students- repeat the words while writing them. My teacher writes on the board, we -fourth grade students- write from the board. There are letters, however: I love them, I feel good writing them; they are girls and mom. I like letters.

That was the beginning and then came secondary school. I can see workshops, questionnaires, true or false lists, nothing to create through writing. I can see novels, short tales, Blacaman -the good one- is over there, here blood on the snow, Big Mamma has died: just summaries, characters description. I can see letters again: I still like letters. I can see a notebook, a very especial one: it is full of sentences, ideas I come up with, feelings. I can see I have things to say, to write. I can see a teacher, a very especial one: she asks me to read and write... and I like it. I can see I make an effort when I write... and I like it. Of course, there are letters.

Let me think of university. There are books, writers, papers, lots of them. There are questions: they are complex, easy, boring, beautiful, shocking, stupid, accurate, ambiguous, interesting, inspiring, cruel. I answer, I write. There are writing classes: write, reflect on writing, how to write, write again, write every day. I like it. I like a good sentence, short but meaningful. I like a good paragraph, strong and accurate. I like a text when its sound is beautiful. There are foreign languages: new sounds, rhythms, structures, stresses, new worlds, meanings, visions. Now I switch my mind and write. I like it.

PD.: There are letters, I still like letters.

ALIKE

Think of thousands of thousands of young people eager to study at a university. Think of high fees as their main obstacle and loans as their only possibility to study. Think of families and students themselves struggling everyday not to leave the university. Think of those students twenty years later paying for the only possibility they had to study, most of them without having finished their careers. Think this have been happening for more than twenty years in a country named Chile, with seventeen millions of inhabitants and a prosperous economy. This is the heritage of Pinochet's regime: Figures like loans, professional institutes and for-profit universities congfigure a policy that has converted chilean higher education into one of the most expensive.

Such a model, based on offering the “service” of education through debt, is a tendency worldwide. The United States, for example, are deeply immersed in this dynamics that aim to have incomes from education: for-profit universities, low quality education and diminished working conditions for teachers are common place as well as very high tuitions. The business is so productive that students' debt in the United States is supposed to reach and overflow the amount of a trillion dollars this very year.

Colombian education has followed a similar path. ICETEX and FENALCO give loans to students and public universities offer services long time ago to fund themselves. However, the new educational system J. M. Santos, Colombia's president, proposed was intended to deepen this model to the detriment of the idea of education as a right. Just alike.

Higher Educational System in Colombia, Chile and in the United States(2nd version)

The reform of the “Ley 30” presented by Santos, the Colombian’s president, is trying to privatize the public education. Thus, Colombian public universities would become into profit-making institutions. Today many families are in debt with Financial Educational Systems as Icetex. The new reform would involve a substantial increase in educational loans to many young students and their families, to have access to higher education. It is illogical that in a country where citizens pay taxes, government does not provide free and quality education at all levels for its citizens. However, in governments like ours, tax money is used for other purposes, such as, war and weapons purchases. While another part of the money is stolen by white-collar thieves. The reform does not supply a better education, greater coverage and less the resources required by public universities, most of which have large deficits. If the “Ley 30” is approved, we will have the same dark panorama of the higher educational system in Chile.

In Chile, after several months where thousands of high school and university students have been protesting to call for a reform of Chile’s unequal education system, Mr. Pinera, the Chilean President, has stubbornly rejected the students’ demands. They have been demanding more resources for education. They wish an education system with quality, social integration and above all free. Students’ arguments are based on a lot of inequalities as a result of the currency neo-liberal model installed under the dictatorship. Although, students are aware of the risk to loss their academic years, semesters, scholarships, and in some cases subsidized loans, they are willing to lose them in order to get a free education for Chileans. While the government reconsiders its position and it is willing to negotiate, students will continue with massive march as a sign of disagreement with the current educational system.

On the other hand, the United States is the best example of how the privatization of public education leads to its citizens to bankruptcy. There are many families that have been spending their savings for their children’s education. After, students would take out private loans in order to fund their undergraduate education. In many cases, students choose profit careers instead of those they truly enjoy to be able to pay their debts after graduation. But even with this precaution, many fail to achieve what they dreamed and are unemployed for months, and while they are waiting to get a job, their student loan bill continue to increase.